Review: Chess, Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury

The society's 43 cast members were joined on stage by 25 talented young dancers and supported by a live orchestra as they told the story of Soviet grand master Anatoly Sergievsky and his journey to become world champion against obnoxious American Freddie Trumper and to win the heart of Freddie's girlfriend Florence.

Peter Love, president of SAOS, said: "The society has a longstanding reputation for entertaining its audiences and I am sure that this production of Chess will be no exception. In my role of president I have been looking forward to Chess more than I have any other show since joining the society in 1977."

On the first night of any performance you'd expect there to be some opening night nerves or forgotten lines, but it was a mark of how good the SAOS cast and crew were that everything went perfectly for the first show last night. Liz Law, playing girlfriend Florence Vassy, turned in a performance worthy of the West End, and her duet of I Know Him So Well with Frances Taylor, playing Anatoly's estranged wife Svetlana, got the loudest cheer of the night from the packed auditorium.

Kevin Sudlow and Roger Ashford not only sung their hearts out as Anatoly and Freddie, but also nailed the Russian and American accents – not something that all amateur companies can boast. But SAOS can also boast talent in depth, as Walter De Courcey and Keith Ellis, playing the scheming Lyndon Dudding and Alexander Molokov, also kept up convincing accents even when singing some of the more complicated songs of the musical, written by Abba's Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus with lyrics by Tim Rise.

A video screen in centre stage projected images of the various settings for the scenes as well as being tied in to a handheld video camera which was used on stage when the news reporters were doing interviews.

The show runs until Saturday night at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are priced £12.50-£18.50 and are available from the box office on (01743) 281281.