Two One Act Plays

The Players presented two short plays.

The first, Gilly’s Gem by Sandy Taylor was about a well-off widow who appears to take endless holidays in order to put her husband’s tragic death (on a holiday!) behind her. Millie, her live-in cleaner and Millie’s friend Peggy, the cleaner from downstairs, agree this isn’t good for her and it seems that the problem could be solved when Gilly tells them that she has met a lovely man (Toby) on the plane home from her latest holiday. Not only that, he wants to involve her in a business he hopes to set up…but he needs a lot of her money in order to do it.

Most of the humour was fairly - no, very- obvious. But it was carried off with aplomb by a cast who were determined to ensure that the audience enjoyed themselves. The play started with the two cleaning ladies discussing Gilly and her ‘problem’ while they knock back her gin. Good comic timing ensured that Chris Hobson as Millie and Joanne Hanson as Peggy maximised the laughs. The unexpected arrival of Gilly (skilfully played as a generous and kindly woman by Rhiannon George) with her news of Toby interrupts their ‘break’. Not only that, but Millie quickly realises that she knows ‘Toby’ and needs to stop her employer from making a serious mistake.

Without a doubt the funniest moments of the play come when Peggy, in her alter-ego as a fortune teller, first tells Millie’s fortune, then Gilly’s, with an attempt (in this assisted by her Indian guide - £1 extra since ‘he has a long way to travel’) to put her off her new love. Very obvious lines, for example, ‘Leo is in Uranus’ but delivered with a wonderful sense of comedy by Joanne Hanson.

For Alison Roberts, who played Gilly’s sister, Anna, this was her debut as director. She is commended for producing a play which squeezed every once of comedy from the script.

The Last Panto in Little Grimley by David Tristram was the Player’s second offering. An ailing drama group without any funds need to put on their annual panto. Written by director Gordon (played with just the right amount of self-importance by Jamie Phillips) who decides that the only way to ensure the show sells is to sex it up, the panto is to star Margaret (Karen Lowe) who, whilst enjoying being cast as principal boy Dick Whittington is not going to ‘get my breasts out again’, and assisted by Joyce ( Rachel Dobb) as her cat, her woeful acting tolerated by Gordon only because she does the group’s books. The quartet is completed by Bernard (Dave King), a curmudgeonly backstage worker who is unwillingly roped in to acting duties.

The actors all worked hard to bring out the fun – and there is lots of it – in this play. Whilst the play has its chaotic elements I think tighter direction and probably a little more rehearsal was needed to bring these out more.

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