Mr. Pim Passes By

To celebrate their 90th anniversary, Hartley Players chose to recreate their very first production with this play by A.A. Milne, of ‘Winnie the Pooh’ fame, who wrote this ‘tongue in cheek’ play in 1919.

To gasps from the audience, the curtains open on the most fabulous set of the Marden’s 1926 era drawing room. The main story revolves around the state of the marriage between George and Olivia Marden, her second, and the scandal that could be caused by the fact that her first husband might not have died after all.

The play opens with the maid (Samantha Robinson) announcing a Mr. Pim, played at his bumbling and scatter brained best by Peter Harris, who has come from Australia to see George Marden for letters of introduction. He is received by Dinah (Cheryl DeBie), the Marden’s neice who asks him if he had come across, in Australia, Olivia’s first husband, Mr. Telworthy, who was not an altogether very nice character and had reportedly died. Olivia had then met George and they had married. Mr. Pim then drops the bombshell that he had indeed met a Mr. Telworthy on the boat coming over from Australia. Mr. Pim then has to leave but keeps popping back to revise his recollections. George, Nick Noakes at his pompous best, and Olivia, warmly played by Yvonne Hegarty, discuss this revelation and the fact that they have been ‘living in sin’ all these years, with George afraid of the scandal but he still would not give Dinah and her boyfriend Brian (Jasper Holliday) permission to marry. Mr Pim returns and they find out just how scatter-brained he is and Olivia’s problems are solved.

This play wasn’t bad and it gave some insight into the morals of the 1920s. There were some good laughs and it was nice to see Hartley Players longest standing member, Marion Simmons, in the cameo role of no-nonsense, Lady Marden. Well done to director Chris Broad-Manges, cast and back stage crew, especially for the set and costumes.

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