Men Behaving Badly

Men Behaving Badly was performed for the Adelaide Fringe 2004. Every one of our performances was sold out!

Unseen Theatre Company is renowned for its plays based on the comedy/fantasy novels of best-selling author Terry Pratchett. Now for the Adelaide Fringe 2004, Unseen will branch out into a different type of British comedy by presenting two episodes of Men Behaving Badly.

The characters of Gary, Dorothy, Tony and Debs are well known to Australian audiences through the TV series of Men Behaving Badly. Director Robert Andrews says that the characters are “universal ones which will transfer well to an Australian stage.”

The first episode called Watching TV takes place in real-time with the four friends taxing their brains to the final frontier in the ultimate in-depth discussion on the question of whether or not the bridge officers in Star Trek really do swivel around in their chairs when no-one’s looking.

After a brief interval we move on to the episode Infidelity where “paranoia is always fun, especially when it’s justified.”

Producer and well known Adelaide theatre identity Pamela Munt plays the role of Deborah, alongside Steve Weyland as the ever hopeful Tony. Adam Morgan plays the role of Gary. Adam is a familiar face to South Australians for his appearances in tv commercials and local productions. Victoria Mazzone plays Gary’s long-suffering girlfriend Dorothy.

AUDIENCE COMMENTS:

Name: Rod
Stars: 3 and 1/2 stars
Comments: I’ve never seen the TV show but thoroughly enjoyed your production of it as a generic comedy. I thought the two plays were in the wrong order however – for example, in the first play, the guy was dating his neighbour (can’t remember the character names) but in the second play, he was still trying to court her. Also, the first play was MUCH funnier so would have been better second (to end on a higher note). Having said that however, I enjoyed the performances and I thought the technical achievements were great considering the limitations of an amateur company and the demand of the script. Your use of video and audience ‘plants’ to represent the various settings in the second story were clever and mostly successful. I’m still not sure why you chose to do “Men Behaving Badly” considering your focus on Discworld-related plays. I don’t dislike your decision but an explanation would satisfy my curiousity!!! Thanks for a fun play!

[Ed: Thanks for your comments Rod – Pamela has now posted an article on why Unseen chose to do “Men Behaving Badly” in the President’s Report section of this site.]

Name: Anabel
Stars: 4 stars
Comments: I had fun and enjoyed the show. It also amused me how for some of the jokes, the sound of the audience laughter suddenly dropped to a baritone, as mostly only the men in the audience were laughing! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because the jokes were sexist or anything, it’s just that a guy is in a better position to understand Tony’s economical methods of going to the toilet and washing his hands at the same time, to speed the whole process up! Hmm, judging by the laughter, I may have discovered a new thing about men behaving badly. There are plenty of laughs for the girls too though, and I loved Dorothy’s facial expressions when she was looking at Gary with a mixture of wonder, pity and exasperation. Debs had similarly good expressions when dealing with her other half Tony. I thought all the characters were performed very well and they were all funny in their own individual ways. I agree with the comments by Danny that a few of the jokes were a bit obscure, such as The Good Life one. But that was just one tiny part, everything else was very good.

Name: Margaret
Stars: 3 stars
Comments: I enjoyed the production of Men Behaving Badly. I felt there were a few too many longish pauses but it was still well worth seeing. The changing of the set during the show was done very well.

Name: Deb
Stars: 4 stars
Comments: Having enjoyed the TV series it was a delight to watch the “Australianised Theatre” production of the show. With the exception of some aspects of Debs performance where playing it straight seemed to be turned into being serious and condescending I enjoyed many laughs and enjoyed the excellent performances of all the major characters and minor ones as well – the cameo performance by Anthony Mazzone expertly cast as a builder is a stroke of genius. The only drawback of the show was the theatre itself which did not allow us to view the performers easily whilst they were seated and the lack of ventilation on what was a warm evening. Hope the next production is in a better location for the cast and audience. Well done and best of luck with all future performances of the show. Victoria Mazzone your debut performance “treading the boards” was brilliant and we are sure to see you beautiful face gracing on stage and screen again soon!!!

Name: Michael
Stars: 4 stars
Comments: It’s like being a fly on the wall watching what people get up to in their lounge room. I’d never seen any of the episode but really liked the play so i might go and actually get the videos now too. Lotsa laughs and i thought the bits where the video clips were used was great and very effective and funny.

Name: Danny
Stars: 4 and 1/2 stars
Comments: Ok, a few points before I begin. 1) I’m biased, being a member of Unseen and 2) I know I’m not eligible for the prize… Prior to actually seeing Unseen’s “Men Behaving Badly” on Fri 27th Feb, I knew very little about what it would be like. Sure, I’d heard of the show, but I’d never watched more than about 5 minutes of it. I hadn’t been along to any of the rehearsals, and from the tiny amount I contributed being in the filmed part, I knew very little of the plots or jokes. In short – it was great. I was laughing my head off and the jokes, and the laughs were genuine! “Watching TV” being rather static by its nature had the possibility of being boring to watch, but even with the minimal movement around the stage, the cast kept us all laughing with their spot on delivery and facial expressions. Unfortunately *some* of the old TV references were lost on me, but I expect they were appreciated by a fair few people nonetheless. “Infidelity” showed a creative blend of live theatre and film, well done Rob! The plot was a little more complex than that of “TV” but that only served to make it more interesting. Once again, the jokes came thick and fast, and it was carried off well by all four cast members. The only bad point I can think of is that this episode ended on a “reflective” moment, rather than a joke, so it wasn’t much of a punch to finish the show on. However, that was more to do with the script and nothing to do with this particular production. So, with surprise on my side, I loved it 🙂 See you again on Sat 13th!