When the Poppies Bloom Again

This society’s annual 1940s themed concert once again included a wide selection of songs from the WWll era and not only were the cast well dressed in appropriate costumes, so were a good number of people in the audience.  All this created a super atmosphere from the very start with the opening scene being the preparation for the village fete.

A tremendous amount of work is quite obviously put in to find numbers each year – the society has presented 20 consecutive shows of this type so far – and whilst there may have been some repeats in that time, that certainly doesn’t detract from the enjoyment provided.

Traditional is the National Anthem at the start which was followed by the All Clear siren.  There was a funny scene which was set at a panto rehearsal (we’ve probably all experienced similar!) and the 2nd half opened with the village fete itself.

The cast consisted of 14 Ladies, four men and seven children (who were very good) and there was plenty for them to do in a well thought out programme.   Everyone sang well with Alice Rose, Stephen Temple, Maureen Symonds, Matthew Russell, Charlotte Hurst, Marcus Burnside, Lucy Glover, Lucy Boyland, Granville Tebbutt and Sue Stamper standing out in a variety of solos and small group numbers.  I particularly enjoyed ‘All Our Tomorrows’ with Alice and Stephen, ‘God Send You Back To Me’ from Charlotte, Lucy Boyland’s ‘I’ll Pray For You’ and ‘Bring On The Wonderful Men’ from Marcus.  Charlotte Watson, who gave us a lovely ‘Rose of England’, is one to watch for the future!

The rousing finale was enhanced by flag waving from both audience and cast and stage fireworks at the end.

The set was very good and well lit, costumes paid tribute to all the services, I thought the numbers went at a good pace, there were very few hold ups and this made the performance very fast moving.

A lovely evening.

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