A rampant romp by Norm Foster

Naughty nurses, dodgy cameramen and excitable wives ran rampant in Norm Foster's Skin Flick, currently at Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society.

The play centred around an out-of-work couple and their cameraman friend who fall upon an ingenious idea to produce a money-making porn movie and it had the audience giggling, chuckling and guffawing throughout.

Newcomer to the Bermuda stage was Vince O’Reilly who proved a hit. He was so convincing in his role as Byron — the awkward bookkeeper turned unwitting co-porn star and delivered his lines with perfect comic timing.

O’Reilly has significant experience having owned his own theatre company in Dublin and we can expect to see more of him in future.

There was a good rapport between David Nairn (the husband Rollie) and Norm Foster (his cameraman friend, Alex). The two have worked together on several occasions and their off-stage relationship shone through.

Rollie’s wife, played by Nancy Thompson, provided much comic relief. She seemed more like a schoolgirl getting to grips with her sexuality than a woman who had been happily married for years — be it with a somewhat incompetent lover. She occasionally became a bit too excitable, often when devising plans for the movie, and her high-pitched voice sounded like a mix between Dolly Parton and Olive Oyl.

Lizzy Hadler as the common kiss-o-gram turned porn star has to be given credit for her bravery. In many scenes she had to act as if she is on the brink of an orgasm in front of a sell-out audience.

There were some classic lines in the play, one of my favourites was when Rollie (Nairn) tried to inject an artistic flair into the porn to which Alex interjects: “A porn with a message? That’s like a strip joint with a dress code!” The dialogue’s strength was within these little one-liners.

The sexual innuendoes came in thick and fast and helped warm the audience. I felt they were a little overused at times— there are only so many ‘rise to the occasion’-type quips you can hear before they start to lose their clout.

The play came in an interesting format in that David Nairn was both narrator and actor. He switched between the two seamlessly — at one moment speaking to his fellow characters and the next, speaking directly to the audience. Foster even occasionally blurred the lines so we became part of the cast.

I felt some of the backstories went on a little too long — I didn’t really care too much about Rollie’s long-lived bitterness towards his old colleague Leonard. Had it been a TV series we might have had more time to care but in Skin Flick it didn’t seem to add much to the mix.

It was a beautiful set with tasteful furniture, house plants and decorations and fine details — you couldn’t see much of it in the first half as there had been a technical problem with the lighting — the house lights remained on while the stage lights were down to a minimum. 

I didn’t mind it too much but when the problem was rectified after the interval it was so much clearer to see everything that was going on — and what an eyeful that was.

The second half was dedicated to the making of the movie from hesitant breast groping to all out ecstatic sex. The fully clothed breast grab was probably the naughtiest thing we actually got to see on stage — but Norm’s dialogue and Nairn’s direction left the real romp firmly up to our imagination.