Funny Peculiar

Expert producer Bill Kenwright triumphs again in English writer Mike Scott’s risqué comedy Funny Peculiar. Packed with hilarity and bursting with the bawdy spirit of the 1970s, Funny Peculiar takes the audience through an uproarious journey of a quirky married man, Trevor Tinsley (Craig Gazey), seeking liberation from a lifestyle of orthodoxy and conservatism. Trevor and his traditionally-minded wife Irene (Suzanne Shaw) own a grocery store, and hilarious drama ensues as meddling old Mrs Baldly (Vicky Entwistle) and her gawky son, Stanley (Steven Blakeley) filter in and out of the shop discussing everything from cunnilingus to church-going.

Seductive neighbor Shirley Smith (Gemma Bissix) and her husband Eric (Sam Nicholl) embody a new generation of uninhibited polygamists, and as Trevor encounters Shirley’s freedom and seductiveness, he find himself torn between his sinister desires and his commitment to his wife. Although first produced in 1973, Funny Peculiar maintains its zany charm and kooky commentary. The performance asks us to confront our culture's liberation in relation to the struggle of love. How much do we give up in a relationship? How much of ourselves must we maintain? Trevor must juggle his conflicting desires, and we cannot look away because we too have all been there.

Although craftily disguised by jokes, comic nudity, kooky characters, and even a food fight involving a local baker, Funny Peculiar has a serious message, and is not to be taken lightly. When standards or ideas feel shackling, do we become their prisoners? Or shall we break out and explore the possibilities of change? Are we to be strictly true to ourselves, or must we also consider the dispositions of others; and is there a middle ground to be found? Funny Peculiar allows us to experience the revolutionary ideas of the 1970s, which most of us now take for granted, and leaves us pondering the question that all grandparents lose sleep over at night: are we in need of another revolution?