Rose Gardens

Rose’s Garden? I tried to research the musical before I attended the performance but came back with no results! Then to my delight discovered that the society Director: Allison Butler had written the script and has indeed written many for Footlights. So Rose’s Garden in summary is about a retired Lady called Rose, who moves into the Care Home (Cedar Tree) which is next door to her house. We meet a plethora of characters – the residents of the home- Arnie, Beattie, Bert, Charles, Enid and Maud. Each of whom have their own personalities and the society members playing these roles brought a lot of comedy to the production and provided many lovely moments. Standing out for me was Lynne Gammage who played Beattie! Her comedy timing was perfect and I did laugh out loud quite a few times. When sat around the table in the lounge, it reminded me so much of The Vicar of Dibley and very cleaver of Allison to create such characters. The show certainly has some strong and difficult story lines – ranging from Dementia to domestic abuse and culminates in the reason for the show being called Rose’s Garden. Having been in an abusive relationship many years ago, Rose: played brilliantly by Terri Harrison tells one of the home carers – Emma (played brilliantly by Megan Prickett) that she had killed her husband in self defence and buried him in her garden – the rose garden. Now some may say – oh that is such an obvious story line to write a musical on but it actually worked really well. Terri played Rose with such a warmth that I believed every word she said and I felt sorry for her character & didn’t like her ex husband, which is some feat as his character isn’t even in the show. I cannot forget the performance of Jordan Dickin, who played Tom. The love interest of Emma (or wanted to be) his stage presence was a delight along with a very strong vocal.

I have to say the company as a whole gave this 100% and without naming every single person they all did Allison’s script justice.

The set was well designed and they certainly made use of every part of the stage. Cleverly designing the interior of the nursing home whilst utilizing the use of an extension for further space.

The Band was excellent & most of the song choices for this were very good, however I did feel that some songs made certain scenes a little cheesy and changing lyrics is always risky business but overall the choices worked. This show was a Jukebox musical with music for all and one special performance of Tell My Father from The Civil War by Keyboard player Aaron Kendall. Leaving the pit, to play Rose’s first love Tom, standing tall on stage in an RAF uniform was my highlight of the evening. That lad has a talent!

I would like to thank the society for the warm welcome and congratulate for your bravery in doing what most wouldn’t dare. I take my hat off to you.

 

 

 

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