Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of A Christmas Carol

Having attended productions of other of the Farndale AHETGDS comedies I was well aware of the “back story” so had a pretty good idea of what was about to unfold. For those not familiar with the “oeuvre” (as Thelma might say) they are a series of plays set in the fictitious world of the Farndale Avenue housing estate. Each play consists of our attendance at the Townswomen's Guild DS's utterly disastrous attempt at putting on a classically familiar play – other titles include the FAHETGDS mangling of Macbeth, the Mikado, a country house Murder Mystery, a Haunted Castle play etc. Each play has the same 5 'real' characters from the Guild: 4 women actors having to play a myriad of parts with their stage manager Gordon reluctantly press-ganged onto the stage because they are a “small and dwindling theatre group”. Oh and the local vicar usually gets an obsequious mention or three. However all the plays are self-contained, there is no need to be aware of the characters in advance.  The Farndale folk's domestic squabbles and lives are played out whilst actually mid-production on stage, cues are missed and props disintegrate. The good ladies of the Guild largely wrongly assume they have got away with most of the shambles around them whilst also coming out of character and indulging in personal asides to the audience utterly unrelated to their show. 

I hoped nobody was coming with expectations of a poignant rendition of the Dickens story as their lingering farewell to Christmas (just) Past  - if they were this production took those expectations, sliced them, diced them, deep fried them and served them up with a side order of audience participation – but in a totally hilarious way! 

The Overall Production 

They key for me with all Farndale comedies is that all cast and crew fully embrace and inhabit that world with pace and precision. They need clear direction and all to rehearse all those seemingly arbitrary failures and ad-libs to the audience as timing is paramount else the comedy soon pales.

At the risk of slightly embarrassing our real Players, the excellent reputation of the Windmill Players, this theatre and our director preceded them and they certainly all fully lived up to the challenge – this was a slick and assured production. Expertly directed by Di Timmins, and expertly delivered, it bowled over a packed audience who laughed uproariously.  The vast majority of an audience are not concerned about what goes on under the hood – they have come to be entertained and enjoy an escapist laugh and by golly they were and they did! There were no deep meanings or underlying truths just great comedy. A marvellous evening's entertainment on the coast! 

Production Team

Productions at Thornton Little Theatre are provided with paid staff as a condition of hire: our House Manager, Linda Whitworth, a staffed box office reception and one technician and that helped ensure we were very professional handled from the start. In keeping with the theme of staying in character all our programme notes were from our esteemed Mrs Reece sadly announcing the loss of Guild Dram Society member Minnie – no she hadn't passed away, they had just lost her – somewhere near Tebay apparently! A lovely directorial touch from Di Timmins. 

For amateur companies these sort of comedies can be the hardest to stage, things must fail in a very organised way and timings must be just so.  But they are also very rewarding for a production team, as they are so embedded in every part of the live action. So congratulations go firstly to our Stage Manager Karen Rogerson and Assistant Marjorie Brown. Responsible for costumes, including a much-heralded yellow dress, were Angela Hudson and Denise Flynn. I particularly loved Bob Cratchit's outfit. They also played their part in helping realise the wonderfully funny Ghost of Christmas Present, as did our hard working props team of Tina Warren and Caron Wood, nice touches throughout. Sound was well-timed, provided by Peter Jones with lighting by Wyre Theatres technical team. The set being designed by Tina Warren, I thought the simple black backcloth was a great decision as our attention was always naturally drawn to the props and action and it allowed the comedy mishaps to be the focus for the audience. Tina was ably abetted by the set construction team of Ian Flynn, Peter Brown, Alan Waterfield, Malcolm Holroyd and Mark Sumner. Completing our production team were Peter Jones and Pauline Powell for posters and programmes, Lisa Carolan providing piano accompaniment and prompt Maria Barroclough, although happily her good work had all been completed in rehearsals judging by the night I attended. Well done team, great job!

The Cast

You need really good actors to make such comedy out of acting really badly and we were blessed with 5 as our cast. The Farndale Avenue folk continually break the fourth wall, going amongst them, playing out their domestic real life squabbles and making highly inappropriate out-of-character asides to the audience – while their Farndale production lurches on. Our real-life cast must never come out of character. When continually in the role of interacting with the audience even experienced actors can become 'loose' – the comedic effect of the mishaps, while not lost, is then diminished.  Here discipline and timing were neatly maintained throughout by all the cast and crew keeping the actual fourth wall seamlessly in place – great job everyone!

A key was how neatly the cast dove-tailed as a team – the polar opposite of the Farndale DS! Judi Adams was Mrs Reece, the leader of the DS, but seemingly oblivious to the dreadful nature of the production. Judi played her just right: bossy and thick-skinned but carefully  getting the balance right by avoiding making her a harridan and when her Mrs Reece doubled as Tiny Tim, I think you could hear the laughter on the seafront! Thelma, who very much sees herself as the serious actress of the Farndale DS, was played by Jackie Rhodes. Unlike the others. Thelma played just one character, Scrooge. Having played Scrooge myself, & once in a radio play, I thought she actually gave us an excellent Scrooge - that is until later on in the show. Then to her delight and Mrs Reece's chagrin, Thelma discovers she has captured the much-sought after admiration of the local vicar – and any playing of Scrooge was relegated to the lowest of priorities as she basked her in (temporary) victory over Mrs Reece. This play (and the Farndale play) requires a good serious anchor for the mayhem to coalesce around and we certainly got that, well played Jackie!

Louise Evans played the unfortunate Mercedes, fresh from an accident and wearing a neck brace that ludicrously stopped her reaching props as Bob Cratchit, Belle and 'a Boy'. As her Cratchit shuffled about cutting a wonderfully awful dark figure I couldn't help being reminded of the waddling, stiff necked Penguin of long ago Batman pastiches,  and this was a highlight. The hapless Gordon was excellently played by Mark Edmonds, he and Jackie demonstrating superb comic timing in intricate wordplay between Scrooge and Marley – all the while his head hilariously stuck in a door - yet another of the failed Farndale props. Great job both. Finally, Felicity, Farndale's acting ingenue, was neatly played by Liz Danielewicz and the marvellous set piece of Liz and Mark playing the top and bottom half of Christmas Present respectively was my stand-out moment of the evening – despite the clever scaffolding involved it looked like a Farndale Health& Safety compensation claim in waiting!
We had a quiz in the programme, appallingly mis-handled by Mrs Reece and the cast and resulting in what I was assured afterwards was an unsuspecting audience member being brought up to the stage to help with some mercifully short-lived audience participation. Performing well, I think he was a good choice! Our Cast was completed by the off-stage voices provided by Alan Dickinson, Cath Griffiths, Malcolm Holroyd, Mark Sumner and Di Timmins. These provided many comedic moments and one of the songs was particularly funny but I think now some things should be left as a surprise as very probably some of our readers will get the opportunity to see this play elsewhere – if they see it performed as well  as this they will have been extremely lucky indeed.

As well as the Windmill Players packing them in at Thornton Little Theatre, they are a real source of energy in the community. Amongst other projects they take a murder mystery into the heart of communities by staging them in local libraries and this is to be loudly applauded. I sincerely hope I can get to see one of those events later in the year. I would like to thank the Windmill Players for their warm welcome and wish them the very best  in all their ventures,  keep up the great work! Chris

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