Odd Couple and crowd get on fine

The Odd Couple (Female Version) ***
Scottish Storytelling Centre

A STRONG sense of camaraderie and ensemble comedy ensures that this production from the Holyrood Amateur Theatrical Society swings along merrily without getting in very deep.

Neil Simon's own adaptation of his classic comedy changes both the genders of the original, made famous by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, and updates the setting 20 years to 1980s New York. Heather Rolls and Kirsty Boyle have great fun taking on the roles of mismatched friends who end up sharing an apartment.

Rolls is the slobbish divorcee, sports fan and TV producer Olive. Boyle is the fastidiously-tidy Florence, who believed her marriage would last a hundred years – and comes to stay when her husband decides to end it.

Although neither actress does enough to explore the nuances of their character in full, the comedy of the situation is pitched right.

So that while Olive never really convinces as being particularly slobbish, when her pals come round for their weekly game of Trivial Pursuit, Rolls knows how to work the sharp one-liners and putdowns in to the banter.

Similarly, Florence's tidiness is apparent from the character's actions and lines given to her, rather than from Boyle's demeanour.

Yet her succession of ailments and irritating foibles are brought tightly into play at just the right level.

This strong attention to surface characteristics runs right through Mary Blackford's direction. It ensures that the production runs with a lively pace and, if the potential for nuance is not fully realised, the basic comedy certainly is.

Most importantly, Blackford ensures that the ensemble scenes have a fluidity of movement to them. So that when Olive and her friends are playing Trivial Pursuit, the quick change from acerbic banter to concern at the arrival of the near-suicidal Florence is nicely finessed.

It also ensures that, of Olive's four Triv-playing pals, the rather gormless Vera, played with a superb whine by Frances Tigar, and cop Mickey, who Sandi Hunter makes suitably uptight, are the most memorable.

It does, however, mean that the standout scene of the whole production occurs when Olive and Florence invite their upstairs neighbours, Spanish brothers Jesus and Manolo, down for dinner.

Robert Salvin as Manolo and Simon Eilbeck as Jesus play the whole scene earnestly straight. Thus ensuring that while all comedy of their faltering English is pushed to the fore, it is not overdone to the point where it burdens the whole scene.

A well-thought through production that gives more than adequate recompense for the lack of depth to its characterisation by allowing the basic comedy of the play to shine. Great fun all round.

• Run ends tomorrow