Pennsylvania Playhouse serves up a funny, bawdy and perfectly British farce with “No Sex Please, We’re British.”
The fast-paced play deftly directed by Jan Labellarte Beatty, is playfully hilarious, and despite its suggestive name, has almost a naivete in a time when anything is available on the internet.
Taking place in the 1970s, the story focuses on newlywed couple Frances and Peter Hunter.
When Frances innocently orders glassware from a Scandinavian import company, to sell from home Tupperware-style, she is shocked to receive pornographic photos instead.
The straight-laced Peter, who works for a bank, just wants to get rid of the dirty material but in true farce-fashion, more and more illicit items keep showing up at their door from blue films, to books to finally two “girls.”
As Frances, Peter and their friend and co-worker, harried Brian Runnicles, try everything to discreetly dispose of the smut, of course the situation keeps going south as the pornographic material turns up in the Thames, at a church and even is appropriated for a police stag night.
Adding to the craziness is the arrival, with bags packed, of Peter’s overbearing mother Eleanor.
Margaret Wilson brings the right touch of innocent exasperation to Frances, the young wife who just wants a little alone time with her new husband. As Peter, Drake Nester is appropriately buttoned-up without being too stuffy. Both are appealing as the “straight men” to all the craziness.
Mark Nathaniel is hilarious as the frenzied Brian whose level of stress just gets higher and higher as the play progresses. Nathaniel is deft at comic timing and nails the character’s increasingly frantic expressions and actions, which creates a lot of the funnier conflicts.
Denise Long is inspired as the cheerfully domineering Eleanor. She is such a force to be reckoned with that even sleeping pills don’t slow her down.
As Eleanor’s would-be beau and Peter’s boss Leslie Bromhead, Jim Vivian is both priggish and slightly lecherous, hiding much behind his stiff-upper-lip persona.
Also delivering a humorous performance is Bill Joachim whose bank inspector Mr. Needham justifies the play’s name in a memorable drawers-dropping scene.
Michael Hollingsorth is sturdy as the seemingly upright police superintendent who isn’t adverse to a quick double while on duty
Julisa Trinidad and Alexandra Racines are suitably saucy as the girls sent by the company and Trinidad wields a mean horse crop.
The set by Brett Oliveira, feels right for the period, and the sliding door with its own mind in the kitchen pass-through, adds comic elements to the goings on.
Costumes by Paula Hannam, also are spot on and seem right out of the 1970s.
Well delivered accents give the show the requisite British feel without being difficult to understand.
“No Sex Please, We’re British,” 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday, through Feb. 25, Pennsylvania Playhouse, Illick’s Mill Road, Bethlehem. Tickets: $25; $22, students and seniors, except Saturdays.
610-865-6665, paplayhouse.org.