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Celebration.
Comedy. Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall The Wedding and The Funeral
make up the two parts of this comedy in which we are
introduced to the same family, first making preparations for
a wedding and subsequently, six months later, returning from
the funeral of their Uncle Arthur, a loveable personality
who provides the link between the two plays. The
Cemetery Club. Play.
Ivan Menchcll Ida, Lucille and Doris are part of a club- the cemetery club. Every month they meet at Ida's New York house for tea, then trundle off to the cemetery to remember the good times and gossip with their late husbands. Sam, a butcher, meets the widows at the cemetery while he is visiting his wife's grave and changes their lives forever. This touching play about three superannuated, feuding Jewish women is funny, wise and gloriously witty. The
Chalk Garden. Play.
Enid Bagnold The chalk garden which totally defeats
Mrs St Maugham's attempts to cultivate it is symbolic of her
failure with her daughter and her granddaughter. Then Miss
Madrigal, a hired companion, takes charge. 'We eavesdrop on
a group of thoroughbred minds, expressing themselves in
speech of an exquisite candour, building ornamental bridges
of metaphor, tiptoeing across frail causeways of simile, and
vaulting over gorges impassable to the rational soul.'
Kenneth Tynan, Observer The
Champagne Charlie
Stakes. Play.
Bruce Graham, It's a very special day at the racetrack, where "Champagne" Charlie, a race-track regular, has had a race named in his honour. A dreamer and teller of tall tales, Charlie is accompanied by his wife of 53 years, Mary Lee, an incurable romantic, who still finds Charlie very attractive. They are accompanied by Jackie, a family friend and race track bookie, and their daughter, Mary, a divorced high school drama teacher, and the realist in the family who has nervously invited along her long-time boyfriend, Paul, to finally meet her parents. Since this is such a special day, Charlie conspires with Jackie to place the bet of his life-his entire meagre savings ("the whole shebang")-on a long shot hunch. Mary strenuously objects until Mary Lee tells her that Charlie is ill and this will be his last season at the track, and she wants this day to be the most wonderful day of his life. Mary relents, the race is run and Charlie loses everything. Jackie, guilt ridden, tries to return the money, but Mary Lee will not hear of it. If Charlie wants to tell the tale of the "whole shebang" he can't keep the money, so Mary disposes of it in her own way. Charlie, disappointed, apologises to Mary Lee; just once in his life he wanted to give her things and do something grand for her. She assures Charlie that, for 53 years, he's done just fine. Chance
Visitor. Play. Aleksei
Arbuzov, translated by Ariadne Nicolaeff This subtle, complex play was premiered
in this country in 1984. After twenty-two years of marriage,
Turkovsky announces that he has fallen in love with someone
else. His wife, Lubya, a remarkable woman, insists on
meeting the other woman who turns out to be nothing like one
would expect. At the end Lubya, despite her pain, still
wishes Turkovsky happiness - unafraid to face the
future. The
Charlatan. Play. William
Norfolk Maria-Theresa Paradies is sent to Doctor
Mesmer to cure her blindness. Mesmer's treatment is based on
what he terms 'animal-magnetism'. Maria is asked to stay in
his house for the duration of the treatment. Inevitably
gossip follows and the treatment ends in scandal. Maria
returns to her parents' home and resumes her career as a
blind pianist while most of Vienna is convinced that Mesmer
is nothing more than a charlatan. Period 1777 Vienna Charley's
Aunt. Farce. Brandon
Thomas This classic evergreen farce is set in
Oxford during Commemoration Week in 1882. The imminent visit
of Charles Wykeham's aunt from Brazil, Donna Lucia, provides
an excuse for Charles and Jack to invite their young ladies
to meet her. When a telegram arrives postponing Donna
Lucia's visit, they persuade their amiable friend Babbs
(since they must have a chaperone) to impersonate the aunt -
and the fun begins. Chase
Me Up Farndale Avenue, S'Il Vous
Plait! Comedy. David
McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jnr Le farce Français est
arrivé! Bubbling comme une glasse de champagne, ces
femmes formidables and leur chef d'étage, Gordon,
fizz leur way avec panache entre un plot unintelligible, un
plethora de pontes, et un grand range de characteurs.
Oo-la-la, le show-stopping moment de Thelma ... mais pour
dire quelque chose else would spoilé le surprise -
ah, quelle surprise! - Vive les dames de Farndale Avenue
Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society! Chasing
the Moment. Play.
Jack Shepherd This could be the last gig for Les Padmore and his jazz band. Wes, the founder of the club, is on life-support and there are rifts between the players. Les looks back to a golden age of jazz and is suspicious of the younger, more progressive band members, who are all are seeking a balance to the chaos of their lives. This is a gritty play, full of wry philosophy. Checkmate.
Play. Leslie Sands Subtitled A Play on Murder, this
is a witty and theatrical thriller. The career of famous TV
actor Peter Conway is in the doldrums, his financial stale
is parlous, he has a drink problem and his long suffering
wife Stella has had enough. Secretly, he has been having an
affair with Lori, an American actress, and Stella's death
brings the police to his upmarket London home. It looks an
open and shut case but is what we see real or unreal? The
Cherry Orchard. Play.
Anton Chekhov, translated by Michael Frayn This translation of Chekhov's last and most elusive play was originally produced at the National Theatre in 1978, with Dorothy Tutin, Albert Finney, Robert Stephens and Ralph Richardson. Michael Frayn revised this edition for the 1989 production at the Aldwych Theatre, with Judi Dench, Ronald Pickup, Bernard Hill and Michael Gough. 'Frayn's translation, which strikes me as splendidly lucid and alive ... will be acted again and again.' New Statesman The
Cherry Orchard. Play.
Anton Chekhov, adapted by David Mamet The Cherry Orchard is the story of a mortgage, with the grounds and beautiful trees of the proud landowners going for sale at a public auction to pay off their debts to the boorish son of a peasant who has risen in the world. Mme Ranevskaya's family departs to take up their lives anew, leaving the old and forgotten Firs to die alone as the woodsmen's axes thud ironically against the cherished trees. The
Cherry Orchard : Anton
Chekhov, Trans S. Mulrine Ranevskaya can no longer afford to keep
her childhood home and estate with its beautiful but barren
cherry orchard. Warm, generous and feckless, she is unable
to face the reality of losing everything so rejects the
compromise offered by Lopakhin, a local businessman, to cut
down the orchard and sell the land for holiday homes.
Eventually Ranevskaya and her family have to face financial
ruin as they are forced to leave the whole estate, which
Lopakhin has now bought This brand new translation is
brilliantly faithful to Chekhov's painful comedy of human
existence. Original first performed in 1904. Chicken
Soup With Barley. Play.
Arnold Wesker The play is a family saga of East End
people, outspoken and provocative, covering their gradual
disillusionment as their ideals slip away before and during
the Second World War. This is the first of a trilogy of
which Roots and I'm Talking About Jerusalem
are the sequels. Children
of a Lesser God.
Play. Mark Medoff James joins a school for the deaf to teach lip-reading and meets the spirited Sarah, totally deaf from birth and estranged from the world of hearing and from those who would compromise to enter it. James tries to help Sarah, but gradually the two fall in love and many. Discord develops as Sarah militates for the rights of the deaf, but love and compassion hold the hope of reconciliation. Children
Of the Sun : Maxim Gorky.
Trans S. Mulrine A somewhat Chekhovian family drama, first
staged in Russia in 1905. In a prophetic echo of the coming
Revolution, the play looks at the lives of the privileged
intelligentsia and of the workers and advocates an alliance
between the two. Children's
Day. Play. Keith
Waterhouse and Willis Hall A hectic children's birthday party
provides a noisy background to a series of domestic crises.
Robin has left Emma and Emma has become friendly with her
solicitor, Tom; both Tom and Robin arrive for the
celebrations. The mishaps of the party spill over into the
kitchen situation, the behaviour of the young visitors
affecting the adults. By the end of the party however,
things look a little brighter for Robin and Emma. A
Child's Christmas in Wales.
Christmas musical. Jeremy Brooks and Adrian Mitchell. Based
on the poem by Dylan Thomas This enchanting play with music uses a variety of carols and well-known Welsh songs to conjure up the pure magic of Christmas for the enjoyment of an audience of all ages. The main course of events takes place on Christmas Eve itself, when the Thomas family are host to their relatives. Apart from a potentially major hiccup, when the turkey catches fire, the traditional Yuletide celebrations are enjoyed by all. Chimps
: Simon Block Mark and Stevie, a young couple settling
into their new home are visited by two door-to-door salesmen
whose nightmare sales pitch threatens the very foundation of
their life together. 'Like David Mamet's Glengarry Glen
Ross, to which this is something of a suburban cousin,
Block's thoroughly enjoyable play is obsessed with the deal
and the jargon-filled language that clinches it ... His
observations and the strung-out tension as Mark and Stevie
struggle to sort out their differences in the jaws of a
brilliantly sprung trap is thrillingly unbearable'
Independent Chinchilla.
Play. Robert David MacDonald Subtitled Figures in a Classical Landscape with Ruins, this takes us into the world of the Ballet Russe. On holiday in Venice, the impresario, Chinchilla, is longing for both love and money amid the backstage drama of dancers, choreographers, designers and hangers-on. Autocratic, splendid and world-weary, he is the creator and destroyer of what happens on his stage and to his company. The play is divided into scenes marked 'Present' (taking place on a single afternoon in June 1914) 'Past' and 'Future'. The
Choice. Play. Claire
Luckham The choice is whether or not to abort a foetus after an amniocentesis test reveals that the unborn child has a chromosome deficiency. Sal, a journalist in her thirties, is the mother, and she must make the most difficult decision of her life in the midst of the conflicting opinions of those around her. Sally's story is framed within Claire Luckham's own personal tale - she grew up with a handicapped brother. A
Chorus of Disapproval.
Play. Alan Ayckbourn Alan Ayckbourn skilfully draws parallels
between John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and the
day-to-day activities of the amateur dramatic society who
are performing it, showing how painfully embarrassed are the
British in the face of emotion and keeping us laughing in
happy recognition. A Chorus of Disapproval played
very successfully at the National Theatre in 1985. '...
symmetrically shaped, psychologically acute and painfully,
heartbreakingly funny ...' Guardian A
Christmas Carol.
Play. Adapted by John Mortimer from the story by Charles
Dickens Charles Dickens' famous tale of Ebenezer
Scrooge's transformation from embittered skinflint to
generous benefactor has been dramatised by John Mortimer
with typical flair and wit in this definitive adaptation,
first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Retaining
Dickens' own ironic point of view through the use of a
Chorus, Mortimer has created a panoramic view of Victorian
London with all the much-loved characters in place. There is
plenty of scope for imaginative doubling, and the staging
requirements are flexible. A
Christmas Carol. Christmas
Play. Adapted by Shaun Sutton from the story by Charles
Dickens. This adaptation follows its well-loved
original in tracing Scrooge's conversion from miserliness to
benevolence. We first see him in the counting house berating
his unfortunate clerk Bob Cratchit and then receiving the
visitations of the Spirits of Past, Present and Future. He
learns to feel compassion for Tiny Tim and remorse for his
avarice. Some scenes are introduced that elaborate a
Christmas play into a simple form of pantomime. Period early
Victorian A
Christmas Truce.
Play. William Douglas Home The first Christmas of World War I was
marked by an unofficial 24-hour truce on the Western Front
with British and German troops calling spontaneously to each
other. Tentatively they emerge from their trenches and meet
in No Man's Land to exchange names, cigarettes and
information. William Douglas Home's intensely moving
dramatisation of this remarkable event was premiered in
1989. ' ... this well-made play with its built-in
humanitarian message is a worthy piece of theatre.' Daily
Telegraph
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