The Stables Theatre and Arts Centre
The Bourne, Hastings
East Sussex TN34 3BD
01424 423221
The Bourne, Hastings
East Sussex TN34 3BD
01424 423221
The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery
By David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jnr
A Stables Theatre production
Directed by John Wilkinson
8–16 August 2008
Reviewed by Penny Jeffries
By David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jnr
A Stables Theatre production
Directed by John Wilkinson
8–16 August 2008
Reviewed by Penny Jeffries
McGillivray and Zerlin Jnr’s series of Farndale plays chronicles the townswomen’s guild’s redoubtable assaults on various dramatic genres. The illusion that you are attending their premises begins as you enter the theatre. The townswomen are in the foyer, plying you with fudge, enjoining you to enter competitions, and displaying their artwork and baby pictures.
An evening of very amateur drama is in prospect, coupled with the infighting of some enormous egos. The play guys every aspect of cringing amateur dramatics: sets collapse, lights flicker, sound effects come wrongly. Clever business, such as a telephone ringing when the light is turned on, adds to the mayhem and laughter.
The play requires five actors to play actors performing numerous characters, most of whom meet improbable sticky ends. As their appalling murder mystery unfolds they enter from the wrong side or through the wall, veer ahead five pages to relate the sad tale of a character’s demise as they make their second entrance, and give away the ending at the start! Most of this was well realized, high spots including the dance number between excellent Stables newcomer Carol Prior as Thelma Greenwood and Clive Osborne as Gordon Pugh. The chessboard theme of the set design worked extremely well, and its skilled construction produced the intended disasters.
Keeping the tension going is not easy. The play has to wait for an out-of-focus film show. Recipes are delivered with great aplomb by Dianne Cheesewright as Audrey Fforbes-Farqhuar. A fashion show occurs, with a middle-aged man stepping out of a rocket dressed as Wonder Woman. The audience is quizzed and made to sing.
Presiding over all is Phoebe Reece (Janet McCarter) who knows everything there is to know about upstaging her fellow actors and stealing the ending from long suffering Felicity Smith (Gill Jenks). Janet was so believable that I kept expecting one of the other townswomen to murder her for real.
I was predisposed to write a good review for this play even before my son won the “guess the weight of the cake”. August is not the time for experimental drama. The audience wants to be entertained and made to laugh, copiously. And yes, perhaps some of the slapstick could have been a bit sharper and the distinction between actors performing as Farndale characters and their murder mystery roles given greater emphasis. But these are minor gripes; the production, directed by John Wilkinson, was smartly done and hugely entertaining.
An evening of very amateur drama is in prospect, coupled with the infighting of some enormous egos. The play guys every aspect of cringing amateur dramatics: sets collapse, lights flicker, sound effects come wrongly. Clever business, such as a telephone ringing when the light is turned on, adds to the mayhem and laughter.
The play requires five actors to play actors performing numerous characters, most of whom meet improbable sticky ends. As their appalling murder mystery unfolds they enter from the wrong side or through the wall, veer ahead five pages to relate the sad tale of a character’s demise as they make their second entrance, and give away the ending at the start! Most of this was well realized, high spots including the dance number between excellent Stables newcomer Carol Prior as Thelma Greenwood and Clive Osborne as Gordon Pugh. The chessboard theme of the set design worked extremely well, and its skilled construction produced the intended disasters.
Keeping the tension going is not easy. The play has to wait for an out-of-focus film show. Recipes are delivered with great aplomb by Dianne Cheesewright as Audrey Fforbes-Farqhuar. A fashion show occurs, with a middle-aged man stepping out of a rocket dressed as Wonder Woman. The audience is quizzed and made to sing.
Presiding over all is Phoebe Reece (Janet McCarter) who knows everything there is to know about upstaging her fellow actors and stealing the ending from long suffering Felicity Smith (Gill Jenks). Janet was so believable that I kept expecting one of the other townswomen to murder her for real.
I was predisposed to write a good review for this play even before my son won the “guess the weight of the cake”. August is not the time for experimental drama. The audience wants to be entertained and made to laugh, copiously. And yes, perhaps some of the slapstick could have been a bit sharper and the distinction between actors performing as Farndale characters and their murder mystery roles given greater emphasis. But these are minor gripes; the production, directed by John Wilkinson, was smartly done and hugely entertaining.
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Photographs > www.artypharty.com
A selection of production photographs from the 1950s to the present is available at our photographer Peter Mould’s website.
A selection of production photographs from the 1950s to the present is available at our photographer Peter Mould’s website.
