An Evening of One Act Plays

OTTERY COMMUNITY THEATRE

An Evening of One Act Plays

The Institute, Ottery St Mary

Friday 19th July 2024

With seating around tables and the audience invited to bring their own drinks and nibbles an ambient  café atmosphere was created from the start for the presentation of three excellent and very different one act plays.

 

Operation Mr Pusskins

Adapted & directed by Lizzie Harrison

from “A Playful of Otters” by Andy Mulligan

Assistant Director: Sophie Sanger

This was a perfect vehicle for the younger members of this group when a school expedition across  Dartmoor doesn’t go according to plan! Each one of the twelve performers brought out the different  characters of the students, and the director also took the role of Miss Jenkins the enthusiastic schoolteacher leading the expedition and whipping everyone, including the audience, into shape from the outset!  

Unfortunately, Miss J’s arrangements hadn’t been terribly well planned and they all seemed to be lost on the moor. The youngsters were starving and tired and with a severe weather warning adding to their predicament the irrepressible teacher sets off to find help. However, all went horribly wrong when she  was mauled and dismembered by a giant cat, and the very wet and hungry students were forced to fall on their own devices to get themselves off the moor! 

Happily, thanks to the ingenuity of some of the students contact was made with the outside world and rescue ensued. Gruesome in parts, especially when the body was recovered, complete with a “bloody” stump and head which rolled across the stage, but great fun and very enthusiastically performed!

During the Interval, a delicious and very well received  ploughman’s supper was served. 

 

Spirit of Ottery

Written, and directed by Steve Chapman

This delightful short snippet highlighted the tradition of the famous Ottery Tar Barrels, continuing every November to this day.

Set in a local hostelry in 1725, the bar, furniture and costumes took us straight back in time. When a gentleman arrives with a warrant to take possession of the Barrels and use them to burn a witch, he quickly falls foul of the locals, and the surly barmaid in particular. Her disapproving expressions were priceless! Two townswomen argued profusely over the merits of rolling the barrels against carrying them on their shoulders, but tradition was firmly established at the end when two young men circled the hall with Tar Barrels, complete with “flaming” ends, aloft!

All excellently and sincerely played with the barmaid in character even at the curtain call!

 

 Dénouement

 Written and directed by Lea Pryer

This final presentation was simply the “pièce de resistance” of the evening.

In true Agatha Christie style, everyone gathered in the drawing-room of the “stately home” to uncover the murderer of his Lordship - DUN DUN DUN – and there was that moment!

This was very cleverly played and conceived revealing during the performance that the “author”, a character within the script, was actually sitting DSR giving the impression that the action was happening as she was writing the lines. Everything came to an abrupt stop at times when she took a ‘phone call or had writer’s block, continuing when she took to her pen, or rather her keyboard, once again.

All the cast were true to their characters and did well to weave around each other and the splendid furniture, in a relatively small space, as possible motives were analysed and dismissed. 

It was lovely to see some of the younger members from the first play joining this cast, and they gave excellent performances as the housemaid, the daughter of the house and Constable Perkins, while hidden family connections were uncovered.

Central to the action was Private Investigator “Hugh Dunnet”, an impressive performance from this player, who was stopped in his tracks by the black out at the penultimate moment and which made for a great finish!

 

Another successful and entertaining production from this talented Company with all three of the plays written, directed and performed by members showcasing talent across the board - well done! 

 

 

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