The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production of “A Christmas Carol

                                                         
What a crazy  evening of laughter and merriment we had watching the “Too Friendly Theatre Company‘s” production of “The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production of “A Christmas Carol” By authors David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin.
On arrival  we were given a warm effusive welcome by Mrs. Reece Chairwomen of the Towns Women’s Guild, offering mince pies and shortbread. There was also pre-show entertainment from Musical Maestro Dave Smith, who played the piano in the style of that legend of the keyboard,Les Dawson with great flair. One may wonder why the women’s Guild were performing a “Christmas Carol” in September but according to Mrs. Reece this was the only time the hall was free before the start of “Yoga for Beginners” and the insect fumigating, they tried to swap the week with the novice yogi’s but they were of corse very inflexible, however, if Christmas starting in September was good enough for Marks & Spencer well it was good enough for them.
The play was Directed by Cliff Gillies, and included all of Charles Dickens wonderful characters that we find in his well loved Christmas Story as we have never seen them before, portrayed by some very eccentric ladies of the Women’s Guild along with the help of one gentleman, who were in turn  played by very talented actors who all gave excellent performances with spot on comic timing wonderful facial expression, used various forms of visual comedy with great slapstick humor and in the process produced some lovely touches of ingenuity. They were a team with no weak links which is very important in this type of comedy as the success of the production relies on all the cast working together.The ladies of the Women’s Guild were led by their wonderful bossy Chairman,Mrs Reece  who was on great form and was played by the talented Joanne Wasilew, not only does she play several roles in the production but also takes on the narration of the story struggling through the evening with an intrusive PA system which picked up  messages from the emergency services, and she holds conversations with the vicar and with various members of the stage crew while she is supposed to be narrating. She also undertakes some very funny audience participation throughout the evening, not only prior to the performance but also during it. Tracey Holmes – Smith as Thelma had the staring role of Scrooge, it was obvious that Thelma believes that she is the only decent actor on stage and the only person who knew what she was doing and what the play was about, as she tried to keep everything on track, I have to say Tracy’s costume was excellent, and she really looked and acted the part of Scrooge very well. Susan Fryer’s character of Mercedes had recently suffered an accident and due to the injuries sustained found it very difficult  getting on the stage never mind walking around it, and as she was playing several of the characters in the story her struggle to keep up with the action made a brilliant  amusing contribution to the comedy action. Then we have Felicity played by Jenny Roby and Cliff Gillies as Gordon, who both played a number of delightful characters from the story, producing very funny comedic performances, taking on various personas and using visual comedy very well. Other actors involved also doubled as stage crew as well as producing various voices off stage, they were Neil Woods, Mark Haygarth, Helen Haygarth and Peter Roney. The cast also showed their versatility by singing a couple of Christmas songs during the action as part of the play, which were accompanied by Musical Maestro Dave Smith.
The set was minimalist as there was just a Christmas tree on stage, scenes were changed with the use of props both by the actors and some rather inept comical stage hands. Costumes were just right for the type of production, there must have been some good organization and dashing about back stage in order to keep track of all the costume changes.However all the hard work paid off as there was plenty of laughter from the audience and everyone left the theatre with a smile on their face.
Thank you  to everyone involved in this superb production and for a very enjoyable evening, congratulations and thank you for really cheering us all up.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.