STEEL MAGNOLIAS

STEEL MAGNOLIAS

Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre

15.05.2015

Robert Harling's bitter-sweet comedy is set in a cosy Chinquapin beauty parlour – all the action, the tragedy and the farce, happens off-stage. The ladies of the neighbourhood use Truvy's as refuge and group therapy, while outside spring turns to winter.

Jonathan Scripps' feel-good production is set in a beautifully realised salon - “luxurious without being sleazy”: lilac paintwork, hood dryers and women's magazines.

Shelby – a spot-on characterization from Sonia Lindsey-Scripps, southern drawl and all – is being titivated for her pink-themed Princess Grace wedding. Her mother [Pam Hemming] fusses, huffs and interferes. Nervous newbie Annelle [warmly characterized by Saira Plane] clearly has a past to hide. Larger than life characters breeze in and out – Ouiser, in a bad mood for forty years, is grumpily played by Lynda Shelverton. Clairee, elegant, big shoulders, big hair, is wonderfully done by Madeline Harmer. Like Marcia Baldry-Bryan's feisty Truvy, she nails the sharp Southern wit and the crisp one-liners – I think it's to do with the eyes … Truvy has some of the best quips, including my favourite, “the nicest thing I can say about her is all her tattoos are spelled correctly”.

On opening night, there was some hesitancy and a few fluffed lines, but, though we weren't always convinced that we were in Louisiana, there was a palpable sense of community and camaraderie amongst these six ladies, well served by excellent ensemble playing. So that when the tear-jerker ending comes, with M'Lynn reliving her “most precious moment” at her daughter's bedside, the wave of shared sympathy embraces the audience, too. As Truvy says, “laughter through tears – my favourite emotion”.

The traditional Greville supper featured apple pie and a superb salmon salad – alas, no dago pie or Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa cake: never mind, here's the recipe, courtesy of http://www.southernfatty.com/

Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa Cake

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup flour, self-raising

1 cup sugar (I prefer vanilla sugar!)

1 cup fruit cocktail with the juice

ice cream, to cut the sweetness (optional, but encouraged)

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

Mix all ingredients together until well-combined.

Bake in greased pan or skillet until gold and bubbly, about 40-45 minutes.


production photograph: Adrian Hoodless

WE HAPPY FEW

WE HAPPY FEW

Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre, Little Easton

24.10.2014

Imogen Stubbs, a much-loved actress, got a cold critical reception for her début as a playwright, despite a starry cast and a world-class director.

What a pity, since We Happy Few has much to commend it, not least its theme, which is inherently theatrical.

Unfortunately it is long, wordy, uneven and dramatically incoherent.

It tells the fascinating story of the Artemis Players – the real-life Osiris Players thinly disguised – women whose war effort is to tour Shakespeare around Britain in their “nunnery on wheels”, a 1922 Rolls. The period detail [as in Harwood's The Dresser] is evocative: hessian costumes, spirit gum and Glenn Miller. Director Jonathan Scripps and his experienced cast successfully reduce the play to manageable proportions, and produce an amusing, often touching, ensemble piece.

The powerhouse behind Artemis is the formidable Hetty Oak [Pam Hemming], secretly pining for her long-lost “darling boy” and bravely rallying her motley troops. It is she who, movingly, quotes Prospero at the end, and turns out the light as the curtain falls.

Outstanding among her rag-bag company are Carol Parradine's Flora Pelmet, the co-founder of the troupe. Her heart-rending monologue about her brother Toby is wonderfully done, though it sits awkwardly in the action. Rough-and-ready mechanic Charlie [Lynda Shelverton] has a sapphic Sarah Waters moment with Rosalind [Sonia Lindsey-Scripps], who is relentlessly quashed by her awful mother [Jan Ford] – a hard-drinking, chain-smoking faded pro – Coral Browne rather than Joan Crawford springs to mind. Ford also contributes a priceless cameo, trying out for Titus in the entertaining audition sequence. And Amanda Thompson excels as Ivy, the Brummie housemaid who's cajoled onto the Shakespearean stage.

Marcia Baldry-Bryan is Jocelyn, the stage manager, and Judy Lee is a “batty old lady” as well as a Jewish refugee in an unconvincing subplot.

The simple, versatile set is dressed with swags of colourful costume and a frieze of footwear over the lintel.

“The fewer men, the greater share of honour” … There are two chaps in the cast, though: Adam Thompson as the refugee son, and Rodney Foster working hard to good comic effect in three lesser roles.

The first night audience was positive and enthusiastic – proof perhaps that, given a good play doctor, the piece could yet be the hit that Stubbs must have been hoping for.

photograph by Adrian Hoodless

QUARTET

QUARTET

Greville Theatre Club

The Barn Theatre Little Easton

24.05.2014

Mary Redman was at Table D in the Barn ...

Ronald Harwood is well known for his accurate portraits of life upon the wicked stage such as The Dresser. This affectionate picture of life in a genteel retirement home for geriatric professionals, though peppered with theatrical injokes that were new long before Noel Coward was a boy actor, is great fun for audience and cast alike. Sample black joke about “being the guest of honour at the crematorium”.

Against the background of a cosy but elegant set designed by Jan Ford and directed by Pam Hemming, four of Essex's most experienced thespians assembled for curtain up. All playing retired opera singers who had appeared on stage together years ago.

We were treated to not just an entertainment but a lesson in growing older. Either gracefully or disgracefully, depending on whether they still had most of their marbles or had lost a few over the years, plus how nimble their limbs had remained.

Ramrod straight and smartly besuited Mel Hastings's grumpy Reginald's prim and proper, pedantic and governed by rules person, bitterly resented his treatment by the care staff on whom he wasted his vitriolic anger.

His more urbane, sex maniac fellow inmate Wilfred was given a roistering performance by Michael Gray. He created plenty of laughs from the word go with his character's delight in his own jokes and with his lecherous leanings towards Jan Ford's delightfully dotty and simple Cissie. This was a beautifully restrained performance. Wilfred's lasciviousness now confined by age to verbal “attacks” only, but resembling in looks the modern comic actor Kris Marshall. It was very good to see Michael in a comedy role so hopefully this won't be his last swansong.

Into this settled situation came an intruder. Diana Bradley's oh-so-elegant Jean, once married to Reginald and horrified by the ravages of age. With her cool exterior she came trailing ex-husbands in her wake, including of course the resentful Reggie.

They were then asked to come out of retirement to appear at a concert which led to much twittering in the dovecot but was successfully resolved with hidden modern technology.

Sound by Steve Bradley was excellently timed especially when a Doppler effect was needed as a door opened and closed on a rehearsal. It was a pity that Richard Pickford's lighting was pooled so that as the cast stood up and moved around their faces went from light into shadow.

This was a thoroughly entertaining evening. Thank you Greville.

production photograph by Adrian Hoodless

DON'T LOOK NOW

DON'T LOOK NOW

Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre, Little Easton

01.11.13

Du Maurier's short story made a controversial, cult film. It does not transfer quite so well to the stage.

Neil Leyshon's version has countless short scenes, making it hard to establish a mood.

But Chris Plumridge's production for Greville did achieve several effective moments, and told the story, such as it is, with admirable economy and clarity.

The grey stage and the monochrome backdrop focused attention on the characters, and the action moved swiftly from hotel to canal-side to cathedral; a minimum of furniture was swiftly reset – and could have been done in low light rather than black.

“There are things out there that we can't see ...”. “Don't look now!” is a recurrent refrain. The psychic powers in this tale are not confined to the two mysterious sisters, but seem to be shared by the outwardly stoical John, bringing Laura back to Venice ten years after their honeymoon, desperate to come to terms with the loss of their young daughter to meningitis.

Like Aschenbach, he's repeatedly warned to leave the city, a danger to tourists suggested but hushed up by authorities fearful of their profits.

Adam Thompson ably suggested the conflict within his character, although he appears to be written as more stiff-upper lip, colonial-old-school than he came across here; a more expressionless, buttoned-up characterization might have made a better contrast with Carol Parradine's needy Laura, agonising over her lost daughter and her young son, lying sick back at school in England. Parradine's performance was gripping, a moving mixture of guilt and grief.

Excellent work too from the Old Ladies – Marcia Baldry-Bryan and Jan Ford – who did much to conjure the sad, sinister atmosphere. Mixed fortunes, though, for the Italian character roles which provide local colour and move the plot along.

The sound – salon musicians, ghostly voices – enhanced the production; the hallucinated voices in the nightmare sequence were less successful, partly because they were not well reproduced. Better, surely, to have the actors do this live, perhaps turning away for the “unreal” lines. I'm sure the production would have liked to use more sophisticated lighting, and it would have helped to create the dark alley, say, or to keep the weird sisters in sombre shadow.

I liked the red-cloaked figure on the staircase, though the final effect was compromised by not having a tiny shape luring John to his death. The Act One ending was genuinely chilling, and the triptych of grief, which occurs twice, was beautifully realized.

WHAT LARKS !

WHAT LARKS !

Greville Theatre Club at the Three Horseshoes

28.07.13

An agreeably nostalgic evening in the garden of the Three Horseshoes, with poems, spoofs and sketches performed by those talented actors from the Greville, directed by Jan Ford.

She also compiled this "pot-pourri" – something borrowed, something blue – which included literary giants from Jane Austen to Pam Ayres.

A strong start from Carrie Craig as a loquacious lady who gushes over a hapless passer-by [Steve Bradley] whom she takes to be her childhood sweetheart.

Some of the acts were weaker, whiskerier, than that, though it's always nice to be reminded of Gert and Daisy [a beautifully timed Joan and Joyce from Jan Ford and Diana Bradley] or those Hornographic picturehouse parodies ["Dropping Them Over Dover" – a stiff-upper-lip wartime saga with Carol Parradine and Adam Thompson]. We even had an all too brief glimpse of Kitty's Slot, the Victoria Wood/Pat Routledge monologue revived here by Pam Hemming.

Parradine and Thompson also played in Deaf Sentence, moments from the David Lodge novel, very deftly adapted. He sported a villainous moustache to play the cock-sure Corder in what must be the millionth pastiche of Maria Marten, nicely staged. Still almost virgin territory for the parodist, Fifty Shades was re-imagined in gruesomely geriatric guise, and the evening ended with a Carry On Austen travesty, set in Netherparts Hall, complete with candelabra, with Nicholas Blackwell's oleaginous Collins amongst the plucky players.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre Little Easton

30.05.13

Oscar Wilde's "trivial comedy" is very well received by the "serious people" of rural Essex – gales of laughter, and knowing anticipation of more than one classic riposte.

Production values are high. The costumes look substantial and stylish, from Aunt Augusta's brocade to Gwendolen's cerise gown to Algy's garb of woe to the Canon's gaiters. The set is simple – pale Aesthetic green – with added trellis for the Woolton garden, and an impressive quick change to the Morning Room.

Nine actors from the Greville rep bring Oscar's words to life. Urbane, poker-faced Lane [Rodney Foster] and his country cousin Merriman [Steve Bradley]. Miss Prism, delicious in her mortification, is Judy Lee; Chasuble, her metaphorical admirer is richly, ripely drawn by Peter Nicholson.

The quartet of lovers: Jonathan Scripps' smug, smiling Jack, sartorially stunning in his Act One suit, could clearly give some tailoring tips to his wicked friend Moncrieff [Adam Thompson], Wilde-eyed with a hint of the Mad Hatter. And a deft deliverer of his many epigrams.

Sonia Lindsey-Scripps – like a pink rose – as fun-loving Cecily, and Carol Parradine as Gwendolen, her supercilious look, her insincere smile reminiscent of Dame Maggie in her prime; she will clearly become like her mother, superbly depicted by Jan Ford, the glances, the inflections, the timing, the eloquent body language making a satisfyingly rounded character. Her "handbag" more rueful than outraged.

Occasionally lines were lost to laughter, but the pace is lively, the staging inventive. The synchronised shock reaction on "Your brother!", and the girls drawing together for the "wounded, wronged" reconciliation just two examples of effective ensemble.

The Importance was directed and produced for The Greville by Marcia Baldry and Diana Bradley.

BIRTHDAY HONOURS

BIRTHDAY HONOURS

The Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre Little Easton

01.11.12

They're the microwave meals of the theatre world – shunned by connoisseurs and professionals, not really very satisfying, stuffed with familiar ingredients and unsubtle seasoning, yet strangely popular. These light comedies and thrillers are often well crafted, and enjoyable in an undemanding way. Rather like Light Music, represented at the Greville by Bob Farnon's apposite Portrait of a Flirt, curtain music which placed this rare revival firmly in the 50s, when Paul Jones's potboiler had its brief heyday at the Criterion.

And if you're going to revive this kind of piece, you couldn't do much better than this painstaking reconstruction of a style rarely encountered outside Round the Horne.

The deep set was solid and convincing, though not always evenly lit. And the costumes [Judy Lee] were superb, especially perhaps Mrs Titheradge's Act One outfit.

This formidable "femme fatale" was deliciously done by Rita Vango; an object lesson in timing an exit line and delivering all her cutting remarks as if they were Wilde.

The other stand-out performance was Peter Simmons' endocrinologist. Genial, suave, sophisticated, he handled his two-timing wife with unfailing courtesy, but always with a hint of the turmoil beneath the surface. I loved the way he calmly poured tea, and the way he delivered the not very funny egg-cosy line.

Marcia Baldry was his "dazzling piece of tinsel", Adam Thompson the dashing silly-ass object of her affections. Their emotional farewell – "one brief kiss and then oblivion" – was very enjoyably overdone. Two unsatisfied ladies completed the cast: Lynda Shelverton as the surgeon's besotted secretary, and Sonia Lindsey-Scripps excellent as the dowdy sister [memorably sucking lemon slices] who finally gets her man.

An "echo of a bygone age", middle-class postwar mores played for laughs. Steve Braham's production was stylish and polished, though the words were less secure than one might have hoped in the second week, and the cut-glass RP accent was not universally mastered.

But as enjoyable a glass of gin and sherry as you will find on the amateur stage, much appreciated by the capacity audience in the Little Easton Barn.

SALT OF THE EARTH

SALT OF THE EARTH

Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre Little Easton

25.05.12

This is Godber in heritage mode; an autobiographical plod through the postwar years, ending in the miners' battle with Thatcher in the 80s, when the piece was written.

I'm not sure that linear chronology, with characters flagging up the year in slightly forced narration, is the most potent dramatic device. But the Greville's remarkable revival, produced and directed by Jan Ford, made the most of the play's undoubted strengths.

The music, for instance, those "old time records", 78s up in the attic, was effectively used – from The Trolley Song to Bowie – and the set, with exquisite simplicity, echoed the misty-eyed view of the pits, with flying ducks, replaced by Paul's graduation portrait, the only ornament [design by Richard Pickford and Steve Bradley].

The story centres on the Parker sisters, and traces their parallel lives from flirty dances at the Welfare Hall to frosty silence and isolation. Carol Parradine and Diana Bradley both gave outstanding performances in these demanding roles. The accent, the attitude, the clothes [Judy Lee] were all impressively convincing: Annie's raw grief as she hears of her husband's death, May's stormy love/hate relationship with her son, the writer, were strongly delineated in wonderfully sustained character work.

Their menfolk, the miners, were Adam Thompson as the father, stoically loyal to the NCB even as it destroyed his health, and Chris Kearney as Roy, killed underground just as his dream of a paper shop is about to come true.

Social mobility is one of the themes of the piece; Paul, good with words, several degrees at Sussex, leaves home, his friends and his childhood sweetheart for the Big Smoke. He had too much narration for my taste, but was engagingly played by Jonathan Scripps, who had a good feel for Godber's wry humour. Kay, the girl he left behind, was excellently done by Sonia Lindsey-Scripps. The moment, at the Silver Wedding, when she first realised that her mortgage and her microwave were no substitute for her "Milk Tray Man" was typical of a meticulous exploration of this contradictory character; there was plenty of fun, too, with early fumblings to the sound of paso doble, and the alluring promise of a taste of her Terry's Chocolate Oranges...

She also played the mysterious Cherry, the metropolitan girl who replaces Kay in Paul's affections.

Chris Plumridge was the laddish Tosh [né Edward], and Lynda Shelverton played a couple of northern neighbours.

This production was typically painstaking – I admired the stage pictures – May's first entrance with the [? Silver Cross] pram just one example – and the freezes – Harry picking up his feet for May's Bex Bissell.

The young women shouting down through the rock to their men in the mine was followed by a nicely expressionistic scene underground.

And at the end, what ? May and Harry turn sixty ["wi' nowt to look forward to"]. They share the domestic chores, he does his DIY, but there'll be no more Paris or Yugoslavia, we suspect, as her illness and her paranoia take hold. Estranged son Paul turns up on her birthday, with Cherry, an olive branch and a red rose. But she'll have none of it, and retires to her room. Then, in a strange coda, the sisters, long separated by a political tiff, are reunited; the trip to the Carvery, and the southern girlfriend, are embraced in what I suspect is an ironic happy ending, with the dramatist as deus ex machina. No such optimism for the coal industry, which seemed to believe almost to the ignominious end that "people'll always need coal". I don't know what became of the Astoria, but this Welfare Hall is, happily, now a thriving Playhouse, with Pygmalion playing this week.

Salt of the Earth's run at the Greville had sold out before opening night, testament to the reputation of the Greville and its unique auditorium, if not to the pulling power of Big John Godber.

HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES

HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES

Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre Little Easton

03.11.11

This early Ayckbourn was a huge success at the time, and has remained popular ever since.

In a typically clever staging, it takes a wry look at relationships, superimposing two living rooms and two dinner parties, as ordinary mortals practise to deceive.

Greville, in John Richardon's assured production, rose to the challenge admirably, helped by an ingenious set[Richard Pickford and Steve Bradley] and impressive period detail [the wallpaper, the Ewbank, the all-important phones, the polo-neck shirt].

They fielded an experienced sextet of actors who between them recalled much of the best British comedy acting of the decades since 1969 – shades of Pythons, hints of Little Britain.

David Bone was the “hopeless” Frank, unable to complete the most basic task or the simplest sentence, with Madeline Harmer effortlessly elegant as his “rich old boot” of a wife. She's having a fling with the awful MCP Bob [a very convincing, nuanced character from Steve Braham], who's married to sulky, dozy Terri [the excellent Carol Parradine, wonderful as she reached the end of her tether as she knocked back the dinner party vino]. The seventh character, thankfully never seen except in photographic form, is ”big, fat, spoilt” baby Benjamin.

The dinner party guests – the slightly creepy Featherstones – were played by Jonathan Scripps as William, and Sonia Lindsey-Scripps superb as the nervy Mary. Her portrayal was faultlessly sustained, and she got a well-deserved round on her exit line.

The set pieces were done with confident aplomb, and while I can imagine a production in the tenth week of a national tour achieving an even slicker pace and rapider repartee, we had nothing but admiration for the carefully crafted climaxes, the parallel menus, the phone quartet at the end, and of course the conflation of two dinner parties from hell, with the famous stage direction “William and Mary swivel”.

How The Other Half Loves was produced by Jan Ford, and directed by John Richardson, who sadly died very suddenly on Sunday 23rd October.

Greville dedicated the performances to his memory, and their tribute read, in part:

JR as he was affectionately known, was one of the kindest of men and contributed fully to so many aspects of our productions.

John was keen to direct "How The Other Half Loves" and was totally committed to the enterprise. We know that he would have wanted us to complete his handiwork and present his vision to our audiences. We will all miss him greatly.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

The Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre Little Easton

03.06.11

“There may be trouble ahead ...” a cheekily anachronistic Tin Pan Alley commentary punctuated Rita Vango's production of this classic Russian farce. Other theatrical touches I admired were the retreat to the gallery of most of the cast, and the monologues to the audience. The beautifully designed programme was great, too.

Nick Dear's adaptation added some ripe language to Ostrovsky's text – think Chekhov done by the cast of East Enders.

The Dickensian characters were mostly well served by the Greville actors; certainly the audience were audibly amused throughout. Were there an award for the most convincing looking Russian, it would have to go to Rodney Foster's Tishka, closely followed by Adam Thompson as Lazar, the timid clerk who reaches the top by wedding the boss's daughter and cashing in on his cunning plan to cheat his creditors.

The shameless Lipochka, who dreams of marrying a military man but is too old for the village idiot, was played for all she was worth by Carol Parradine; her grizzly old bear of a father, a martyr to piles and ulcers, was the excellent Chris Kearney. Good comedic performances too from Marcia Baldry as the Matchmaker, and Steve Braham as the dipso solicitor Sysoy.

“Be content with what you've got” is the message here, since all the swindling schemes come to nothing, and the cast reassembles for the final curtain - “Let's face the music and dance ...”