Blending In, Eastern Daily Press: Endearing Play With Seamless Singing.

This is, without doubt, one of the most endearing plays I have encountered for a long time. It is wise, funny, caring, real - and heartwarmingly human.

Its theme: a black midwife working in East Anglia, a women's barbershop choir with which she becomes involved and the traumatic night at the hospital when she is accused, unjustly, of incompetence. Mary Cooper's new play, by story and example, does more for race relations and affection between peoples than politically correcr laws ever will. And when it has a potent sting in its tail when it touches on the destructive effects of privatisation and reduced resources.

Director Ivan Cutting yet again pulls off that special Eastern Angles magic, drawing from his players not just excellent performances but a creation of real people.

Elaine Grant as Sylvene McCarthy, the midwife, has wonderful presence, personality, humour and radiance. The barbershop singing is an unaccompanied pleasure, its melding into the story a perfect job without a stitch in sight: and the company overall of a quality which earned them the sustained applause last night of a largely student audience.

C V Roberts