Sheila's Island

I had the pleasure of attending the performance of Sheila’s Island at Oldbury Rep.

This play is a female version of Tim Firth’s Neville’s Island,  was presented by arrangement of Concord Theatricals Limited , on behalf of Samuel French Limited.

Yet again Oldbury have managed to get together a very strong production team.

Phil Astle as Director, Alan Groucott as Assistant Director, Sandra Bird as Production Assistant and prompt and Toni Bird as Stage Manager.

Even though there were only four characters in the play the organisation of putting it on must have meant lot of very hard work by others as well

For example the set builders led by Peter Turton, Nick Fereday on lighting and Wendy Bounous on props.

When the cast is also added into the equation an excellent production by all.

The play is based on a team building weekend and the four members of staff are from Pennine Water Limited. The team led by Sheila who is the Marketing Manager has managed to strand her team on an island on one of the lakes in the Lake  District. The stage is used by all actors making full use of the set and props.

Each actor had different roles to undertake Samantha Gessey as the the leader of the team, Sheila, Sarah Wilkins as Denise, Emma Woodcock as Julie and Emma Francis as Fay.  All produced credible performances as befitting their character.  As you can imagine anyone working in a team can appreciate the different characters within it. Opening scene with Denise was very effective and promised good things to come. The tree was very effective in the way it was used and the fact she was more interested in birds rather than rescuers . Never seen so many utensils carried by one person it must have taken a while to pack the rucksack. However they then realised they had lost the food in the lake

When nighttime arrived the scenery was very effective. The start of the second act was well set and with very effective use of lighting it really stood out, well done. Certainly te flag waving that also worked well.

Cannot fault any of the actors who were outstanding and were well cast in their roles.

Yet again another outstanding performance by Oldbury.

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