Ladies Day

Thank you for the warm welcome at the delightful Lion Theatre Horncastle. A charming space and very comfortable, a hidden gem.

Ladies Day revolves around the lives and loves of Pearl, Shelley, Jan, and Linda. Life is one long, hard slog for the fish-filleting foursome. But their fortunes are set to change when they head to Ladies Day at the races. Factory hairnets make way for fancy hats as the four friends hit the races for an unforgettable day out. Secrets are spilled with the champagne and friendships are tested to the limit. Yet, as the day unfolds and tempers fray, their accumulator bet keeps quietly winning. If their luck and their nerves hold, the ladies could hit the jackpot.

The staging of the production was stunning. The set was designed by Stuart Saunders and Brian Burbidge. We went from fish factory to Ascot and back in dynamic and interesting ways. The lighting effects and sound quality were excellent and the stage was managed in a slick and accomplished way. I could tell that Sheena Liversidge had a firm grasp of what she wanted to achieve and had assembled a superb cast and crew to help bring her ideas to life. Lighting and sound by Stuart Saunders, stage management by Brian Burbidge. I loved that the set props were placed and struck by costumed stagehands, being either factory workers or race porters, this created a cohesive look to the whole production, and seamless transitions. The set consisted of 2 main areas, the factory, complete with a production line, a plastic sheeting wall, and some excellent props, (the fish looked so real!), then the York racecourse entrance with green hedges and tables and chairs and lots of bottles of champagne. The use of projected backdrops was ideal, there was no distraction from the acting, but subtly moved us, the audience, through the events of the day. (The excellent props were made by Mary Anne Price and Christina Holmes – special thanks in the program for Anne Clayton from Market Harborough Drama Society.) The costumes too enhanced the performance and these were put together by Priscilla Burbidge, and Alison Bourn with help from The Violet Truelove Wardrobe.

The cast were all excellent. The performances that Sheena drew from each actor were marvellous. The main characters, Pearl - Jane Whitlock, Jan - Amanda Eastwood, Linda - Natasha Lowes, and Shelley - Sophie Campbell all worked well together, and created a cohesive friendship group, with all its ups and downs that you might expect. A tremendous range of emotion was performed admirably with some wonderfully subtle touches from Natasha and Sophie. Amanda’s character had had too much to drink and this performance could have gone over the top and into the caricature. Yet Sheena managed to bring a subtle, and more gentle moment from Amanada’s performance and this worked very well. Really good comic timing was demonstrated. Jane was splendid as Pearl, a lady with a secret, I felt this character goes on the longest journey, manipulating the events of the day in the hope of finding Barry, yet when we finally hear their goodbyes, you could hear a pin drop in the audience. Her masterful performance, her diction and body language were first-rate.

Another notable performance was from Russell Alder playing the jockey Patrick. This challenging role must demonstrate chemistry with Linda, the physicality of a long race, and produce excellent accent and diction. Well done, all the boxes ticked. Thomas Peckham played the sad, gambler Kevin. His rapport with the audience was there as soon as he arrived on stage. With excellent characterisation and body language he had us feeling sorry for his woes, even if, in reality, he had brought this on himself. I enjoyed the energetic performance of Tristan Forrester the ticket tout. The ladies naively think they will purchase tickets at the gate but are in shock when they find out the cost.  Each character reacts differently in that moment and Tristan responds to each encounter with skill and some very good acting choices. The  Jim McCormack part was played by the talented Jonathan Cooke. His confident performance and lecherous behaviour were very believable. His subtle grooming of the young Shelley was hard to watch at times, but very truthful.

David Allerton played Joe, the factory foreman, he has his own back story and hopes for the future, which develop through the play.  David’s performance was very strong, dynamically moving about the stage, yet displaying a lonely man looking for life and love outside his 20 year experience of working in a fish factory. Alan Paine voiced the race commentator very convincingly and the final character, Barry,  was played by Chris Liversidge. When Barry appears, from the audience, we are not sure if he is in Pearl’s imagination, or a real part of the race day experience. Their love story is a truthful tale of found love and infidelity. Both performances were excellent in this scene, their professed love, their shared guilt, the broken rules, the tension created was palpable. When the music ended there was complete silence in the theatre, so sweet was their goodbye.

Your program was really interesting, you obviously have lots of support from local businesses, I enjoyed the information about The York race event in 2005 and introducing Amanda Whittington to your audience.  There are lovely pictures od cast and crew with information on the production and HTC. Your choice of colour, font and information was great, and I would have loved to put this programme and poster into the NODA 2023 competition, but sadly some key elements are missing. https://www.noda.org.uk/download/181/2022-2024-competition-details here are the downloadable details, I hope you can make use of them. Dominic Hinkins put the programme together, with photography by David Ireland and Sheen Liversidge.

So, over all, an excellent night at the theatre, it was lovely to meet you all after the performance and to feel the team spirit and camaraderie you have together. You all seemed to be enjoying yourself immensely and I hope the rest of the run goes smoothly.

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