Town Hall Laugh Lounge
Review: Susan Budd
Every movie western, from Gary Cooper in his lonely High Noon walk up a deserted street to the bloody excesses of spaghetti westerns, is sent up rotten by the 4 Noels in The Magnificent 17.
In one gloriously hectic hour they appropriate every cliche in a dizzying and hilarious race through a convoluted plot with a cast of dozens.
With amazingly speedy changes, each of the three guys dons wigs, hats and moustaches that double as beards or heavy eyebrows to play Mexican bandits, inbred yokels and a sweet young belle.
They even find the energy to play the guitar and keyboards to lend musical accompaniment to their tragic story.
They play the audience like violins, forcing claps, yells and gales of laughter that have tears coursing down the cheeks of even the most hardened comedy-goer.
Using the audience as the seried ranks of alarmed citizens, their wounded reaction to their guffaws is hysterically funny, almost bringing the show to a halt.
Their mime is flawless as they portray horsemen plunging to their death down a ravine while buzzards shriek overhead.
A duel with swords and claymores is brilliantly executed, entirely without weapons.
Intellectually challenged bodyguards struggle to salute the evil colonel, their efforts becoming funnier and funnier the more ineffectual they are.
Their use of minimal props is wonderfully effective.
A cowboy makes a split-second change into a grieving widow, his hat beneath a lace shawl forming a dowager's hump.
The lovely Sarah Jane's wig doubles as a badger - for the sheriff, of course.
The touching tale of young love, of a child finding his lost father and of good battling to defeat evil is, despite the mayhem, effectively told.
And it is the funniest play in town.
It would be a crime to miss it.
<i>Laugh! Festival:</i> 4 Noels in The Magnificent 17
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