Archives - July 1987

THE FARNDALE AVENUE TOWNSWOMEN'S GUILD DRAMATIC SOCIETY MURDER MYSTERY
by David McGillivray & Walter Zerlin Jnr

Produced by Mary Frost

THE PLAY

Modern-day comedy. The Farndale Avenue ladies present their self-penned masterpiece, Murder At Checkmate Manor. It has a plot, loosely speaking, that centres around a chessboard. Every time the murderer strikes, a piece of the same name is removed from the board - fortunate that all the victims are named Bishop, Rook or King, really. A number of not-especially grisly murders take place, although it is fewer than originally planned after Mrs Reece skips five pages of the script. Oddly enough - unless you are familiar with Farndales - this is not the worst thing to happen on stage during Act I.
Proceedings are interrupted for a "Townswomen Through The Ages" fashion show, then resume towards an impenetrable and chaotic solution of sorts. Mrs Reece hastily rewrites the ending to allow Felicity to rush home to attend an injured child, leaving Inspector O'Reilly to identify the murderer as Regine the maid, who had faked her own death some considerable time earlier. If the props gun had been working, Regine would than have committed suicide; as it is she accidentally shoots the Inspector just as the curtains close...

FROM THE GROUP

Having successfully negotiated my Farndale debut, I foolishly agreed to produce another such epic in the form of the Farndale Avenue Murder at Checkmate Manor.
This time we had several new members of cast but with the help of old 'stagers' they soon got into the swing of things. Rehearsals were once more underway with much laughter from everyone. Again it was a mammoth task for our overworked stage crew involving many lighting changes, strange props, sounds and general mayhem.
Now we were more familiar with this type of play it proved to be a little easier than first time. The end result was very well received and the audience left with smiles on their faces.

Mary - Producer

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