ajhlovestheatre

CASH ON DELIVERY

by Michael Cooney

directed by Ron Aldridge 

The Mill at Sonning, Sonning Eye near Reading – until 4 April 2026

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval 

https://millatsonning.com/Events/cash-on-delivery/

It would be all too easy to over-analyse Michael Cooney’s benefit fraud farce Cash On Delivery, given a spirited revival by farce expert Ron Aldridge for the delightful Mill at Sonning. It’s essentially a cheeky romp with one foot in TV sitcom and the other in the frenetic comic crowdpleasers which Cooney’s much-missed Dad Ray specialised in for decades: Cooney Sr even directed the star-studded West End premiere of this play in 1996, and the Mill’s auditorium is named after him.

But this thirty year old comedy, while undemanding, interestingly comes from a point in history where society, and accordingly the world of entertainment, was changing. The lingerie-clad young women and marital infidelities that characterised earlier examples of the farce genre, and so brilliantly satirised by Michael Frayn in Noises Off, were starting to look outdated and glaringly sexist, so Michael Cooney instead spins an elaborate yarn about Eric Swan, a Home Counties landlord who makes a living via numerous fraudulent state welfare claims pertaining to fictional tenants and lodgers. The proverbial chickens come home to roost when a DSS inspector turns up, followed by his overbearing boss, a grief counsellor, an undertaker and the fiancée of the one genuine lodger Swan has.

Cash On Delivery doesn’t entirely break the antiquated mould though: a smack in the face with a door renders an elderly character incapacitated for most of the play, and the audience is expected to find the concept of cross dressing, in and of itself, utterly hilarious. Of the female characters, two are harridans and the other two have little agency. However, Cooney, like his legendary Dad, unerringly understands the mechanics of farce, so that, even if dialogue, verbal jokes and characters are more functional than inspired, it’s impossible not to marvel as the comedy machine gets into gear and the merry mayhem picks up pace. 

At the press performance I saw, Aldridge’s staging still felt like it was running at 80% energy rather than the full 100% needed to really make the show fly, but there’s every indication that the production will reach that level once the actors get a few more performances under their belts. Looking at times uncannily like Bradley Walsh who originated the role in the West End, the hugely likeable Steven Pinder steers a canny path between insouciance and swivel-eyed panic as deceitful Eric. Natasha Gray makes something surprisingly sympathetic out of the underwritten role of his wife Linda, suspicious of, well, almost everything yet with no idea about Eric’s financial shenanigans. James Bradshaw is very funny as their lodger Norman, his hitherto contented life devolving rapidly into an ever-mounting tsunami of disbelief and outrage.

Harry Gostelow delivers note-perfect work as the unexpectedly benign man from the DHSS and is a pleasing foil to Felicity Duncan’s bellowing, fearsome boss. Rachel Fielding’s well meaning but clueless relationship guidance counsellor is another enjoyable creation as is Norman’s naive yet naughty fiancée, delightfully played with an appealing zing of sweetness, heart and camp by Melanie Gutteridge. 

Alex Marker’s door-heavy (this is farce after all) domestic set and Natalie Titchener’s costumes, slightly too garish to be fully realistic, add to the overall sense of the entire show being contained in a time capsule, harking back to decades when things were more straightforward and less PC. This is a classic example of a show that achieves exactly what it sets out to do, there’s not much “there” there, but the Mill at Sonning audience, fuelled by an excellent dinner, roars its approval.