Archives - June 1998

CHASE ME UP FARNDALE AVENUE, S'IL VOUS PLAIT
by David McGillivray & Walter Zerlin Jnr

Produced by Mary Frost

THE PLAY

Comedy - well, it's a Farndale! This is the fourth in the series featuring the Farndale Avenue Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society and it finds them no better at staging productions than on previous occasions.

The ladies, this time, are celebrating the twinning of their home town with one on the Riviera by putting on a continentally-flavoured drama with multiple intersecting love triangles. It doesn't go well. There is, frankly, no way to explain the plot - even if you were there with a script in your hand at the time - so we're not even going to try. It is funny, though: and the can-can finale is a work of demented genius.

FROM THE GROUP

YES, ANOTHER ONE!
This time the same group of ladies were attempting to enter the world of French farce for their next extravagant production. Having inveigled their hapless stage manager Gordon to take part, the ladies entered into the spirit of things with their usual incompetent enthusiasm. Everything, as always, goes wrong, from badly built sets to forgotten lines and missing props. Complete with musical numbers - espescially a discordant rendition of 'La Marseillaise' - the ladies press on regardless of the disasters befalling them. The whole thing ends with a raucous performance of the Can-Can.
With all our regular Farndale cast members available we were once more off and running. Our audiences seem to love these plays, even though every one is just a variation of the same theme, but after my sixth one (admittedly over a period of ten years) I think I am 'Farndaled' out!
Mary - Producer

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