MWAH-HA-HA-HA

Report

Author: Peter Breach

The Lincolnshire village of Heckington is famous for its eight-sailed windmill but since members of Heckington Amateur Dramatic Society Youth Theatre staged the “Annual Convention of Blackhearted Villains and Fiendish Maniacs”, it may have acquired notoriety as a place to be wary of! Written and directed by local playwright Kei Bailey, this play tells of the drawing together of the wickedest people from across the six kingdoms in the area and all are desperate to know whether their names are included in this year’s shortlist for the Supreme Evil Being Award.

Amongst the morally bad competitors for this title was a wicked Queen, a Princess, a Wizard, a Highway woman and a Vampire – accompanied by various assistants, accomplices and offspring. Revelling in the nastiness of the persona they were representing, there was some very good characterisation with the players causing much amusement, especially when it came to displaying their wickedness, lack of manners and limited social graces. The style of writing was such that these young actors displayed their acting talents with enthusiasm and few signs of nervousness; they were obviously enjoying their time on stage. I was impressed with the confident manner in which they delivered their lines, which had been well learned. Appropriate costumes and properly applied make-up can do much to boost the performance of actors of any age and I feel it certainly helped these young players.

This was the first production by Heckington Youth Theatre that I had been invited to review and I found it to be a lively and uplifting experience. It was good to see these young people applying themselves, determined to play their part in this team enterprise that was intended to make people laugh. I was much impressed with the overall result which was certainly well received by the audience. Congratulations to all who were involved!  

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