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The
Food Chain - Comedy/Drama.
Nicky Silver Amanda, an anorexic poet of some pretensions, has been married for three weeks, but her husband, Ford, has been missing for two. She calls a crisis hot line and reaches Bea, a volunteer. Bea's answer to Amanda's problems is to complain about her own deceased husband's inattentiveness and her son's embarrassing nature. She also dispenses hilarious (but useless) advise. Just as Amanda nears her wit's end, Ford walks in, so she simply hangs up on Bea. Meanwhile, across town, Serge, a completely vain runway model, paces as he waits for the arrival of his latest paramour. He is intruded upon by a former one-night stand, Otto, who worships him and who tips the scales at about three hundred pounds. Otto tortures, harangues and cajoles Serge while swilling Yoo-hoo, eating junk food and taking phone calls from his mother. Serge can take no more and explodes, but is interrupted by a phone call - his new lover will not be coming. This leaves Serge and Otto in the same state: both are now victims of fickle romance. The scene shifts back to Amanda's at the crack of dawn. Serge is banging on the door, looking for his lover. It was with Serge that Ford spent his lost two honeymoon weeks. Having followed Serge, it isn't long until Otto shows up, with breakfast and threatening suicide. Next to arrive is Bea, furious at Amanda for hanging up on her. As riotous chaos builds, we learn that Bea is Otto's mother, that Otto and Amanda are old school friends, that Serge will settle for both Amanda and Ford and that Ford has absolutely nothing to say. Bea takes charge and offers a solution short on practicality, but long on pleasure. Fools.
Comic fable. Neil Simon Leon Tolchinsky is ecstatic at landing a
job as schoolteacher in the idyllic Ukrainian village of
Kulyenchikovin 1890. But the village has been cursed with
chronic stupidity for two hundred years and the desperate
villagers have hired Leon hoping he can break the curse,
which he must do in twenty-four hours or become stupid
himself. Instead of leaving he falls in love, gets the girl
and breaks the curse. Fool's
Paradise.
Farcical comedy. Peter Coke Although surrounded by valuable antiques,
Jane and Catherine live in debt, for their late husband,
Basil, left house and property to them stipulating they
could not sell any of it. Basil's sister has left them a
spray of emeralds. If they prove valuable all their debts
can be paid. Unfortunately Jane giddily accepts deposits on
the emeralds from too many people and has to invent a third
owner for them. As debts and troubles increase, she even
accepts a deposit on Catherine's son! Fools
Rush In.
Comedy. Kenneth Horne On her wedding morning Pam is so appalled
at the gravity of the promises she must make that she
refuses to be married to Joe. Her doubts increase on meeting
her father, Paul, long divorced from her mother. Pam was
taught to think him an abandoned bounder, but finds him so
charming she is convinced that if his marriage disintegrated
then hers is bound to fail. Paul intervenes and incites Joe
to elope with Pam whilst he himself enjoys a reconciliaton
with his wife. For
Whom the Bell Chimes.
Farce. Graham Greene The first chime ushers in to X a con-man supposedly collecting for charity. In a very short time X has changed clothes with him, covered his bald head with his own shock-haired wig, and walked off with his visitor's collecting case. Almost immediately the con-man discovers a dead girl, and from then on situations and surprises become increasingly frenetic. The
Foreigner.
Play. Larry Shue Trying to forget his marital problems,
dull and doleful Charlie Baker takes a fishing-lodge holiday
in the Deep South of America, and to avoid being pestered by
the locals pretends that he is a foreigner who speaks no
English. This leads him to become involved, at first
unwillingly, in bizarre goings-on featuring a corrupt
preacher, his pregnant girl-friend, her none-too-bright kid
brother and the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan! The London
production of this play starred Nicholas Lyndhurst. Forget
Herostratus!
Play. Grigory Gorin, translated by Michael
Glenny Herostratus, a shopkeeper in ancient Ephesus, seeks to achieve fame by burning down the Temple of Artemis. Despite the state's determination to render him anonymous, he is accorded neargodlike status and assures himself of immortality. Intended as an oblique examination of Hitler's rise to power, the play also addresses issues common to all states, liberal or repressed. Satirical and astute, this is a play of great humanity and depth, as well as superb entertainment. Forget-Me-Not
Lane.
Humorous, serious and dramatic selections.
Peter Nichols This is a visit inside Frank's
memory-jumbled mind where he is thinking over various
memories of his youth, his growing up, relations with his
parents, his friends and his wife. His thoughts dwell
particularly on the Second World War and his attitude
towards his parents and wife. The play takes place on an
almost bare stage peopled with both his real and fantasy
characters. The
Forsyte Saga.
Play. Pat and Derek Hoddinott, dramatized
from the novels of John Galsworthy Galsworthy's famous trilogy has been
superbly adapted for the stage and achieved enormous acclaim
following a national tour, starring Nyree Dawn Porter. Set
between 1886 and 1920 with multiple locations cleverly
contained within one set-a Victorian-style
conservatory-requiring the minimum of props, the play
centres on Soames and Irene and the stifling, destructive
power of the Forsyte family, embodied in the cold hauteur of
Soames. Forty
Years On.
Play. Alan Bennett At a public school, now past its prime, the annual school play is being prepared. The progress of the play is severely impeded by the conflicts between the Headmaster and the play's producer, Franklin, and by the behaviour of the boys. Forty Years On is original, witty, erudite, moving and frequently hilariously funny. The
Fosdyke Saga.
Play. Adapted by Alan Plater from the saga
by Bill Tidy, music by Bill Wrigley Anyone familiar with the cartoon
characters of Bill Tidy's 'Fosdyke Saga' from the Daily
Mirror will know these lovable characters. The time is
1902 and the Fosdyke tripe business is failing so they
decide to move to greener pastures in Manchester - the land
of meat pies and perhaps fortune'? We follow their progress
through to the First World War. 4.48 PSYCHOSIS Sarah Kane The death of Sarah Kane in 1999 robbed
theatre of one of its brightest talents, whose plays have
changed the shape of British drama. Like all Sarah Kane's
work, 4.48 Psychosis, the play she had just
completed at the time of her death, is a penetrating,
uncompromising vision of contemporary life. Francis.
Play. Julian Mitchell Saint Francis was born in Assisi in 1181 and in his early life was the playboy son of a rich merchant. Today the whole city is a memorial to him, but even during his lifetime there was conflict in his Order as to how far simplicity and poverty were to be taken. The play pictures him as 'a man whose inspiration could never come to terms with the real world'. Period 1205-1226 Frankenstein.
Tim Kelly, adapted from Mary
Shelley's novel Perhaps the truest adaptation of Mary
Shelley's novel, this play opens on Victor's, a young
scientist, and Elizabeth's wedding night. Previously Victor
has created a 'Creature' out of bits and pieces of the dead.
The creature tracks Victor to his sanctuary to demand a
bride to share its loneliness. Against his better judgement
Victor agrees and soon the household is invaded by murder,
despair and terror! However there is enough macabre humour
to relieve the mounting tension. The Free State Janet Suzman This powerful adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard is set in South Africa after the restoration of democracy in 1994. Located in an African landscape of harsh beauty, Chekhov's drama of class conflict takes on a stark political reality. The Free State tours Britain in spring 2000. The
Freedom of the City.
Play. Brian Friel Set in Derry in 1970, in the aftermath of of a Civil Rights meeting, this play conjures the events of Bloody Sunday. Three unarmed marchers find themselves in the mayor's parlour in the Guildhall. Reports and rumours exaggerate their 'occupation' to forty armed rebels and they are shot by British soldiers as they surrender. The play documents the victims' final hours and a subsequent tribunal of inquiry into their deaths. French
Without Tears.
Comedy. Terence Rattigan At the Villa Miramar, in the south of
France, a group of young men are being coached in French by
M. Maingot and his daughter, Jacqueline. They do not find
French easy, but their progress is bedevilled by Diana Lake
who has a gift for making men fall in love with her. Diana
resists them, awaiting the arrival of Lord Heybrook, who
turns out to be a fifteen-year-old schoolboy. She decamps to
pursue a former victim, leaving another to be consoled by
Jacqueline Fringe
Benefits.
Comedy. Peter Yeldham and Donald
Churchill Two couples take their annual holidays
together in Torremolinos, but this year the men and women
have decided (separately) they don't want to go: the women
because they are sick of it and the men because there are
two very attractive girls in East Croydon who would
appreciate their company. All suggest that plans are changed
but as no-one wants to divulge the true reason,
complications inevitably ensue in this fast and furious
comedy! The
Front Page.
Play. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur This extraordinary play was premiered in
New York in 1928 and revived by Michael Blakemore for the
National Theatre in 1972 to great acclaim. One of the most
exciting, amusing and intelligent dramas of its period, it
centres on a prisoner's escape on the eve of his execution,
his concealment and final discovery in the press room, and a
remarkable reporter who, sick of his profession, tries to
get away from it, only to be pulled back by its irresistible
lure.
FROM BOTH HIPS contains two alarming, but blackly comic, plays from the author of Howie and the Rookie. In the title play, Paul has been accidentally shot in the hip by a policeman. Back from hospital, he is bitter and self-pitying. He is also two-timing his wife. Then the policeman appears with an apology, a gun, and an extraordinary suggestion. Brenda and Sonia in THE ASPIDISTRA CODE are head over heels in debt. They fear the arrival of Drongo, a violent and unpredictable loan shark. But Brendan's brother Joe has hired protection in the person of Crazy Horse. Turns out the two hard men are old mates and then crisis seems averted - until Drongo's code of honour is called into question, and violence is threatened once more ... Mark O'Rowe is a young writer from
Dublin. He won the prestigious George Devine Award and the
Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for his London debut,
Howie and the Rookie, seen also in Dublin and
Edinburgh. Fuente
Ovejuna.
Play. Lope de Vega. Adapted by Adrian
Mitchell De Vega's seventeenth-century play takes its name from an Andalusian hill town whose oppressed inhabitants bravely rebelled in 1476, resulting in the killing of the tyrannical military overlord. Adrian Mitchell's adaptation, commissioned by the Royal National Theatre, was produced at the Cottesloe Theatre in 1989. 'It is hard to imagine a more gripping tale than the one that emerges in Adrian Mitchell's translation.' Time Out . Fugue
(in Your Turn to Clean the Stair & Fugue) : Rona
Munro, A powerful and moving play set in a
cottage in the Grampian Hills, and then in a hospital ward.
Kay, a 24 year-old secretary, encounters her alter ego as
she suffers an emotional breakdown. First staged at the
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. Full Gallop. Drama. Mark Hampton and Mary Louise Wilson. 1 woman. Interior. A play based on the life of Diana Vreeland, who stood at the centre of American style for five decades. As editor of Harper's Bazaar and Vogue magazines, and as a member of the international Cafe Society, she chronicled the extraordinary people and events of her time. FULL GALLOP is a portrait of this remarkable woman at a turning point in her life. Vreeland has just returned home to New York after four months in Europe - a trip she took after being fired from Vogue magazine. She throws an impromptu dinner party in the hope that a wealthy friend who is invited will bankroll a magazine of her own. Other friends, however, attempt to persuade her to take a job at the famed Metropolitan Museum of An. In her distinctive style, once she decides in which direction her life will move, she goes at it "full gallop." Funeral
Games.
Play. Joe Orton Pringle has called in Caulfield to investigate his wife, who is having an affair with McCorquodale, although Tessa insists she is only giving him blanket baths. According to his religion it would be best if Pringle murders Tessa, although she will in fact live with her patient, who has already killed his wife, Tessa's friend. This is true black comedy in best Orton style, with bogus religion, a severed hand, and a corpse in the cellar. Funny
Money. Comedy. Ray
Cooney Good friends Betty and Vic arrive for
Henry's birthday dinner and Jean is frantic because Henry is
late. When he eventually arrives he wants to emigrate
immediately, and with good reason: the briefcase he
accidentally picked up on the Underground is stuffed with
£735,000! When two police inspectors call, Henry, Vic,
Betty and a bemused (and tipsy) Jean are forced into a
frantic game of cat and mouse. Hilarious innuendo and
cruelly funny turns of fate ensue as the two couples assume
various identities in their battle to keep the money. Fur
Coat and No Knickers.
Comedy. Mike Harding This hilarious play concerns the wedding
of Deirdre and Mark. The fun begins on the stag night when
an inebriated Mark is chained to a lamppost with a blow-up
rubber doll. The wedding itself is quite high spirited too
with half the guests, including the priest, suffering
blinding hangovers. The play ends in comic chaos when Father
Molloy, paralytically drunk, stumbles into the reception
clad only in his ecclesiastical underwear, brandishing the
blow-up doll!
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