Bouncing Back

Gail Young’s story in this beautifully written play takes us on a journey through the lives of a group of ladies who, during their school years, played netball. They later gave it up to follow careers and family life, but the time came when they felt it was right to re-start their passion for the game. The ladies all have different lifestyles from trying to run a home, holding down a career and even life in the army. Each character faces difficulties of some sort in their lives including mental and physical problems, alcoholism and a lack of confidence. They were performed by a strong cast who worked very well together and handled their characters with feeling, understanding and with a mixture of humour, anger, compassion and a touch of vanity.

The Coach of the netball team, Trisha, encourages the girls and insists they can still play netball and win games after some hard training. She also gives them support with their outside lives, while at the same time giving the impression that her own life is going well. However, she too has emotional difficulties just like the rest of the team. Mandy Simms was outstanding in this role, and with a huge amount of dialogue gave a very confident and comfortable performance.

The “team” of nine girls were amazing and very confident in their roles, not only with the dialogue but in understanding all the emotions of their individual characters, their feelings, and awareness of those around them. This they never lost even while acting out the netball training scenes with various movements to simulate actual games. With the back projection it seemed that we were watching an actual game of netball, complete with a commentator taking us through it. Winning a game gave the team back so much of their lost confidence, hence the name of the play, “Bouncing Back”. These actors had worked hard not only with the dialogue, but keeping physical fit as well to ensure that their characters were true to life.  Great performances.

The Netball Team: Kath (Sarah Betts), Janet (Kirsten Lees), ASBO (Regan Hall), Micky (Gayle Hazelby), Tina (Trice Turner), Anna (Charlie Rivers), Sarah (Jeanette Roberts), Angie (Annabel Shirley) and Jackie (Caroline Hurt).

The ladies’ training sessions are held in the sports hall under the control of the manager, Rob, with a very confident performance from actor Daniel Roberts. From the beginning we realise that he has taken a liking to Trisha and throughout the play he charms his way into her lonely life. The play ends with the couple giving each other a tender kiss.    

There were lovely notable roles – Councillor Drake (John Fereday) and Photographer (Tom Gibson), both part of a promotion for the netball team; the very clear voice of the DJ (Tommy Jones) and the team’s mascots Sharon Wilde and Tom Gibson who encored the audience to join in and cheer on the team.   

The production had a great pace, not only with the dialogue and action but also with the scene changes with back projection, good lighting and sound effects and the spot-on outfits. A lot of hard work, clever and outstanding direction, talented and confident actors, a good production team and a great selection of music complete this first-class production – much enjoyed by everyone judging by the applause.

Thank you for the invite and hospitality.

Sue Cox

NODA N.E. Drama Rep

Region 14

 

 

 

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