Hooligan Theatre Company adapts British comedy for spring production

Hooligan Theatre Company will transport students to 1960s Britain, a time and place where pornography was illegal but still, as such things do, found its way into households.

UCLA’s entirely student-run theater company opens its spring production, “No Sex Please, We’re British” Friday at 8 p.m. at the Jan Popper Theater in Schoenberg Hall. “No Sex Please, We’re British” is a non-musical play set in the 1960s. Written by British playwrights Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott, the play is a fast-paced farce about an unassuming British couple that unexpectedly receives pornographic material in floods.

“We wanted to give (comical actors) a chance to shine in a straight (non-musical) play and to show their comic chops,” said Jessica Rosenfeld, a fourth-year psychology student and managing director of Hooligan Theatre Company.

She, along with Kelly Lennon, a third-year theater student and artistic director of Hooligan Theatre Company, are co-producers of “No Sex Please, We’re British.”

The play, set in a flat above a bank, begins tamely enough when newlywed bride Frances Hunter attempts to order a set of Scandinavian glassware to sell from home and help her husband, Peter, earn some money. Unexpectedly, however, the couple is sent pornographic Scandinavian pictures, videos, books and, finally, prostitutes. The couple and the bank’s chief cashier, Brian Runnicles, must decide what to do with the undesirable deliveries. They are met with several complications, such as a visit from Peter’s mother, Peter’s boss, a visiting bank inspector and the police.

“It’s fun, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and it’s definitely a good night of entertainment,” Rosenfeld said.

While the play centers on the efforts of Frances, Peter and Brian, the supporting characters of “No Sex Please, We’re British” will play a large part in making the audience laugh this weekend.

Lennon said Graham Wetterhahn, a fifth-year communication studies and political science student and the director of the play, expanded the cast by adding an extra prostitute and deliveryman to the ones written into the original play. Rosenfeld said Wetterhahn tried to make sure every actor that Hooligan could fit on the stage would be able to perform, making the small original cast more inclusive.

She said he reinterpreted small moments of the original play involving supporting characters, expanded them and made them special.

Ellie Martino, a first-year English student who plays Eleanor Hunter, Peter’s mother, said two of the supporting characters, who play the prostitutes Kandi and Barbara, have been especially inspiring to her. She said she admires the actor who plays Kandi because of his stage presence and fearlessness.

Martino said Hooligan adapted some of the British humor of the play for an American audience, replacing certain jokes that would not make sense in an American context.

For example, she said that to understand one joke, the audience would need to know a certain phrase in Welsh. In the original play, Eleanor would say “Myfanwy Eleanor,” which means “my darling Eleanor” in Welsh. The actors tried to make the joke work, but it was eventually rewritten.

Though the play was adapted, the actors still worked on perfecting their personal styles of British accents throughout the rehearsal process, which was approximately five weeks long.

“I’ve gone everywhere from very mildly British to Scottish at one point, and then a deep, husky voice,” said Eric Little, a second-year cognitive science student who plays Leslie Bromhead, Peter Hunter’s boss and Eleanor’s love interest. “Right now I’m working with an almost feminine voice, which has so far been able to project the best and makes the lines funnier.”

Martino said Wetterhahn let the actors take charge of their characters, allowing them to decide what approach to take. She said because the play is lesser-known, it was an open canvas for actors to experiment and play around with their characters.

“I think (letting actors roam free is) really admirable in a director,” Martino said.

Because of the humor and lightheartedness, Rosenfeld said she hopes audiences will leave the play feeling good.

“This show is about what you do for family,” Rosenfeld said. “Helping each other and creating a community around each other, having fun while doing it.”