Sheila's Island

Sheila’s Island … a play staged by Southport Dramatic Club at Southport Little Theatre, Hoghton Street, Southport on Tuesday, 22nd October 2024  

Sheila’s Island is the all-female version of the play Neville’s Island written by the amazingly talented Tim Firth whose credits include Calendar Girls, Kinky Boots, Flint Street Nativity and so many more. Sheila’s Island is set in the Lake District located on Derwent Water… where we find four out-of-condition, middle-aged businesswomen setting off on a team building exercise whilst succeeding in becoming the first people ever to get ‘shipwrecked’ on an island in the Lakes! Bound in fog, menaced by wildlife and cut off from the world, this perfunctory middle-class exercise turns into a carnival of recriminations, French cricket and sausages! What should have been a bonding process for Denise, Julie, Fay and Sheila turns into a muddy, bloody, fight for survival, because when night settles in, strange things happen out in the wilds, and what took place on Sheila’s Island that foggy November weekend, is something none of this middle-management team would ever forget! 

Production Team … Peter Hoyle (Director) and with Jonathon Plunkett (Co-Director) had at their disposal four fine actors, who produced some lovely comedic yet poignant performances. I think I can say with some certainty that Peter and Jonathon had a good handle on this story and they’d obviously worked hard on creating some well-rounded characters that interacted well with each other whilst creating some highly amusing, ‘larger than life’ individual characters. Be proud guys … good job!

The Cast … four very soggy ‘business-women’ from ‘Team C’ in the Pennine Mineral Water Ltd’s annual outward bound team building weekend revealed themselves to us in the opening scene … they included…
Deborah Bloom as ‘Sheila’ … the leader of the team, the ‘cryptic crossword puzzler’, who despite everything that’s befallen them, attempts to stay positive and keep the group togetherness.
Jacqui Padden as ‘Denise’ … a sarcastic, outspoken, unpleasant, says what she thinks kind of girl, who’s just loves nothing better than to be constantly cracking jokes at other people’s expense.
Cath Dunne as ‘Julie’ … ‘ultra organised’, ‘prepared for anything’ … probably the person responsible for the survival of the group… her ‘rucksack’ was like ‘Mary Poppins bag’, but who’s home life appears to be the ‘polar opposite’ of what she’s led us to believe!
Marilyn Fletcher-Hill as ‘Fay’ …  the slightly vulnerable, slightly unbalanced, born-again Christian, who loves nothing better than a spot of ‘birdwatching’ … her sighting of a ‘gyrfalcon’ had her in ecstasy!

So where to start… well, if I’m honest, I’m not sure this performance actually had a ‘showstealer’, the success for me, was very much down to a well-directed, close-knit cast, who worked ever so well together … all creating their own individual character, who all had a story to tell, which they told very well … but after saying all that, I will give a ‘shout out’ to MY favourite character later….
- ‘Deborah’ was the perfect fit for ‘Sheila’ … I suppose you could call this role the ‘straight role’. Deborah is blessed with great stage presence, great diction and the character she created was ‘spot on’. She looked totally comfortable throughout and worked ever so well
   with the other three cast members ... be proud Debbie.
-  I think we all really did ‘loathe’ Jacqui’ at times, which in this case, was a ‘good thing’ ahahahaha. Jacqui just brought this character to life. Loved the way she developed this character as the play progressed introducing us to the larger/nastier vocal side of the
   personality. Another that worked ever so well with all the cast, character pitched just right, good job Jacqui! 
- ‘Cath’ provided us with this well-judged performance, with stage presence aplenty. Confident, assured, Cath took this role and made it her own! Another blessed with good stage presence. There’s a lot going on in Julie’s life and Cath was able to bring that to the fore
    with ease. Loved the mannerisms and facial expressions, loved the way she dealt with the jibes from Denise about her husbands’ infidelity on the ‘shelves at Aldi’…  be proud Cath.
-   MY favourite character had to be Marilyn’s portray of ‘Fay’ the born-again Christian. Fay is dealing with plenty … including personal loss, bereavement and self-harm, which made her the ideal target for the butt of most of ‘Denise’ outbursts.  Just loved the character
    created; great stage presence, great mannerisms, was able to bring the vulnerable side of Fay to the fore along with the funny, fragile, sweet and warm side… which was admirable. Her entrance toward the end, (you’ll need to see the play to understand), with the
    ‘wings’ was hilarious, this could have meant so many different things… great job Marilyn, be so very proud!

Staging/Tech … a one set production, with simple, effective staging that worked ever so well for the cast. Trees, bushes, tree stumps, foliage filled the stage and with well-placed access and exit points allowed the production to flow with ease. Set designed by Radley Haynes, painted by Bob Jessamine and constructed by the SDC Staging Team which looked great and worked extremely well. In charge of all things stage wise was Tom Ashcroft (Stage Manager/ Assistant Director).  Sound and Lights were being looked after by Scott Crawford and Rob Murtagh (lights) and Peter Beswick (Sound), worked well and created just the right atmosphere.  Well done all concerned!

Props … overseeing all things ‘prop wise’ was Paul-James Green and team. Props were, as always, first class and worked well.

Costumes/Wardrobe… again, as the norm here at SDC, the costumes were first rate, enhancing the production… provided and looked after by the SDC Wardrobe Team.

This was my third viewing of this particular play during the past seven/eight months… I’m not sure if this is one of Tim Firth best scripts, but it works, and what wasn’t in doubt was the effort, energy and commitment put in by cast and crew to bring this production to stage. The cast worked their socks off throughout and got the best out of everything!  There were plenty of laugh out loud moments, then, in the blink of an eye, moments of real poignancy appreciated by everyone present!  What I did think was ever so funny, was during Fay’s first entrance, coming on behind her three ‘shipwrecked’ colleagues who were shouting her name, and looking for her … when ‘out of the blue’ came a voice from the audience shouting … “She’s Behind You” … you can’t write these things, priceless, brought more than a few titters from across the audience! But, from the laughter and the applause throughout and at the finale… I would suggest that this was another ‘play’ enjoyed by everyone present! 

Thank you so much for inviting Susan and I, we really did enjoy the production and look forward to seeing you all again soon!

‘Stay Safe, Keep well’
‘Stronger Together’

Jim Briscoe,
NODA NW
District 6 Rep

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