CRAZY CAPERS, DODGY DEALS Blackwood Players Inc Blackwood 21 (Blackwood Memorial Hall) Until 02 Jun 2012 Review by Luke Wagner Energy and enthusiasm are found in abundance onstage in Blackwood’s latest show. “Crazy Capers, Dodgy Deals” follows a group of twentysomethings as they meet up for their six-year high school reunion. Coincidentally, two of their classmates, who were unaware of the reunion, have taken on a life of crime and have planned a heist in the very same hotel. The show’s storyline was predictable but the cast held the show together extremely well. The set of the hotel lobby-come-hotel-bar was effective, with a very clever elevator as its centre feature, and director James Barbary did well in manoeuvring the cast around the enormous stage. Mitchell Lowe and George Bannard as Frankie and Duggs, the burglars, were very entertaining. Bannard in particular held a flawless accent and drew many of the laughs through his dim-witted character. Tiffany Barbary was the most outstanding singer of the night delivering a stunning solo number, and holding her own in many other songs. Lauren Hollis was entertaining as Veronica, a money-hungry vixen dating one of the ex-students. The show needed some fine-tuning on the dance numbers, and the songs at times felt a little too long. It also featured an array of songs that seemed at times out of place – a song about a game of hockey seemed to be an illogical choice for a play set in 70s Britain during a celebratory weekend. This song bizarrely enough also became the shows finale number. However, the large cast, all with diverse stage experience, was clearly having a ball onstage.