Eager Beavers

“ Ea

This play was another first for The Hall Players. Following on from “Any Other Business” by local author Andy Bennison, they had decided to perform another play by this talented writer and this was the Premiere. The playwright was in the audience and I am sure he was pleased by the performance and the audience reaction to his well-written script.Director, Dominic Swarbrick has a great deal of experience as both an Actor and Director and he used all his talents to meet the many challenges involved with this new script and the large cast numbers.

The story centres around the Broken Brook Wildlife Trust Charity Shop where the manager and her volunteers deal with the running of the shop and the handling of the many and varied customers who frequent the establishment. Maureen Nickson gave a very strong and believable performance as Agnes, the shop manager, who was finding that many aspects of her job were changing. Social Media was playing a large part in the lives of both customers and volunteers and many of the volunteer’s jobs were becoming very technical.

This was a very strong script with very well observed characters and I am sure many of us could identify with both customers and volunteers.

The curtains opened to reveal a well-stocked charity-shop, which received a well deserved round of applause from the many audience members.Every character was well delineated and apart from a few times when a little more projection was required, each actor gave very polished performances. I was particularly impressed with the performances by Carol Buckley as Sylvia and Nigel Parsons as Bob. Carol was delightful in her portrayal of the crotchety Sylvia. Her delivery was excellent and her timing was first class. Nigel’s diction was excellent and the very emotive scene, where he revealed his unexpected history, was very well executed.

Congratulations to the backstage crew for the set transformation in Act 2 when a minimal set and props were produced to give the premises a rebranding. These changes in the appearance of “The Shop” and the reactions of The Customers and Volunteers was very well presented and gave us all food for thought.The script contained some very funny lines and all the cast were obviously aware of what the Author and Director required.

Having seen two of the plays by Andy Bennison I will certainly look forward to his next offering.Many thanks for your very warm welcome.

 

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