AN AUTUMNAL ASSORTMENT (OF PLAYS)

Jean Clarke must have enjoyed trawling through Samuel French short plays list (and Lazy Bee Scripts) to make her selection which offered such differing styles and plots and characters to exploit for the players and to give the audience an enjoyable cocktail of plays.

‘Spring Song Singers’: Caretaker (Paul Reynolds) and Friend (Dave Turrell) are at the Hall when Choirmaster (Ian Cashmore) arrives for a rehearsal and we are all accustomed to the slant of dialogue when a choir arrives unexpectedly during cleaning time!   After some problems with pianist (Gillian Davidson) and the seven choir members, eventually rehearsal begins.  And then the twist with humour: it is the wrong night!   A very amusing starter for the evening.

‘Mrs Meadowsweet’: a sinister and creepy feel to this play but we cannot work out why we feel uneasy about this guesthouse and the landlady who appears so sweet!   The guests appear at home and comfortable with cream teas, John King (down from lighting board to stage) and Lyndsey King look at home when waited on by Inga (Charlotte Mitchell).   The arrival of Alice (Lesley Dillon) and her sister Fleur (Cheryl Collins), at odds with one another, changes the atmosphere and Mrs Meadowsweet (Judy Ellson) seemingly soothes the situation with counselling, but does she and what influences are there in the air?  These three roles, very interactive and building up tensions and feelings to a very strange finale which was not totally resolved or explained to us. And what has happened to Inga?  Were we really seeing this zombie-feel group or imagining it, who is Mrs Meadowsweet and  can the spell be broken?  Can Alice and Fleur bury their differences and escape?   A well put-together play of some mystery.

Nature Trail of Class 3B’: The hapless Teacher (Nick Davidson) on a nature trail with his eight pupils of class 3B, and what a terrible almost St Trinian’s lot they were in behaviour and attitude, a real fun feel for these players in their characters of youth and their haul of items found to give all a laugh and be pleased to no longer be at school!

‘Ode to Fifty Shades of Grey’: a monologue delivered in style with timing and great humour by Ian Cashmore as he relates the consequences of his wife having read popular fiction, we all laughed!

‘Sea Side Trippers’: the inclusion of all 16 players gave a chance for each to have their moment of character in this very mixed and assorted membership on their annual outing to the seaside. Loved the character descriptions: musician, informative, gloomy, knitter, president, adventurous, reader, young, cheery, anxious, mother, secretary, and the hungry. The little cameos and inter-relationships and circumstantial interludes and episodes with food, and children, and sandwiches and people lost and found, reflected life to the full with the happiness and disagreements and pure personalities exposed and developed, what an excellent play to experience and bring to fruition and to give each cast member their moment in the spotlight in reactions with a minimal story line.  And the two old gentlemen just enjoyed a snooze in their deckchairs and missed the action!

 

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