Challenging year for Workshop

Chelmsford Theatre Workshope goes into 1986

1986 will be a challenging year for Chelmsford Theatre Workshop. Now the facelift is practically finished, they can channel their energy into productions.

The season to come includes the long-awaited Amadeus, Ibsen’s Ghosts and Coward’s Present Laughter. And regular workshop sessions [currently on Shakespeare’s Othello] youth group and members’ evenings.

A convivial group of members whiled away the waiting for the turn of the year with a neat little review called Odds and Ends ‘85.

Much of the material dated from the heyday of the genre, when Alan Melville was the last word in satire and the Lord Chamberlain’s Office rules the West End.

The watershed Beyond the Fringe was represented by The End of the World and Alan Bennett’s classic Take a Pew. Mr Bennett also contributed The English Way of Death, a no-nonsense Northern look at cremation, faithfully rendered by Mona Wright.

Tom Morris did Brian Thompson’s wicked fantasy about pot-smoking at a Silver Wedding, as well as a naughtly monologue, with mime, called Benjy the Robot Wire-Walker. Amongst other rare delights were David Madams in drag, courageously recalling Coward’s Waiting in the Wings, Sheila Lauder in the Loo at the Ritz and Alan Maryon as a lubricious old lawyer in Jealous Judge.

If you’re thinking of joining CTW at the Old Court, either as a member or as a member of the audience, ring Secretary Barbara Newton on Chelmsford ****** - you’ll be made very welcome.