THEATRE REVIEW: Cash on Delivery

Swan has been defrauding Britain’s Department of Social Security for two years, after losing his job. His retrenchment coincided with the receipt of a DSS cheque for a tenant in his house who had just migrated to Canada. Swan kept the tenant listed as a resident and invented other needy lodgers, receiving 25,000 pounds a year tax free and letting him keep his sacking secret from working wife, Linda.

In the opening minutes of Cash on Delivery Swan’s increasing anxiety about his deceptions leads him to ring the DSS to cancel the benefits, on grounds such as a tenant’s death. But his action leads to visits by DSS officials and others including a grief counsellor and undertaker, with new benefits such as a funeral payment being offered. Swan finds himself pretending to be other people, with his current tenant, shoe salesman Norman Bassett, also having to take on false identities.

Another unexpected arrival is a psychotherapist called in by Linda after she finds women’s underwear and other female clothing stolen by Eric’s money-hungry uncle George from his hospital workplace and hidden in a closet, leading her to suspect her husband of being a cross-dresser. The psychotherapist believes Eric may be suffering “a suppressed mother fixation” and tries to get him to admit to that.

The cast make brisk laugh-creating use of five doors and a large window box. Geoff McLauchlan is an increasingly distraught Eric, having to switch from being one person to another as different visitors approach him. Sandra Monk is an understandably unhappy Linda, continually trying to get Eric’s attention after unexpectedly returning from her workplace. Erol Engin’s Norman Bassett gets thoroughly confused as to who he is supposed to be, especially when he is addressed as Eric, and Uncle George, played by Bob Spargo, is introduced at one point as a deaf piano tuner and subsequently becomes a needed dead body.

The visitors are likewise a colourfully over-the-top bunch. Peter Eyre’s Mr Jenkins, the first DSS official to arrive, is sympathetically by the book in his questioning, and his superior, Ms Cowper (Kim MacKay), who subsequently arrives, certainly warrants his labelling of her as someone people wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of. Jen Masson’s grief counsellor from the local council’s family crisis department has people fleeing from her comforting words, Suellen Hall’s psychotherapist, Dr Chapman, has Eric ever on the run, the amusingly named undertaker, Mr Forbright (Steve McLauchlan, who also directs), offers unending sympathy, and the surprise arrival of Norman’s fiancée, Brenda (Natalie Burg), who is eager to discuss their coming wedding, adds to the chaos.