Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum

Terry Pratchett’s writing is not to everyone’s taste, although it obviously was for director Dawn Briggs, this was the first performance of two consecutive weekends and I suspect that Harleston Players were a little disappointed that there was not a fuller audience. A lot of work had gone into converting this school stage with a full width castle wall with battlements and two levels for performing. There was also a large cast for a play which also involved some doubling. The two levels were well used, Costuming was generally appropriate for the various characters, props and furniture were used sparingly, I didn’t realise that the piece of wood with a door knocker was a ‘splinter’ from a destroyed door, it would have come across better if a much longer piece of wood had been used. Scene changes were indicated by short blackouts; the lighting design was appropriate to the scenes being played together with sound effects. The long scene of Granny and the Rev. Oats perambulating the stage could perhaps had use a different style to indicate a long journey.

This is a bit of a complicated story involving ‘modern’ vampires and traditional witches, both groups out to defend their way of life in Discworld. The play started with a bit of narration which didn’t fully help with the understanding of the characters, there was a family of haughty vampires, modern but more traditional costume. These four were however smartly dressed, with make-up making them appear pale and deathly enhanced by the dark eye makeup and with just the occasional hint of fangs. Dialogue was well delivered but failed some of the nuances of Pratchett’s humour, I suspect that was more the fault of the script rather than the actors. This four were Count de Magpyr (Bruce Alcorn), a haughty Countess de Magpyr (Emma Matthews) the supposedly lovelorn Vlad (Matt Bruty) made a reasonable attempt at wooing Agnes and Lacrimosa (Isabella Scott) gave us another haughty character. Barry Givens as Igor their man servant brought some more humour to the show with his accent and his hunch back.

I was a bit confused with the witches, it didn’t initially come across clearly that Perdita (Scarlett Fisher) was a sort of slim Agnes who had come stepped out of Agnes (Josie Fuller) whom apparently only Agnes and the audience could see and hear, this gave the pair of them some interesting interaction. The witch’s roles were the more animated and we had some good performances from Mary Stean as Nanny Ogg and Pat Parris as Granny Weatherwax as well as Josie. A mainstay of the story was the Rev Mightily Oaks played by Wren Moss, sharing, I think, the most dialogue with Granny Weatherwax. The various ensemble roles and doubling were performed with enthusiasm although as no cast pictures in the programme unable to identify them to the roles.

This was a novel that was difficult to re-interpret as a stage play and provide the humour of the book, therefore the cast and director made the best that they could do with this script. I appreciate that this was the first night and the audience took a while to appreciate the work put into this play.

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