A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS

A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS
Cameo Players at Hylands House

15.12.13

Cameo's long-established Christmas visit to Hylands House had a new look this year. A generous Selection Box of Delights included loads of new material, and musical offerings from Willow's Drum, Mark Barnard and Lyz Le Fay, whose seasonal repertoire ranged from Eartha Kitt to the Coventry Carol by way of the Kinks.

Lindsay Lloyd had put together a heart-warming collection of poems and prose looking at Christmas through the eyes of a child, as well as some pithy observations [and requests] from real kids.

There were Nativity Plays a-plenty, Mole End, Molesworth and Adrian Mole [this last] beautifully captured by Martin Lucas] Eat, Drink and Be Sick [Pam Ayres], Pooh and Piglet in the snow, Hogwarts, cracker jokes, Tolkien's letters from Father Christmas, Paddington Bear and the Five Pence Pudding and Just William's Christmas list.

American classics, too, like The Night Before Christmas and the New York Sun's Yes Virginia editorial, as well as Phyllis McGinley's clever poem about St Nicholas.

More thoughtful moments too: Vicki Tropman's reading of These Are The Greedy Days, and Lois Duncan's Christmas, Present, read by Lindsay Lloyd.

But we were sent home with a smile, thanks to Alan Titchmarsh's potted panto, narrated by Ken Rolf, with Tropman slapping thigh as Aladdin, Lloyd as Twankee, Rick Smith as the camp Genie, Lucas as part-time aerobics instructor Abanazer, and Caroline Ogden cheekily walking on as Cinders and Puss.

I saw the Ghost-of-Christmas Past
Glide by our lighted tree.
Her arms wee filled with dolls and toys,
And all were meant for me.
I sensed the rustle of her skirts.
Her blouse was trimmed with lace,
And when she turned to smile at me
She wore my mother's face.

Just as this vision slipped from sight
I heard my daughter call.
Wild footsteps clattered on the stair;
Shrill giggles filled the hall.
She burst into the gift- filled room
And squealed in glad surprise
And all the Christmases-to-come
Were mirrored in her eyes.

How swiftly fly the rainbow years,
Like splintered shafts of light,
As fragile as the gentle ghosts
Who whisper in the night.
I draw my child into my arms
And hold this moment fast
Against the time my face will be
Her Ghost-of-Christmas Past.

Lois Duncan

WHAT THE DICKENS

WHAT THE DICKENS

Three's Company at Hylands House

12.05.13

"Tongue; well that's a very good thing when it ain't a woman's ..."

Into the Drawing Room sweep three ladies, bringing with them the cream of Dickens' sixteen hundred characters, from Fagin to Miss Havisham, scattering choice quotations and loose pages from Bentley's Miscellany.

In a delicious entertainment, we hear a willing Barkis woo Peggoty by proxy, Mrs Nickleby musing on roast pig, and Mrs Jarley showing her wax-works to Little Nell.

A bibulous Sarey Gamp sets out her terms, Fanny Squeers has palpitations over Nickleby's legs, so straight, so strong, and little David Copperfield is swindled out of ale, chops and custard pudding by William the waiter at the White Hart in Yarmouth.

Three very talented actresses bring the novels to richly illustrated life – like Dickens' own public performances, these are no mere readings. Changing hats, coats, canes and weskits, they become the colourful characters we know and love. Most especially enjoyable, perhaps, the pompous, amorous Bumble in Mrs Corney's parlour, sipping sweet tea and stealing a kiss.

"Three's Company" – Diana Bradley, Sue Donald and Jan Ford – regularly perform to raise money for charities. This performance was given for The Friends of Hylands House.

THE DICKENS OF A VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS

THE DICKENS OF A VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS

Cameo Players at Hylands House

09.12.2012

"Mr Dickens dead ? Then will Father Christmas die too ?" Such was the identification of the merry-making with the "man who invented Christmas" in the popular Victorian mind.

Cameo Players' accomplished actors reminded us, in this year's Hylands House festivities, that many of the traditions we know and love were invented, or revived, in the nineteenth century, and most of them were celebrated in the works of Charles Dickens. Reeking punch, Mr Winkle getting his skates on, old Mrs Wardle and her ghost story, Fezziwig's ball, and a Christmas Carol, of course, with Alfred Knightbridge as Scrooge to the life.

Some less familiar, less Victorian pieces too. Particularly moving were Wendy Cope's The Christmas Life, read by Vicky Tropman, and Leonard Clark's Singing In The Streets, read by Lindsay Lloyd, who devised this seasonal anthology.

Music from Doublet maintained the atmosphere, with The Snow It Melts the Soonest, and Mr Wardle's very own Dingley Dell carol amongst the crackers on offer.

And a tongue-in-cheek finish, a doggerel panto version of A Christmas Carol, ["I promise you I will atone / Please scrub my name from off that stone!"] with John Peregrine wearing paper chains as Marley's Ghost, and tinsel as Christmas Past, Philip Wilson as Cratchit, Sarah Slaughter as Tiny Tim, Belle, and the Boy who fetches the prize turkey.

Bring in a tree, a young Norwegian spruce,
Bring hyacinths that rooted in the cold.
Bring winter jasmine as its buds unfold -
Bring the Christmas life into this house.

Bring red and green and gold, bring things that shine,
Bring candlesticks and music, food and wine.
Bring in your memories of Christmas past.
Bring in your tears for all that you have lost.

Bring in the shepherd boy, the ox and ass,
Bring in the stillness of an icy night,
Bring in the birth, of hope and love and light.
Bring the Christmas life into this house.

Singing in the Streets

I had almost forgotten the singing in the streets,
Snow piled up by the houses, drifting
Underneath the door into the warm room,
Firelight, lamplight, the little lame cat
Dreaming in soft sleep on the hearth, mother dozing,
Waiting for Christmas to come, the boys and me
Trudging over blanket fields waving lanterns to the sky.
I had almost forgotten the smell, the feel of it all,
The coming back home, with girls laughing like stars,
Their cheeks, holly berries, me kissing one,
Silent-tongued, soberly, by the long church wall;
Then back to the kitchen table, supper on the white cloth,
Cheese, bread, the home-made wine:
Symbols of the Night`s joy, a holy feast.

 And I wonder now, years gone, mother gone,
The boys and girls scattered, drifted away with the snow-flakes,
Lamplight done, firelight over,
If the sounds of our singing in the streets are still there,
Those old tunes, still praising:
And now, a life-time of Decembers away form it all,
A branch of remembering holly spears my cheek,
And I think it may be so;
Yes, I believe it may be so.

REBECCA

Cameo Players at Hylands House

05.06.11

The Cameo Players brought their Rebecca – already a success at Little Baddow – to Hylands House last week, in a polished production by Lindsay Lloyd.

Using only a minimal set – not, alas, the imposing staircase in situ - and no stage lighting, this implausible melodrama made a tremendous impact on capacity audiences.

Four great characters come together in the story. Maxim de Winter, the master of Manderley, bringing back his new bride, hoping to forget the past. Darren Matthews was a little young for the role, in truth, but he gave a searingly honest, strong performance, using his voice to suggest the pain behind the suave, stiff exterior. The second Mrs de Winter was played by Sara Thompson; the shy, mousy girl was touchingly suggested, and I liked the way her eyes shone when she hoped to surprise Maxim at the ball, or when she was determined to save him from the hangman's noose. But the foyer talk was all of the sinister Mrs Danvers, given a performance of depth and detail by Vicky Tropman. A still, brooding figure, she dominated the room with a look, a pause, an inflection, and later, as she descended into madness and mania, she obsessively adored the relics of her former mistress, the first Mrs de Winter. And lastly there is the house itself. The technical limitations are outweighed by the sense that these walls have known servants and sorrows, seen masked balls and maybe even murder.

Not all the other characters had much opportunity to shine, and such opportunities as they did have were not always taken. But I did enjoy Catherine Bailey's snobby, bitchy Beatrice, and I admired the uncomfortably intrusive presence of the rotter Jack Favell, stylishly played by Robert Bastian.

Like Thornfield, and Tara, the house is climactically consumed by fire. The moment cried out for special effects, but the impact was preserved by the now deranged Danvers silhouetted against the red glow, and by a glimpse of the shade of Rebecca running towards the West Wing and the oblivion of the flames.

THE TEMPEST

The Lord Chamberlain's Men at Hylands House
15.07.10

They stole their name, and their playtexts, from Shakespeare's own troupe, but they tap into a much older tradition: the travelling players who would set up a trestle stage and perform wherever they could count on an audience.

This autumnal piece began with “Neptune's Raging Fury” and other songs of the sea, shifting straight into a busy storm, nicely suggested by three ropes and a handbell.

Not much by way of staging; a scrap of playhouse, with an alcove, a balcony and a trapdoor. Not much subtlety vocally, either, in the struggle to make the words carry over “another storm brewing”.

But the rough magick of Prospero's Island survived, thanks to the manic Ariel of Craig Gordon – no “harmless fairy” he, never still, controlling the mortals with his dark charms, his concertina and his ethereal singing. Similarly garbed, Kristian Philips made a strong Caliban. Their bearded but youthful Prospero was Matt Bannister, who bade a grumpy farewell to his powers.

The comedy was excellent, especially from William Reay's drunken Geordie Butler, with much fun with the gaberdine and the fripperies.

This no-frills, seven-man, two-hour Tempest was directed for The Chamberlain's Men by Andrew Normington.