GREAT EXPECTATIONS

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

06.11.2014

As Herbert Pocket might have pointed out to his protégé Pip, it is the custom in London society to wear the waistband somewhat higher …

In Ingatestone's production, directed by Lisa Mathews, Ian Russell makes an affable Pocket, and Sam Robinson-Thorley a believable blacksmith's boy turned gentleman. Strong Dickensian characterizations from David Pitchford as the convict Magwitch, William Wells as put-upon Joe Gargery and Jenny Godwin as an imperious, melodramatic Miss Havisham. Interesting doubling elsewhere, with David Linton playing both Jaggers and his clerk, and Vikki Luck both the women in Pip's affections.

Tim Murphy is Drummle, hardly on stage long enough to register, and the Aged Parent, bizarrely going through a pantomime of physical jerks before subsiding into his armchair.

Satis House and its world of shadows could have benefited from more atmospheric lighting, and the large stage could have been better used. It is effective to have scenes changed, characters metamorphosed, before our eyes; pity not to do it more instead of the tedious blackouts.

And if we can have a young Pip [nicely danced by Cameron Maddock to Rebecca Kerby's Estella] in a weird ballet to Lana del Rey, why not in the iconic graveyard scene ?

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Brentwood Shakespeare Company and Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

06.07.14

In the bosky brakes of Ingatestone Hall, a Dream that mingled the traditional and the iconoclastic. A large cast included many seasoned players, and Lisa Matthews' production for the Brentwood Arts Festival was not short of ideas.

Not least the attempt to get back to the spirit of Shakespeare's playhouse; indeed this could easily have been a [generously funded] troupe of itinerant actors pitching up at the Tudor Hall with a rough grasp of the drama, a trunk of assorted costumes and a dog or two to steal the odd scene. Hence their panic, perhaps, when Quince [Keith Morgan] mentions “tomorrow night”, and hence, for some, their shaky acquaintance with the text.

Breeze and aircraft are a challenge to the actor [though the vintage planes made a change from the police helicopters that plague Shakespeare's Globe]. Not everyone was audible all the time. Most successful in this regard were Elliott Porte's Theseus, and Nik Graham's amusingly narcissistic Lysander. And the scene between Sarah Thomson's Fairy and Chrissie O'Connor's charismatic Irish Puck was a model of crispness and clarity.

Assured comedy performances from David Lintin in his Del Boy Bottoms Up t-shirt, Ian Russell as an initially coy, later histrionic Flute, and June Fitzgerald as a lovely cuddly Snug the Lion. The lovers' spat was nicely done, and the fairies had some spectacular choreography to the eclectic score.

Chris Burr's acting edition [in the trim-and-rewrite tradition of the 18^th and 19^th century Shakespeareans] sets the action in prehistoric Britain [though the lovers looked pretty Athenian to me], and Mark Godfrey's blokish “Sandman” Oberon has some rough magick of his own; a pity, though, to rob Puck of her valediction for the sake of some Wiccan silliness ...

NEVILLE'S ISLAND

NEVILLE'S ISLAND

Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

24.05.13

We're all having to work longer these days – I bet some of these middle managers would rather look forward to a gold watch than a "Business Outbound" bonding weekend on Derwentwater.

Tim Firth's "comedy in thick fog" has moved with the times, I see. But even a state-of-the-art Blackberry with GPS is little use once the last battery bar has faded.

Mark Godfrey's production for Ingatestone and Fryerning boasts a well cast quartet of castaways: Tony Szalai is the annoying know-it-all Neville, Martin Reynolds the insensitive Gordon, sarcastic and negative, Duncan Hopgood Angus, in his camouflage gear, with most of the stock of the survival shop stuffed into his backpack. And Roy Hobson is the god-bothering birdwatcher whose superb treetop soliloquies are a hint of the weird ending to come.

"Office sociology – Lord of the Flies" – neatly sums up the theme, as 21^st century values are abandoned and figurative fridges are cleaned out.

On the broad stage – shame not to share Rampsholme Island in the round – we have rocks, water and an impressive tree stage right. Some of the set pieces work very well – the sausage sequence, the distant disco boat – others, maybe through hesitancy or insecurity, less so, like Gordon's attack on Roy's religion.

But, from Bilk to Verdi, a telling blend of lighter and darker moments, with the four orienteers giving their all for the team on this muddy, bloody fight for survival.

THE GHOST TRAIN

Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

12.11.10

For authenticity's sake, I arrived by rail. Ingatestone Station, Grade II listed, is every bit as interesting as the fictional Fal Vale Junction, though its waiting room is less palatial.

Mel Hastings' delightful production boasted several impressive period characterizations: Ben Salmon's Charlie Murdock, Duncan Hopgood's rustic stationmaster, Emma Moriaty's troubled Julia, wearing the loveliest frock amongst some excellent costumes. Boorish “caveman” Winthrop was well sustained by Gary Catlin, with Chrissie Mallett equally good as the wife he's about to leave.

Nick Lupton, as silly-ass-in-spats Teddie Deakin was a constant delight, every chortle, every utterance, every move absolutely in character, though as the last few minutes reveal, not as asinine as he appears … And Pam Hemming was magnificent as Miss Bourne, the formidable maiden lady who's unused to brandy. I treasure the meal she made of the word “linoleum”.

Sound, light and special effects all conspired to make a stylish production, though polythene in the windows did not seem an ideal solution.

Arnold Ridley's remote, underused Cornish halt, immortalized on stage in the early 20s, seems to have survived the Beeching Axe and the demise of Bradshaw; Ingatestone's enjoyable revival reminds us why it's still scheduled by theatre companies of all kinds.

THE LADY IN THE VAN

Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

29.05.10

Miss Shepherd took refuge in Alan Bennett's driveway in 1974, just temporarily - “three months at the outside”. She died there in 1989, still in the van, still on his driveway.

Bennett chronicled her sojourn in Camden Town twice, first in a memoir, then as a play, and it was this bittersweet comedy that Ingatestone and Fryerning chose for their Spring production.

Jan Ford was a superb vagrant. Swaggering, scratching, flapping her arms, hunched in her wheelchair, sporting her trademark cap, she was totally convincing physically, and with impressive vocal variety and immaculate comic timing skilfully moved the mood of the piece from farce to tragedy in a memorable portrait of this exasperating, pathetic “soul in torment”, tragically excluded from the mansion of her music.

She was well supported by two Bennetts – Alan Thorley mostly deskbound as the Writer, and Mel Hastings as the hands-on Householder.

Among the other roles, I enjoyed Angel Beckett's non-judgemental Social Worker, and Brian Terry as the brother who had Miss Shepherd put away in Banstead.

I found the lighting strangely flat, and not all the props were as appropriate as the phone and the Olivetti, but Graham Poulteney's production had many telling touches, for example emphasising the comparisons between Mam [Jenny Godwin] and the other deluded Lady, in the Van.