Archives - April 1999

MIRANDA
by Peter Blackmore

Produced by Judith Greenfield

THE PLAY

Comedy, set in 1950s London. Sir Paul Marten returns from a deep sea fishing trip with a guest: a young lady, Miranda, he claims saved his life. Paul's wife Clare is a little suspicious, particularly since the young and attractive Miranda is confined to a wheelchair. Still, Miranda is a charming lady - even if Clare finds it hard to warm to her - and full of enthusiasm for seeing the sights of London.

Very quickly becoming the centre of attention, it is obvious that Miranda occupies the thoughts of all the men she meets: Charles the chauffeur, Nigel - Clare's friend Isobel's fiance - and even Sir Paul himself. Then Nigel, moved to the point of obsession and determined to paint Miranda's portrait, rows with Isobel and breaks off their engagement. When Charles does the same to his fiancee Betty, the housekeeper, Clare has to take action. Her first move is to repair relations between the broken couples - and then she confronts Paul and Miranda with a shrewd guess: that Miranda is actually a mermaid!
Once her secret is out, rather than have it publicly known, Miranda slips away into the Thames and heads for the open waters, leaving the Marten household to return to normality.

FROM THE GROUP

I had to trawl around in my archives to fish out memories of the one play I produced, Miranda by Peter Blackmore.
The review in The Herald said, "a delightful play, pleasantly produced", and I remember it as just that - a delightful and pleasant experience. Not least of all because the cast were top class and knew exactly what was expected of them. I had no directing to do, just the job of bringing the whole thing from buying the books to enjoying the performances. Oh, and making the mermaid's tail which poor Lyndsey tottered around in beautifully. The other thing was the vast amount of thunder, lightening, doorbells, ships sirens etc, etc, all of which went swimmingly.
As reported in the Shellfish Review, there was a "lobster" fun in this "whelk"-rafted play, it warmed the cockles of your heart.

Judith - Producer

I particularly remember this play for the opening night. On the way to the hall to open up, with our only key in my pocket, a taxi pulled out on me. Almost, but not quite, managing to miss him, what I actually did was smash up my motorcycle and knee. With little else in the way of options, I took his number, kicked the bike straight enough to ride and carried on. Any other play would have been fine (fine-ish, perhaps), but this one...this one had a mermaid in and she, of course, couldn't walk. So the script called for several fairly lengthy intervals of carrying Linz around the stage and out on to the balcony: she wasn't heavy, but by the end of the evening I was having a pretty hard time of walking too... That knee still gives me trouble when it's damp, which is, I suppose, appropriate enough!

Mike - Actor

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