Person: Andy Kerner

The Dracula Spectacula

It’s been seventeen years since Theatre Workshop Coulsdon first staged ‘The Dracula Spectacula’. At the time it was regarded by the group as probably the biggest and best production that had been performed by them up to that point (we’d only been in existence seven years by that time), involving over 50 people and having a full band.

1995 will be our 25th anniversary year, and we decided that we’d start the celebrations early, by revisiting what was a landmark production for the group.

Amazingly only two of those fifty members who were involved in the 1977 production are actively talking part this time – those being Chris Argles, the director who played Dracula in the original production, and Tim Young, who will recreate his role as Hans, the Innkeeper.

So, how well has ‘The Dracula Spectacula’ stood the test of time? Was it really the terrific show that we fondly remembered, or have the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia left us with a false impression? Well, let’s be honest, we had to make some changes to the script. Seventeen years doesn’t seem like a long time, but its enough to make some of the dialogue, and the characterisations, sound dated. A number of the songs too, which may have knocked them un-dead back in the day, really don’t cut it now, and so we’ve replaced them with exuberant pastiches of songs that you might just have heard before.

What you see tonight then is very much a brand-new incarnation – albeit of an old favourite, resurrected and rising from its dusty resting place with a whole new lease of life.

Whether this is the first or second time you’ve seen Theatre Workshop Coulsdon perform ‘The Dracula Spectacula’ we hope you enjoy the experience, and live to tell the tale!

Animal Farm

One night, all the animals at Manor Farm gather in the barn to hear ‘Old Major’, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. The elderly pig dies soon after the meeting, but the animals — inspired by his philosophy of Animalism — plot a rebellion against the farmer, Jones. When Jones drunkenly forgets to feed the animals, they rise up, and Jones and his farmhands are chased away. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall. But what follows is far from the dream that Old Major promised…

‘All Animals Are Equal – But Some Are More Equal Than Others’

George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ is a powerful and uncompromising allegory of the Russian revolution, with every character and event that takes place in his tale mirroring Russian history from October 1917 through to the Teheran Conference of 1943.

The succession of steps through which, by persuasion, propaganda, lies and force, Napoleon rises to power in ‘Animal Farm’ are a bitter parody of Josef Stalin’s ascent to dictatorship, and what Orwell saw as the ultimate betrayal of the Russian people.

A fable, a satire, a fairy story, ‘Animal Farm’ is one of the great works of English literature, and a revealing study of the effects of power.

The evocative, and by association, now chilling music chosen by the director to open the production was ‘Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis’ written by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The same composer’s ‘Five variants of Dives and Lazarus’ was used to maintain the mood during the interval.

Jack The Ripper

In the autumn of 1888, the East End of London was home to a sordid, brutalised community of prostitutes, immigrants, petty criminals and political renegades.

Potentially an explosive flashpoint behind the grand façade of Victoria’s London, the panic and terror that gripped the inhabitants of the slums and tenements during the series of murders attributed to the notorious ‘Jack the Ripper’ threatened to plunge the entire East End into riot and revolution, and shake the very foundations of the capital of the Empire.

‘Jack the Ripper’ was written for the stage in 1974 and features a score by Ron Pember, with book and lyrics by Pember with Denis De Marne. A musical reconstruction of the incidents relating to the historic East End murders is told through the company of the fictional Steam Packet Music Hall in Whitechapel, a device that presents an atmospheric commentary on the murders as opposed to a historic re-enactment, with the ensemble moving between real and fictional characters.

The production was first staged at the Player’s Theatre in London, opening on June 25th 1974  It subsequently transferred the production to the Ambassadors Theatre in September 1974, followed by the Cambridge Theatre in February 1975, and earned a nomination for ‘Best Musical’ at the 1974 Evening Standard Theatre Awards. The show went on to debut in the United States in March 1979. Since the amateur production rights were released in 1976, ‘Jack The Ripper’ has remained a popular production choice with societies worldwide.

Ron Pember was a best known as an actor, with a career spanning several decades. He worked with both the National Theatre and the RSC and appeared in TV series such as ‘Only Fools and Horses’, ‘Red Dwarf’ and ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’. Coincidentally, he had a part in the 1979 film ‘Murder by Decree’ which starred Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes, as the famous detective attempts to solve the mystery of Jack the Ripper.

The boisterous nature of the show, all rough edges and black humour, has a certain appeal to Theatre Workshop. We’d performed it before, back in 1983, when it was directed by Chris Argles. And we’d do it again, in the open-air, in 2006.

Lionheart! or The Arabian Knights

Are you a sucker for the mysterious orient? Dashing bandits and svelte houris, idyllic oases and teeming souks, hawk-faced magicians, desert-defying caravans, corrupt Grand Viziers, gorgeous palaces, and Ray Harryhausen-style special effects? ‘Lionheart! The Arabian Knights’ is an eastern concoction into which every conceivable Arabian Nights cliché has been stirred, seasoned with a tiny twist of alternative history, and cunningly bound together in a traditional pantomime recipe, featuring lots of familiar ingredients and a dash of local flavour.

As part of his fiendish plot to defeat Richard the Lionheart, the evil Saladin sends his henchmen on a magic carpet to Merrie England, to abduct Richard’s Sweetheart, Thomasina. But Saladin’s bungling agents, Oshgosh and Babu, return instead with Thomasina’s irrepressible auntie, Dame Dollop – who quickly proves that the wicked Caliph has bitten off rather more than he can chew.

Thomasina meanwhile, travelling to join King Richard’s Crusade, encounters the dashing brigand, Hassan the Bandit. Hassan, (who may not be quite what he seems) is no friend to Saladin, and together with Thomasina they set out to rescue Auntie!

With the help of an assortment of genies, assassins, eunuchs, Turkish wrestlers, dancing girls and pantomime camels, Dame Dollop escapes from the harem to outwit Saladin, and allow Richard to recapture the holy city of Jerusalem, and all in time for Christmas Day!

A hilarious, original, and thoroughly entertaining pantomime, guaranteed to transport all involved to the land of the Arabian Nights.

Macbeth

The ‘Scottish’ play… or so some in the business call ‘Macbeth’, supposedly because of some ill-luck that follows the play around. We don’t believe it. The fact that Paul, who had just been cast as Macbeth himself, fell while running for a bus and broke his arm, was purely coincidence.

But putting superstition aside, what is ‘Macbeth’? Viewed from one perspective, it’s a tragedy, where a good man, a good soldier, finds himself coerced into making appalling decisions that ultimately lead to he and his wife’s death. Towards the end, reviewing the bloody path he’s taken, he is saddened but no less determined to see the story through to what he believes ultimately will be a victorious end, only to find that victory dashed from his blood-stained hands by a question of semantics. Taking another view, it’s a history. Macbeth was indeed King of Alba (Scotland), from 1040 to 1057, but the real man was no tyrant seizing the throne through murder and deception. Macbethad mac Findlaech, or Macbeth MacFinlay as the name is Anglicised, was the Mormaer (Earl) of Moray when King Duncan I led an army against him. Duncan died in battle, and Macbeth succeeded to the throne, where he stayed, unchallenged, for seventeen years. ‘The Red King’ as he was known, was regarded as a generous man, and even made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1050. However, Macbeth died of wounds incurred at the battle of Lumphanan in 1057, at the hands of King Duncan’s son Malcolm, and Macbeth’s son Lulach was assassinated the following year, giving Malcolm the throne. King James VI of Scotland claimed a bloodline from Malcolm, so perhaps it’s not entirely surprising to find Macbeth’s character so sorely abused. Shakespeare knew his audience.

The photoshoot for Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s production took place at Bodiam Castle, where, in those days, they didn’t mind a large group of people turning up in the car park to change into studded leatherette armour and start waving swords. From main gates to battlements we posed, looking suitably mean and moody, as befitted the production. Then it was decided that we should attempt a more active series of shots. Gathered at the main gatehouse, we would wait for the signal and then charge toward photographer Mark Hobbs. On the second run, Mark was joined by one or two camera-wielding tourists, on the third, several more. On the fourth and final, it seemed like we had a coach load of them. Fascinating to think that in a number of old photo albums scattered across some part the globe, the cast of TWC’s ‘Macbeth’ is immortalised, and those tourists still have no idea what on earth they had photographed.

Robin Hood – The Truth Behind The Green Tights

“Feared by the bad, loved by the good” goes the song about Robin Hood, but in the case of Albert Ross, the distinction is not quite so clear-cut. For Albert is a coward, transferring his allegiance from Merry Men to Sheriff and back again at the drop of a hat – or rather, at the point of a sword. All of which lands Albert, his wife, Robin and Maid Marian in some very awkward situations…

There are a number of extraordinarily brilliant adaptations of the story of Robin Hood. From Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone’s still remarkable 1938 Hollywood movie ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’, through to Michael Praed’s Celtic/pagan-tinged ‘Robin of Sherwood on TV from 1984 to 1986. ‘Robin Hood – The Truth Behind the Green Tights’ is not one of them. Written by David Neilson in 1984 and published the following year, the inclusion of ‘Will Scargill’ as a militant trade unionist member of the Merry Men may have had them rolling in the aisles then, when the Miners’ strike was fresh in the memory, but just a few years on that cutting edge topicality had been blunted beyond repair.

The inclusion of an everyman character into the mythical world of the legendary arboreal bandit could also have been a terrific idea, and indeed might still be one, but ‘Albert Ross’ with his out of place and not desperately funny name (Albert Ross / Albatross. Geddit?) was not it.

Tim did however provide a real moment of drama, a rarity in this show. During rehearsals with Richard and Paul as Gisbourne and The Sheriff, Tim stepped onto the thrust at the front of the stage only for it to collapse under him. Luckily the two others were right next to Tim, and caught him, one on either side, preventing his fall to the hall floor below. After all, we didn’t want to damage the parquet flooring…

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s first flirtation with Shakespeare was, somewhat inevitably, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Although it seems such a staple of the theatre, both professional and amateur, its attractions are many and not the least of those is the ability to mould it, change it and make it unique to the group and the actors performing in it. Which suits TWC. The show itself, though undeniably funny, is an oddity, if you look at it with anything more than a scant glance. The event that draws it all together is the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta, one the legendary slayer of the Minotaur, the other the Queen of the Amazons, and yes, in some versions of the myth of Theseus, these two characters did marry. But for all their lauded provenance, here they are ciphers, showing little real character in the few lines that they have at their disposal. The four lovers bear classical Greek names, all in accord with their part in the court of Athens, but the rude mechanicals do not despite being subjects of Theseus and working within Athens. Shakespeare drops the facade for these clowns, and calls them as they are, English tradesmen. One does wonder why, in Shakespeare’s mind, this division should exist, where the nobility have exotic names and the working classes not. Was he attempting to make them more identifiable to the groundlings? We may never know.

Two of the rude mechanicals would remain rude across two further TWC productions of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Chris Argles, here showing us his ‘Bottom’, would go on to play ‘Peter Quince’ in 1996, and then ‘Tom Snout’, the tinker in 2016. Tim Young would move from playing ‘Peter Quince’, carpenter and frustrated amateur director and impresario, to ‘Snug the joiner’ in 1996. Clearly a part he enjoyed, he reprised it in 2016 too.

One other thing remained a constant. The donkey head. Created for this show by Caroline Dawe using chicken wire, papier mache and fur fabric, it adorned the heads of Chris Argles, Paul Ford and Richard Lloyd in successive productions, and remains in readiness for the next revival.

The overture to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was the Cello Concerto in E Minor by Edward Elgar. The interval music was ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

All incidental music used during the production was traditional, arranged by Theatre Workshop Coulsdon, with the exception of ‘Philomel with Lullaby’, the music for which was composed by Mark Taylor.

The Christmas Cavalier

The Witchfinder-General, Roundheads and Cavaliers in a festive panto of Olde England!

From 1642 to 1651, there was a war between the King and his Parliament. Parliament won the war, and King Charles lost his head…

Set in the time when the puritan Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, ruled England, this lively and magical panto opens with the arrival of dastardly Witchfinder-General Nicholas Grimnasty in a local village, intent on suppressing frivolous and ungodly Christmas festivities – and rooting out a few witches at the same time!

Grimnasty and his gormless Roundhead sidekicks, Matthew Smallpiece and the Stupid brothers, soon tangle with the outrageous Dame Dumplings, driving force behind the village Christmas party! Unfortunately, it’s not long before Dame Dumplings’ lovely niece Emma Sweetly has fallen foul of the wicked Witchfinder, and is thrown into Grimnasty’s grisly dungeon.

But the Witchfinder-General’s villainy comes to an extremely sticky end, after his efforts to spoil Christmas are thwarted by an unlikely alliance of Sir Daniel Dash, a bold and gallant cavalier, a dancing bear named Bottom, and three real witches, who could almost have wandered in from a certain blasted Scottish heath…

A brisk yet enchanting pantomime, offering a traditional festive flavour of Olde England, but played out before a very appealing and colourful new historical backdrop, with lots of excellent opportunities for most attractive costumes and settings.

Santa In Space

This out-of-this-world pantomime starts in the depths of outer space, where the evil Vileun the Vile is celebrating the culmination of his plan to bring the entire Universe / Galaxy / Solar System (We don’t think he’s dreadfully bright, as he doesn’t seem to realise they’re very different things) under his dominion. His muddled mystic, Astra the Astrologer, lists all his successes, before finally telling him that the job is not yet done. The planet Earth remains unconquered. And the key to its downfall and Vileun’s ultimate success? The kidnapping of Santa Claus!

Meanwhile, in the little village of Merrydale, Dame Dangle and the village children are preparing for the upcoming seasonal celebrations when two visitors arrive. One is the Dame’s nephew, Captain Dick Daring, on leave from his regiment to visit his favourite aunt. The other is Crystal, a young lady who’s come all the way from the North Pole to speak with the village’s friendly inventor, Professor Atnas. The Professor is, of course, not what he appears, but is actually Santa Claus himself, and when Crystal informs him that he must return to the North Pole to resolve an issue with the Elves, he begins to quickly pack up his things, including his robot, Roberta.

But it’s too late. Before he can leave, Vileun and his henchmen Null and Void land their spaceship in Merrydale, and with the aid of a hypnotised Dame Dangle succeed in kidnapping the jovial giver of presents and take him back to Varbos!

Can Captain Daring, Dame Dangle, Roberta the Robot, the lovely Crystal and a rag-tag collection of village children fly to the rescue? Can they save Christmas? And the world? Of course they can!