BITS and B.O.D.S.

I was pleased to be invited to the opening night of a community theatre celebration of 90 years of Betchworth Operatic and Dramatic Society. The society was started in 1936 with their second production being Patience, after which Gilbert and Sullivan operas were to become an annual event alongside plays. In 1951 John Hatch created a one act play festival which continues today as the Southern Counties Drama Festival.

The village hall was bedecked with fabric bunting and held a good-sized audience who were very responsive throughout. Colourful evening dress costumes were sourced with the help of Elizabeth Callow. Unfortunately, there was a technical glitch with the projector, so the projected backdrops were absent which cast the upstage actors into shadow, much to the disappointment of the creatives and cast, but the audience clearly enjoyed the performance despite this. A large cast of 28 performed on the small stage with some effective choreographed sequences on a series of rostra. Alison Cooper and Gail Lowe had thoughtfully selected their medley of songs and duologues which best suited the skill set and performance style of the wide range of performers. The programme did not credit individual performers for their characters or solo performances, as they would be known to their community audience, so my comments are rather generalized as a result.

The Gilbert and Sullivan and Musicals compilations were accompanied by their Musical Director Ian Stone on piano and directed by Alison Cooper. There were some strong singers who suited the Light Operatic singing style well. The sequence Poetic Licence featured music from Patience-which was a nice touch. Also Ruddigore,The Sorcerer, The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance were featured. Silver Churn was a strong opening number by the cast and A Policeman’s Lot was my personal favourite with the comic stretch for the bass notes. In The Musicals Medley the audience loved the participation in My Fair Lady’s Wouldn’t it Be Loverly and the majority of the audience had lovely voices and seemed to be word perfect! There were also numbers from Salad Days and The Merry Widow. On the Street where you live was particularly effective.

Gail Lowe devised a light-hearted look at the History of Drama with scenes from Ancient Greece, Shakespeare, Restoration comedy to Ibsen. The audience particularly enjoyed the Melodrama sketch. Stephen Tickell directed an excerpt from Act 1 of the very first BODS production The Ghost Train written in 1923 by Arnold Ridley [who was later to play Private Godfrey in Dad’s Army]. It was evocative of its era and would have been inventive for its time. Originally six backstage crew were required to provide the sound effects as there was no recorded sound in 1936, whereas in this show David Ames and Anthony Smith provided Sound and Lighting . This was a nice cohesive, if rather predictable, piece which sustained a good pace with clear caricatures.

A light-hearted revisiting of the Light Opera and Drama BODS shows that generations of your membership have enjoyed performing for 90 years. Here’s to the next 90!

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.