AFTER a three-week delay caused by illness to several of the main cast members, the Pepperpot Players finally delivered their cricketing comedy, Outside Edge, on Thursday night.

The action followed the lives and loves of a cricket team under the leading bat of obsessive captain Roger (Richard Tippin), whose downtrodden wife Miriam (Margaret Marshall) had to fill every role from tea-maker to moving the scoreboard along.

It was set in the pavilion of a local cricket club, with the cast facing towards the crowd as though they were looking out on to the action. But the sport took a back seat to the metaphorical googlies, long hops and off-breaks bowled at the players by their various other halves.

Most entertaining were the long-suffering off-spin bowler Kevin (Cliff Dawe) and his wife Maggie (Rachael Willoughby). His sarcastic wit and tongue-in-cheek complaints made a good counterpoint to her bubbly high spirits. Both acted with gusto and conviction.

Martin Harker put in a good turn as Dennis, the male chauvinist who tries to buy popularity at the club by secretly subsidising their cricket equipment, as did Tina Marshall as Ginnie, the sharp-tongued other half of unlucky-in-love Bob (Barry Kichin).

Alex (Charlie Rodway) sneered convincingly at the rest of the team from his great heights of sporting, social and monetary prowess, with Kendra Yates as Sharon, the terrified girl he picked up in a strip joint the night before.

The players' next production will be the pantomime, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, on February 18-22.

Jon di Paolo