Archives - April 1992
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Archives - April 1992 |
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Produced by Paul Mellor
THE PLAY
Four one-act plays.
"The Messenger", by Michael Frayn: a mock-Grecian sketch in Shakespearian prose where the King's messenger is constantly interrupted by his wife, until, exasperated, he murders her.
"From Five to Five-Thirty", by Philip Johnson. Mrs Treetops' three daughters are planning to have her transferred to a residential home against her wishes. She, though, has recently sold an old picture for what turned out to be a fortune and has arranged to move to Kensington instead. Not only that, but she reveals that the spiteful children are not even hers - she adopted them after their mother, the housekeeper Mrs Boxer who they despise - was sent to prison for murdering her husband.
"The Deterrent", by Charles Mander. Joseph and Muriel are strange people. Joseph spends all his time in front of the TV, Muriel spends all hers feeding their enormous dog, which has recently eaten their son. Joseph hasn't even noticed. An unsympathetic vet refuses to have the magnificent animal put down, even after it eats the TV repairman. When it gets loose and eats Muriel, Joseph is too busy watching his fixed TV to help.
"A Talk In The Park", by Alan Ayckbourn. Five people on
park benches talk pointlessly about themselves, while none of them listen.
FROM THE GROUP
Paul has, sadly, long since left the group. He had the unenviable task of producing this selection of short plays, which was rather dictated by our decision to enter the South Downs Drama Festival in March 1992. For that, we performed "From Five to Five-Thirty", but with limited resources available, there was no way to cast and rehearse a full-length play for April at the same time. The result was this: reusing the Festival entry and adding to it to give an evening's entertainment.
Unfortunately, there was very little demand for this format and we recorded our all-time lowest audience figures. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to perform the same thing so soon after the Festival, as a lot of people had already seen it, and the supporting material wasn't enough of a draw to bring them along again. A pity, as the plays were quite entertaining in themselves, but not an experiment we have any intention of ever repeating!
Mike - Stage Assistant
PREVIEWS & REVIEWS
Previews from the Worthing Herald, March/April 1992
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