Heart-warming comedy - my biggest role yet

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14: You’d have thought what with getting married and moving house at the same time, actress Nicola Flood might have thought twice about taking on the leading role in the upcoming play A Kiss on the Bottom.

Although she considered she might have bitten off more than she could chew, she went for it anyway — that’s her nature, just as it is the nature of the strong-willed and larger-than-life character she will be playing — Marlene.

The Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society is staging the character-based comedy by pioneering Welsh playwright Frank Vickery at Daylesford Theatre from September 26. It tells the story of four female patients, all from very different backgrounds, coming together as they share a ward in a hospital. Suffering varying degrees of illness, they are able to make light of their situation sharing laughter, tears and deep secrets.

Nicola Flood (formerly Wilkinson), is as much known for her acting on the island as her directing. She recently directed Fawlty Towers and Dad’s Army — both of which were sell out shows with extended runs.

Last year she acted in the winning Famous for Fifteen Minutes play Cockroaches written by Owain Johnston-Barnes.

A teacher by day, she joined the theatre seven years ago after celebrating at Daylesford with a friend who had been accepted into a play. She is now a vice president for the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society.

She says that the role of hospital patient Marlene is the biggest part she has played in her seven years on stage.

“I only got married a month ago and I moved house last weekend so my new husband thinks I am absolutely crazy to be taking this on,” she laughs.

“I started to read the script at the audition a couple of weeks ago and I did relate to Marlene but then I realised that this part is huge — there are so many lines to learn.

“This is by far the biggest apart I have ever had to perform.”

The uncanny similarities between her and Marlene’s characters might just help her along on stage. Marlene is extremely interfering but she has a warm-heart and is able to uncover the secrets of all the other patients in her ward.

“She is so much like me it is scary,” says Flood. “I hope I am not quite as interfering but some of the lines she says I can imagine me just blurting out.

Saucy

“She’s talking about not having affairs since she met her husband and she say ‘one dog, one bone, that’s me’. She’s very saucy and you can’t help but like her. Everyone will know someone just like her. She’s a likeable rogue, she holds no graces, she cuts to the chase and she speaks her mind.

“Bev the nurse (played by Joanna Healey) at one point calls her a human bulldozer but she does it with all the best intentions — though she does put her foot in it sometimes.”

Marlene’s fellow patients are the proud and gentle, yet snobbish, Grace (Liz Knight), Lucy (Rebekah Lazarou) who is dealing with loneliness since the death of her husband and the young June (Nadia Hamza) who is soon to leave the hospital following some tests.

There is also another nurse played by Nicole Daponte.

This all-female comedy will be directed by Carol Birch, known for directing pantomimes and murder mysteries among other local plays.

While A Kiss on the Bottom is set in hospital and often deals with illness and loss, Flood promises it will leave you with a happy heart.

“With all the sadness and the state that these women are in, there’s a lot of joy and frivolity and friendships made.

“There is some great humour but there are also some very poignant moments interlaced with the humour.

“I think one of the great traits of the human race is to laugh in the face of adversity. You know why you are in there, there’s nothing you can do about it so you just get on with it and build the strongest relationships you can with people you wouldn’t normally mix with. There are some very beautiful moments. It’s a heart-warming comedy — it’s not doom and gloom. It is very close to human nature.”