SYLVIA'S WEDDING
Writtle Cards
Cramphorn Theatre
26 June 2003


Vicars in anoraks, honeymoons in Fleetwood. We're in familiar comedy country here. But Writtle Cards have skipped Ayckbourn and Bennett in the dramatists' directory and ended up with Chinn.
It's a mixture of gentle comedy and pathos says director Bill Piggott. It's an insubstantial confection of caricature and cliché, we reply.
It wasn't badly done, but you'd need much harder work from a much better cast to squeeze laughs from these lame one-liners.
Liz Smith had the best of the a varied crop of Northern accents as the worldly-wise neighbour, and Peter McManus did a nice drunk routine as the hunky virgin who eventually marries his drippy betrothed - a senior sales executive with the Gas Board - played by Sarah Wilson. Jeremy Pruce kept his hat on throughout as the bigoted father-in-law-to-be, ably supported by an assured performance from Barbara Llewellyn.
I liked the split stage which came into its own in a strong final confrontation, and there were many promising moments - Yvonne eating crisps as she was fitted for a truly hideous frock, for example. But other opportunities, like her narrow escape from Stanley's randy hands, went for almost nothing.
In this, Writtle Cards 35th year, Wodehouse comes to the Village Hall in October in a brand new adaptation of Much Obliged Jeeves.

THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

Chelmsford Young Generation at the Cramphorn Theatre

27.12.01

Irita Kutchmy's musical version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was a good choice for CYGAMSChristmas show. It involves loads of youngsters, and is a popular, perennial story. It's been sold out for weeks.

Purists will not like the Disneyfied travesty of much of the plot and many of the characters, but these young actors, directed as ever by Ray Jeffery, went to enormous lengths to capture the period feel and the poetry. Generally, though, performers of all ages could usefully have projected a little more strongly.

On the opening night we saw the left-hand cast - of these, I greatly enjoyed Amelia Burns as Susan, and Keeley Allen as a warm, outgoing Lucy, looking and sounding just right as a feisty evacuee. Mr Tumnus the faun was neatly personified by Mitchell Raymond, who delivered his lines with feeling and moved with poise and grace. The White Witch was not well served by the script, but Helen Morris gave a strong panto performance, a worthy match for Paul Synott's majestic Aslan.

The production crowded the Cramphorn stage, but the wartime prologue was effective, and I liked the lamp-post and the snow like fondant icing over the rocks and trees. And despite the clunky lyrics and the forgettable tunes, the audience, like the visitors to Narnia, happily forgot all about the real world for a magical couple of hours.

HMS PINAFORE

Opera della Luna at the Civic Theatre

25.10.01

Baldrick and Lady Bracknell in one evening ? A chance not given to many actors, but seized gleefully by Graham Hoadly in Opera della Luna’s sparkling pocket Pinafore at the Civic last week.

Eight singers and five musicians worked with enthusiasm and panache to give us the essence of G&S - doubling Deadeye with a formidable Aunt was just one ingenious example of making a virtue of necessity - I also enjoyed the Overture sequence, and the exquisitely Victorian opening to Act II, leading into the Captain’s equally Victorian ballad.

Ian Belsey was the middle class captain, with Joseph Shovelton looking and sounding just right as the patriotic pleb. Sarah Ryan’s pure, if slight, soprano was well suited to Josephine, and Louise Crane made a strong bumboat woman. The reliable David Timson gave a hilarious First Lord, true to tradition and relishing every word.

Not all conventions were ignored - the trio, with its encores, was only slightly sent up - but Jeff Clarke’s stripped-down version, which was first launched on the QE2, made the most of the ridiculous class-ridden snobberies behind Gilbert’s original libretto, whilst preserving the period charms of Sullivan’s music.

PECULIAR PEOPLE

PECULIAR PEOPLE

Eastern Angles

Great Leighs Village Hall

06.03.1992

Jurors, first at inquest, then at manslaughter trial, we weighed the evidence for and against Essex’s Peculiar People.

This sect, which rejects conventional medicine, was born in l840. The trial of an elder, whose son died of diphtheria, took place in Chelmsford Assizes in 1907.

Today, the emotions of a century ago touch the lives of a young couple newly arrived from Putney.

This fascinating four-hander, written by Robert Rigby, had all the hallmarks of an Eastern Angles production. A local connection — the farm cottage is in Paglesham, near Rochford, brilliant use of music, composed by Pat Whymark - the historical back-ground was sung in four-part harmony, and a solo cello spanned the years and raised the ghosts — and superb ensemble work from a talented company.

The fanatical founder of the Peculiar People was Julian Harries. His conversion and subsequent self-doubt were among the strongest scenes in a powerful play. He was also the migrant yuppie of the 90s, searching for certainties of his own. The simple man who watched his child’s agony was played with quiet conviction by Leonard Webster, who also put in a lovely cameo as a sinful poacher. The women, strong in suffering, often doubting their menfolk’s wisdom, were Ali Walton as Jill, the 90s wife, and Oona Beeson as the mother of the dead boy.

This moving and thought-provoking play, directed by Ivan Cutting, is on the region’s roads for two more months. It’s worth travelling to see.

archive photo by Mike Kwasniak

a look back at 1986

Eric Ashley’s arts review of 1986
for the Essex Chronicle

[the gimmick here was to use the sub's headlines from the stories in the pick-of-the-year shortlist]

Year of successes

It’s not just narcissism that makes me turn to the Arts Page first over my Friday morning fruit juice.

I like to see what my colleagues have made of the shows I missed, and what has succumbed to the sub-editor’s pen.

The headlines hit you first, of course. (We don’t write those, by the way.)

As we look back over the year just past let’s remember what made the Arts Page headlines in I 986. from Busy Year Ahead in the first issue to Sad It's Over in the last. 

It was a year of successes at the box office, with Syd Lawrence Packed Again and Sell-out Fun for Young Gcn‘s Follow The Star. 

Geoff Sowden's music blew Hot and Strong in February. and the Junior Schools in July caused the usual Heatwave at The Civic. The Chelmsford Operatic and Dramatic Society's South Pacific was Action Packed. Latchingdon, always enterprising and inventive, worked miracles with Fiddler on the Roof, the World of Rock Music Socicty Engagingly Revived the 20s musical Mr Cinders,  and the dependable Moulsham Lodge played Key for Two At Spanking Pace while another review of the same farce was headlined Laughing Stock.

ln May there was a clash of G and S, when I took the unusual liberty of 'comparing' two productions at Witham and lngatestone in Road Testing the Yeomen.

84 Charing Cross Road had two local productions too - Impressive at Witham and a Model Of Accuracy at Little Baddow.

All The Leading Figures in Chelmsford music circles turned out in February to hear the superb Bochmann Quartet. They appeared again in Great Waltham last month as part of Andrew Fardell‘s Benjamin Britten concert, which also blended singers, soloists, orchestra and audience into Stirring Synthesis in the cantata Saint Nicolas. 

Troupe‘s Home was One of The Best in 20 Years, at the Mercury studio, and Red Shift's The Double was a Unique Experience at the Fold, Billericay. The Cream Of Societies previewed Robert and Elizabeth at the Civic before taking it to the Waterford Festival.

John Jordan made a rare public appearance in a Celebrity Recital in Chelmsford Cathedral, just after a week of inspired work At the Festival. including many nationally and internationally famous figures. Christopher Fry was commissioned to write a new play for the autumn Drama Festival. The result was Caedmon, which provided some truly Memorable Moments in the Cathedral.

Welcome Visit referred to a performance in the Cramphorn by The Twins and I, but it could equally well have introduced any one of a number of small-scale tours which came to the Civic’s studio auditorium — the controversial Joy Riders, Charlie Brown from the Mercury, and Snap's Far From The Madding Crowd which showed how successful an adaptation of a classic novel can he. 

Chelmsford Theatre Workshop had a Challenging Year - surely one of their most successful ever, culminating in the Rapturously Received Amadeus, preceded by The Glass Menagerie, Ghosts , and Present Laughter, not to mention Lark Rise, which allowed us to Eavesdrop on a Tiny Hamlet in July.

ERIC ASHLEY