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On The Stage And Off, Rodney Bewes, Lichfield Garrick
Feb 22 2008 By Roger Clarke
RODNEY Bewes will probably always be remembered for The Likely Lads but if you want a real treat catch his one man shows.
We have had Three Men in a Boat and he returns to Jerome K Jerome with On The Stage And Off - The Brief Career Of A Would-be Actor, the Walsall-born writer's autobiographical account of his attempts at becoming a Victorian actor.
Bewes plays Jerome along with all the characters he encounters from actor-managers to landladies, low comedians to gargantuan leading ladies.
Amid the humour there is sadness - Mad Matt the tortured actor who wanted to play Romeo giving his final performance in his garret.
"People who have lived on six shillings a week for a long time don't take long to die when they set about it," he said.
Bewes, who engages the audience at every turn, as if performing in their sitting room, has a wry charm in a skilled performance and entertaining evening.
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