Melbourne Reviews

Oh dear, how could so many people get it so wrong!  

This dreary, plodding and so not funny piece that is being marketed as a musical comedy fails in pretty much every department.

Inspired by the British sex farces of the 1970s, More Sex Please ... We're Seniors is a bizarre, unsexy, unfunny piece of fluff that would barely raise a smile at the local summer caravan park for wayward seniors. 

Set within the Guantanamo Palms Retirement Village (the jokes slide downward from the start of the show) in the outer suburbs, where two couples meet and strike up a friendship that sees them discuss life, no sex, chronic illnesses for the aged, Dr Phil and various historical television shows. 

The songs, such as they are, are mostly reworkings of familiar tunes, with new titles and lyrics, (apparently someone thought this was a great idea). The House of the Rising Sun is suddenly House Where I get None. You Made Me Love You is the charming My Wind Keeps Breaking. Most of these drag along at a very slow pace. But wait, there's more, so much more. 

Act Two reaches a depth no one could expect when the cast try and coerce the audience into a revamped Hokey Pokey, now horrifyingly titled Prod and Pokey, apparently educating us and a character in the show about prostate cancer. Rarely have I felt more uncomfortable and embarrassed for the poor performers on stage than when we were asked to participate in hand and finger gestures that accompany this gem.       

I cannot bring myself to list the creatives involved in this mess, as it would feel like naming and shaming. Each one of them should have known better.  

The unfortunate cast, Mark Mitchell, Jane Clifton, Michael Veitch, Tracy Harvey and Matthew Quartermaine as the silent Mr Dogsbody/stage hand, deserve so much better than this kind of material, and they seem to be trying very hard, but.... one can only feel sorry for them up on stage. Not being familiar with sections of songs, really does not help. Not looking the senior ages they are pretending to play is yet another drawback in the peformances. Mitchell manages to come off best from this troupe with some of the best line deliveries.

I suppose, and hope for the sake of the show's investors, that there are actually some older sections of the community who may actually find this production amusing and time well spent. I, like many in the audience, just wanted to escape.


Malcolm C Cooke & Associates & Blake Productions present
More Sex Please...We're Seniors!
by John-Michael Howson

Venue: Comedy Theatre
Dates: from 31 October, 2012
Bookings: ticketmaster.com.au | 1300 111 011
Visit: www.mspws.com.au