Review: THE EXPLORERS CLUB at Stirling Community Theatre

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Friday 22nd March 2024.

The issue of all-male clubs has reared its head again as London’s Garrick Club is under pressure to allow women to join. Male members are not happy. The Explorers Club, site of this gloriously funny farce, is facing a similar such struggle, and the audience in the Stirling Theatre has a great and enthusiastic time with a ringside seat.

This is Nell Benjamin’s first stage play and H. Rider Haggard and W. S. Gilbert are lurking in the wings. The Monty Python Ripping Yarns are also strongly represented. While Benjamin is American, the clubby, whiskey, and cigars atmosphere of a London club is so well-known as to set the stage neatly and prepare the audience for the chaos to come.

I certainly don’t want to give too much away and spoil your fun, but keep your eye out for the rapid routine with the glasses on the bar. It’s a miracle of timing.

This is Emilie Currie’s debut as a director, and it’s a play she has loved since first reading it. She’s immensely fortunate to have attracted a cast from the best and most experienced comic actors around at the moment, and it’s easy to see why they were very happy to be involved.

The year is 1879 and Miss Phyllida Spotte-Hume, Angela Short, intrepid adventurer, has been proposed for membership of the prestigious and up till then all-male Explorers Club. Her nominator is the shy botanist, Lucius Fretway, Gary George, whose romantic intent is shown in the naming of a new and possibly psychoactive plant in her honour. She has located an unknown tribe, and has brought one of them with her to London. He’s called Luigi, Ky Speedy, a close approximation of his real name, and Luigi is the name she’s always given to her pets.

Short stands up superbly to these men, bringing an eloquent compassion to her life of science, so different from that of the men she confronts.

As you can imagine, her arrival causes consternation among the chauvinists in the clubroom. Professor Cope, David Salter, he with the python around his neck, and hamster-loving Professor Walling, Matthew Chapman, are dubious. Professor Slone, Steve Marvanek, has strong bible-based views on the subject. Into the politely articulated argument jumps Harry Percy, Joshua Coldwell, chest-beating explorer known for leading his teams to death and glory. That is, death for them, and glory for him. Calling him Harry Percy is a cue, Hotspur in Shakespeare’s Henry plays.

On being presented to Queen Victoria, Luigi commits an accidental breach of protocol and the members take refuge in the club rooms which are soon surrounded by a Brigade of Guards. Sir Humphries, Brendan Clare, arrives from Whitehall to negotiate the handing over of Luigi to justice. He also wants Phyllida’s map of Luigi’s homeland so that he can arrange to have it invaded in revenge. Phyllida will have none of this and commits an entirely improbable solution. Meanwhile, Professor Slone, believing that the lost tribes of Israel are the Irish, has caused another upheaval and the Brigade of Guards are fighting off an Irish mob. Enter Benny Woodrow as the Irish assassin.

While I was laughing a lot at the crazy antics on stage, a part of me was analysing a broader context to what I was watching. Obviously, Luigi would be brown or black in skin colour. Here he’s blue, or rather, decorated with blue and white stripes. Much has changed in the comedic climate since the play was first produced in 2013. Jokes about the Jews, Palestine, and Ireland have lost their shine and the use of the word Hottentot as a racial slur or, in this case, description, has led to a change in the age rating for Mary Poppins. Put such consideration aside for a gloriously silly show that will tickle your funny bone, and also make you think; an impressive combination.