A Honourable Life / Frozen Assets

A HONOURABLE LIFE (11th Feb)
This fine play by local playwright Tom Casling was a glimpse into the lives of two brothers – Patrick, an ex-miner, played by author, Tom Casling, and Brendan, a Catholic Priest, played by Malcolm Quinn.  Over the course of the play we saw how each sibling’s personality and frailties had been forged in their early lives, Brendan going into the priesthood despite him feeling ill fitted for its rigours, and Patrick, a down-to-earth socialist miner, who is apprehensive his wife Mary (Jean Ord) considers him as ‘substitute’ for his brother, with whom she had a fling during their teenage years.

Patrick and his lifelong friend Sean (Paul Monaghan) together help coach and fundraise for their brass band.  The real life “New Generation Brass” band made up of junior school age children were integrated into the play as they supposedly performed in the Metro Centre – a nice touch.  Patrick and Mary’s daughter, Theresa (Naomi Skelton) had a stubborn nature, and we learned from the subsequent action that she is “her father’s daughter”.  This stubborn nature manifests itself in an estrangement from her family after she becomes engaged to local money-lender’s son Ben (Joe Coulson).  Completing the character list, and providing some humorous interludes, was Rene (Susan Haswell) as the interfering busybody of a neighbour, always on the edge of poverty.

Illicit affairs by Brendan, and subsequent blackmail, misappropriation of charitable funds by Mary, long held prejudices by Patrick, and surprise windfalls all come to a head, and it is eventually the younger element, Theresa and Ben, who find the solution and lead Patrick and Brendan to realise after a lifetime that the role model for “An Honourable Life” was not too far away from home.

First night nerves and troublesome doors caused the pace to drop in places, but this did not distract from what was a well thought-out play, well executed by the cast. I’m now looking forward to seeing the second in the double header in a few days. This is a playwright worth considering as the play certainly left you contemplating its moral as you left the auditorium. Well done CLSTG.

FROZEN ASSETS (12th Feb)
At a time when most groups struggle to sell even well known-plays/shows, I admire for Chester le Street Theatre Group for supporting a local playwright and member of their group, Tom Casling, to get his work performed,  The group chose to perform two of Tom’s plays over the week (three performances of each), therefore having a double cast, and having to adapt the set and have it dressed entirely differently for each play.

“Frozen Assets” is a dark comedy and opened with Peter Middleditch (Rob Sadler) discovering his dead mother Brenda, and then having a personal battle with his feelings of grief which turn to annoyance that she had died three days before she was due a huge insurance pay out of £50,000.  His heavily pregnant wife Claire (Clare Sadler) joins him in his frustration, and between them they concoct a plan to put his mother in the freezer to preserve her until the payment can be paid!  Thrown into this mix are the constant visits of Peter’s mother’s “boyfriend” Sid (John Tassell), who they tell that she has gone away for a few days, only for him to bring the news that Brenda was due to host a séance with her friends, and was also due to have a medical in order to get her insurance pay out.  In desperation, Peter rings an acting agency and hires “Ashley Wright” (Phil Martin) to play the role of his mother for three days.  When she arrives Peter is shocked as he had assumed Ashley was an actress.  After much persuasion Ashley convinces Peter that he can play the role and the plot thickens.  He successfully deceives the three friends of the deceased Cybil (Annette Morris) Mavis (Mary Tassell) and Edith (Mel Blair) during their séance, but is shocked by the events that unfold at the meeting, and subsequently at his medical examination by Dr Rose Watson (Dawn Shearsmith,) and during his encounter with the amorous Sid, concluding the story with an unexpected twist.

There were a number of prompts given during the performance, but this did not affect the comedy and story too much. Rob and Clare as real husband and wife have a natural chemistry together, and they gave a convincing portrayal of the dilemmas and frustrations of Peter & Claire Middleditch.  I particularly enjoyed the depiction of the séance scene with Brenda’s three friends, each character playing confidently, and of Dr Watson who, certainly to the untrained eye, looked completely at home in the use of a stethoscope and blood pressure machine.  Phil Martin successfully provided the core to the play with his enthusiastic portrayal of the desperate out of work actor and pensioner Brenda,

Congratulations to Ken and the set building/stage crew for the overcoming the technical challenges of performing two plays in the same week,

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