 |
|
Comedy. Elly Brewer and Sandi Toksvig The Henry Irving Strolling Players (HISP) Memorial Theatre are to
present a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream but when
the majority of the cast walk out and the house manager can't refund
the audience's money (because it's riding on a dog) desperate measures
need to be taken by the stage manager and anyone else she can find
to step into the breach! ' ... the audience laughed like mad ...
and were happy to help in the gags impressed on them from the stage.
It's like a springtime pantomime.' Financial Times Allan Cubitt : Drama The award-winning first play from the author of TV's Prime Suspect
2 and The Countess Alice has been likened to a Whose
Life is it, Anyway? for the 1990's. Dr Daniel Pearce, a
surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital, diagnoses himself as suffering
from a brain tumour. The tumour brings on hallucinations, and Pearce's
fascination with Hogarth's painting of Christ healing the sick
at the pool of Bethesda (which hangs in the Great Hall of the hospital)
manifests itself in his dreams. Shifting between the present day
and the 18th century Hogarthian world, Pearce imagines himself
as a doctor at St Bart's asked by Hogarth to pose as Christ for
his painting. But weighed down by his own failure to cure his patients
or even himself, his dream takes the shape of a comic nightmare.
Returning to his own 20th century world, Pearce tries to come to
terms with his illness and the feelings of betrayal, guilt, fear
and despair that affect not only himself, but also his wife, sister
and colleagues at the hospital. The result is a play bursting with
ideas, spiky dialogue, warm humour and remarkable images, one of
the most exceptional plays of recent years. Vanessa Brooks Based on incidents contained in Samuel Pepys' famous diary, Poor
Mrs Pepys spans an eleven year period between 1658 and 1669,
taking in both the Black Death and the Great Fire and creating
a vibrant picture of seventeenth century London brimming with intrigue,
danger and disease. We first meet the young Elizabeth Pepys shortly
after a reconciliation with her husband following a two year separation,
just as his career is taking off. Forced to contain her own dark
secrets in a highly-charged atmosphere of political and religious
fervour and desperately longing for the child she knows Samuel
will never allow her, she begins keeping a diary of her own. Elizabeth's
observations of events in and around the Pepys' household are quickly
seen to be in stark and uproarious contrast to those chronicled
by her more illustrious spouse. Play. Ben Elton Set in the Beverly Hills home of Tarantino-style, Oscar-winning,
movie director Bruce Delamitri, Popcorn is a satirical comedy thriller
that took the West End by storm. Notorious killers Wayne and Scout
interrupt Bruce and Brooke Daniels (nude model and actress) intending
to use Bruce's 'art' as justification for murder. Events are disrupted
with the arrival of Karl (Bruce's producer) and Farrah Delamitri
(Bruce's soon-to-be-ex-wife) with spoilt daughter, Velvet. But Wayne
means to succeed - whatever the cost. Play. Dario Fo. Edited by Franca Rame. Translated by Ed Emery The Vatican is the target of this fast and furious satire. The Pope is to give his first world televised press conference but is suffering from acute paranoia and nervous paralysis. Enter Elisa, the 'witch' of the title, who alone seems to have the power to cure the Pope. Visiting her drug clinic he is so impressed that he issues a papal encyclical with startling global results. Comedy. Murray Schisgal. As the play begins Chuck Popkin, an underpaid assistant editor,
is greeted by his wife, Claudia, with the unsettling news that she
is leaving him, not for another man but for another woman, Eleanor
Lipton in the public relations department. Shortly thereafter his
boss, Mr. Barnaby, tells him that his services are no longer required,
although he does offer one slim ray of hope if the meek Chuck is
man enough to take the risk involved. As it happens, a certain cold-blooded
criminal known as "The Cobra," now serving time in the State Prison,
is also an exceptional (if primitive) writer, but he refuses to talk
with agents or publishers about his work Chuck's assignment is to
get himself put in jail, befriend "The Cobra," and persuade him to
let Barnabys firm publish his book. To everyone's surprise the plan
not only works but does so with such success (thanks to Chuck's romantic
involvement with "The Cobra") that Chuck ends up taking over the
company. Meanwhile Claudia's liaison with Eleanor is not working
out quite as happily as expected, so she leaves her to move in with
two Costa Rican house painters and then to decamp with Stanley Hitzig,
a free spirit who dresses like a Viking and who sets Claudia up in
the real estate business in California. When Chuck and Claudia eventually
get together again they are, to put it mildly, changed people, but,
as the play ends, they decide to give it another go - this time,
no doubt, to replace their former mistakes with even more antically
outrageous new ones. Drama. Robert Bloomfield Eliot and his mistress tried to kill Eliot's wife Paula but succeeded
only in giving her amnesia. Paula's personality seems changed; now
she is charming and considerate. Paula is once again involved in
another accident and reverts back to being as unpleasant as she used
to be. Are there two Paulas? Gradually a cunning masquerade unfolds. Play. William Douglas Home Augustus John's ability as a portrait artist won him the admiration
of fellow artists, public recognition and the Order of Merit. This
play presents various points in this Bohemian artist's turbulent
life from 1944-1961 through a reconstruction f sittings with three
of his subjects. 'This charming, literate ... and often touching
study of the man who invented Bohemianism ... splendid dialogue from
William Douglas Home ... one of the best plays to hit the West End
in some time.' Time Out Play. April de Angelis Miranda is a social worker, with no shortage of problems herself. Her best friend, Emma, is a failed artist having a mid-life crisis; her partner, Roger, is a frustrated academic, desperately trying to finish his book on Hegel. Personal problems are exacerbated by work and, especially, Miranda's relationship with Paula, an unemployed single mother who takes up prostitution to survive. Funny and disturbing, The Positive Hour brings issues of gender and sexuality into a new, modern context. Farce. Derek Benfield A sequel to Wild Goose Chase. In the ancestral home the
nerve-shattered Chester is again menaced by his old enemies Capone
and Wedgwood. In the flower beds Lord Elrood lurks with his shotgun
ready to repel attacks by the butcher's boy, the postman and other
desperate characters. Through the ancestral living-room wander Maggie
and Bert, come for two-and-sixpence-worth of gawp and suitably awe
struck by the goings-on of the country-house set. Play. Graham Greene James Callifer, long estranged from his family, returns home to his dying father. He learns there that as a boy he had hanged himself in the potting shed, but had been cut down and 'resurrected'. It transpires his father had lost his agnosticism and as a result James's mother had disowned her son - who was a living proof that a 'miracle' had occurred in his past. Play. Ellen Dryden Vivien, an English teacher, is about to become headmistress of another school, thus leaving Lisa, her difficult but bright protegée, stranded without her inspiration. When Lisa takes violent action to express her unhappiness, Vivien is shocked out of her usual detached emotional state into an understanding of the consequences of her actions, which have affected all her relationships, including that with her crippled mother. |