Laughing All the Way to Pantry Manor

Chris Lean

3pm, Sun 9th Aug, Etc Theatre

If you’re old enough to remember the creaky sets, stiff performances and sloppy editing in Crossroads, then the world of Pantry Manor, brought to the Camden Fringe by the aptly-named TAT Productions, will conjure either fearful or fond memories.

This stage production of the spoof YouTube soap opera revels in its hammy acting, clichéd plot twists and ghastly 1970s dresses to deliver an entertaining 45 minutes of mirthful melodrama. Conceived as a ‘live recording’ in front of a studio audience, it’s energetically performed by the whole cast but monstrous rival soap queens Bunny Galore and Dorothy Phagot (pronounced ‘Fargo’), both played in drag, grab the biggest laughs. 

The obvious limitation of spoofing a bad seventies soap on stage is that you lose the visual gags (bad edits, glances to the wrong camera and so on) which should be one of its key ingredients. Fortunately, the show opens with a short audio-visual element to give us a flavour of this and the cast pull plenty enough funnies out of the hackneyed plot, which revolves around a murder, a love triangle, a séance and, of course, a disputed will. 

The idea behind this show is hardly original - Acorn Antiques anyone? – but the five-strong cast are clearly having fun and this quickly rubs off onto the audience, making Pantry Manor impossible to dislike (a bit like Crossroads really).