Claire Davies – Theatre Workshop Coulsdon

Journey’s End

R.C.Sheriff’s play is set in the officer’s dug-out of a British infantry company in the trenches facing Saint Quentin. It is the 18th of March, 1918, and in just a few days, the German army will begin Operation Michael, the opening of Ludendorff’s Spring offensive intended to push the British Expeditionary Force into the sea and capture the Channel ports. For the Germans, it is the last roll of the dice in the Great War, which has been going on since August 1914 and wiped out a generation of young men across the continent. In the trenches, the constant threat of death and the fear that generates, along with the loss of friends and comrades, has deeply affected every man there, and each deals with it in their own way. Captain Stanhope leads the infantry company, with a keen sense of duty but a growing dependence on alcohol to cope with the pressures of command. When the young and naive Raleigh joins the company, his precarious balance is disturbed…

After it was written, Sheriff encountered resistance in getting the play produced in London’s West End. There was a reluctance to put on a play about the war, which having ended just ten years previously, was all too fresh in people’s minds. Others baulked at the idea of a play without a leading lady, which would hinder ticket sales. Eventually, the Independent Stage Society were persuaded, after some words from George Bernard Shaw, to put it on at the Apollo Theatre. They still hedged their bets. It was a ‘semi-staged’ production, meaning no sets and minimal props, and would run for just two nights. The lead, Captain Stanhope, would be played by a 21 year old unknown…called Lawrence Olivier. However, when the curtains finally rose on the evening of Sunday, December 9, 1928, in the audience was Maurice Brown, a West End producer. He was impressed, enough at least to take a gamble on booking it to open at the Savoy Theatre on January 21, 1929. Even then, it received minimal promotion and no advance bookings were taken. However, word of mouth was enough, and ‘Journey’s End’ sold out, and proceeded to run for a further two years to packed houses.

Sheriff himself didn’t see the play as being expressly an anti-war piece, rather it was an account of his own experiences. He’d been only 18 when he’d gone to France as a Captain in the 9th East Surrey Regiment, and fought at Vimy, Loos and Passchendaele, where he was severely wounded. He’d written other plays and would go on to write more, though ‘Journey’s End’ remained his most famous stage work. He’d go on to write screenplays too, receiving an Academy (Oscar) nomination for ‘Goodbye, Mr Chips’ (1939) and a BAFTA nomination for ‘The Dambusters’ (1955).

Abigail’s Party

Somewhere on the London side of Essex, Beverley and Laurence Moss are holding a drinks party for their new neighbours, Angela Cooper and her husband Tony, who moved in just two weeks ago. They also invite divorcee Susan, whose 15-year-old daughter, Abigail, is holding her first teenage party next door.

Beverley, an ex-department store cosmetics demonstrator with a love of Demis Roussos records, desperately tries to impress her guests, forcing cigarettes and drink on them while continually clashing with her less flamboyant estate agent husband, Laurence. He’s in her bad books, arriving back home late from work, only just before the guests appeared. Laurence aspires to better things, even if he doesn’t quite understand them, and has decorated their house with Van Gogh and Lowry prints, as well as a leather bound collection of Shakespeare that’s there to be seen, not read.

Quietly spoken, verging on taciturn Tony, an ex-Crystal Palace football player, is in computing and his wife, the seemingly childlike and cheerfully tactless Angela, is a nurse. The house purchase has been a bit of stretch for them financially, and they’re feeling the pinch.

Sue is a longstanding resident, quiet, conventional and ill-at-ease, having misunderstood the invitation and not ‘dressed up’. Expecting food, she finds herself becoming more and more hungry as the evening progresses but tries to keep the hunger at bay by eating peanuts. The constant round of drink ‘top-ups’ is also making her feel unwell.

As the evening progresses and the drink flows, things become… interesting.

Mike Leigh’s play debuted in April 1977 at the Hampstead Theatre and was an instant success, spawning a revival that same summer which was a sell out. Quick to spot an easy win, the BBC filmed it in the autumn, and it was broadcast that November as a ‘Play for Today’.

A suburban situation comedy of manners, and a satire on the tastes of the the new middle classes of the 1970s, it evolved from a series of improvisations in which the actors played the characters but without knowing what events would take place while they did so. The various back stories were created by the original cast, drawing on their own experiences. For instance, John Salthouse, who played Tony, had been a professional footballer.

It has become something of a period piece, but is no less funny for all that.

The Fairy Godfather

In 1972, Francis Ford Coppola gave us the gangster epic ‘The Godfather’. Set in 1940’s New York, it centred on the criminal empire of the Corleone family, led by Marlon Brando’s iconic Don Corleone, and it single-handedly set the tone for American Mafia/Mob/Gangster movies to follow ever since. Nowhere did it say anything about pantomimes.

Richard Lloyd made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. He’d written a pantomime that less than delicately mashed up a bucket of well-used mafia gangster tropes, spread them over a comedy base, added some spicy panto sauce and served them up with side order of rollicking good songs, finishing with a rousing (everybody join in!) rendition of ‘That’s Amore!’. There are good fairies, evil villains, a dame and a gondola-full of Italian cheese gags. You just have to look at the cast list.

So we had to put it on. Really, we had to. And now you gotta to watch it, capisce?

Cut yourself in for a pizza the action tonight.

Twelfth Night (1999)

What is Twelfth night? Well, it is, traditionally, the last night of the twelve days of Christmas, and falls on either the 5th or 6th of January, depending on whether you start counting on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. A Christian festival, superstition has it that leaving your decorations up after the twelfth night is unlucky, and other customs surrounding the date include singing carols, eating cake and having your house blessed. None of which are remotely connected to Shakespeare’s play of the same name. The source of its naming remains a mystery, though some make tenuous links to the awarding of the title ‘Lord of Misrule’ and the wild abandon or ‘a world turned upside down’ which may possibly have formed part of the festivities on the day during Elizabethan times. However, that’s somewhat overselling the action contained within the play.

What we have is a resourceful heroine, Viola, who having been shipwrecked and washed up on the shores of an unknown land, adopts the masculine persona ‘Cesario’, to enhance her chances of survival. She falls into the employ of Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, who is hopelessly smitten with the Countess Olivia, a woman in mourning for her recently departed brother. Orsino uses Cesario as a go-between to advance his romantic case, but unfortunately Olivia falls for Cesario instead. Worse still, Viola has become infatuated with Orsino, but can’t do anything because she’s pretending to be a man.

Olivia’s household is a place overrun with guests and servants. The steward, Malvolio, is a pompous ass disliked by all. Sir Toby Belch, Olivia’s uncle seems to be a permanent resident, drinking and carousing with his frankly gormless associate Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and flirting with Maria, one of the sharper of Olivia’s housemaids. It is she who formulates a plan, with the two dissolute knights, to take Malvolio down a peg or two by persuading the steward that Olivia secretly loves him.

And into all this walks Sebastian, Viola’s identical twin brother. Thought drowned by his sister, he did in fact survive the shipwreck and is now endlessly confused by people referring to him, and more, as Cesario…

TWC have, somewhat inevitably, been forced to cut back some of the script. Feste, Olivia’s fool or jester, is mainly there to add even more of a comic touch to this already amusing situation. Sadly, what was undoubtedly hilarious to the groundlings in 1602 falls these days on ears that have no understanding of the references being used, and so much of his ‘stand-up routine’ has been excluded. We present ‘Twelfth Night’ as we guess it was intended to be played – an exhilarating and romantic romp, shot through with a vein of wistful lyricism, delivered with exuberance and delight. The alternative title for the play is ‘What you will’, seemingly indicating that Shakespeare was happy to leave the title to the preference of the audience. Whatever you call it, it remains one of his funniest romantic comedies. Enjoy.

The Little Shop Of Horrors

Back in 1960, director Roger Corman, ‘king’ of the low-budget movie, made a horror comedy film called ‘The Passionate People Eater’ on practically no budget, in very little time, using sets left over from a previous movie. Released in that same October under the new title of ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’, it slowly gained a cult following, and over twenty years later, in 1982, a musical version (with some significant changes to the story) opened off-off-Broadway, written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. It was successful enough to merit a transfer to the off-Broadway Orpheum Theatre in Manhattan’s East Village, and there it ran for five years, winning numerous awards and becoming the highest-grossing production in off-Broadway history. A transfer to Broadway was proposed, but writer Ashman declined, saying it belonged where it was. In much the same way that Mel Brooks’ ‘The Producers’ was first a film, then a stage musical, followed by film of the stage musical, so to did a film version of ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’ emerge, in 1986. Starring Rick Moranis as Seymour, this was anything but low-budget, costing US$25 million, with cameos from Steve Martin, Jim Belushi, Bill Murray and John Candy, and the voice of Audrey II being provided by Levi Stubbs, lead singer with 1960s and 70s Motown group, The Four Tops.

Theatre Workshop Coulsdon don’t have US$25 million to throw around, but we do have people with creative skills, buckets of talent, and lots of enthusiasm. We’ll not disappoint.

So, what’s it all about?

Well, down on Skid Row, in the crummy part of town, grumpy store-owner Mushnik runs a seedy, run-down florist’s, with two assistants, Seymour and Audrey. Seymour, orphaned and poor, with only the little money he gets from Mushnik, is secretly in love with pretty, blonde Audrey. However, not only does he lack the confidence to share his feelings, but she’s already got a boyfriend, the arrogant and sadistic Orin Scrivello, a leather-clad, motorcycle-riding dentist. One day, after a sudden eclipse, Seymour discovers a mysterious plant, looking a bit like a Venus Fly-Trap, which he names Audrey II. He tends it carefully, but despite his best ministrations, the plant is clearly ailing. Then, while working with some roses, Seymour pricks his finger on a thorn, and Audrey II eagerly laps up the drops of blood. This is what the mysterious plant thrives on…

Complete with four piece band, TWC’s ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’ gives you eighteen singalong numbers as the story charts the misadventures of Seymour, Audrey, and Mushnik and the murderous growth of Audrey II. It’s blooming marvellous!

The Christmas Curse Of Fu Manchu

Created by English author Sax Rohmer back in 1910, Doctor Fu Manchu can rightly lay claim to being one of earliest ‘Super-villains’, a man whose insidious plotting and scheming would, if not stopped by his heroic rival Denis Nayland Smith and his like, have brought down Western civilisation, and ensured the final victory of ‘The Yellow Peril’. Rohmer, whose real name was the somewhat more ordinary Arthur Ward, lived for a while just down the road, in a house called Little Gatton, on Gatton Road, Reigate.

However, he could not have guessed that one day his evil creation would sink to the level that Mark Taylor has devised in his latest pantomime adventure, with the eradication of every Santa Claus on the planet!

Fu Manchu will surely not have it all his own way. Not when faced with the might of Scotland Yard’s finest, Inspector Burke, with assistance from the uniformed (or is that uninformed?) branch in the shape of WPC Shapely, along with PC Manly and Sergeant Duffem. And then there’s Lavinia. Lavinia Smythe-Bottonne to those who know, Dame to you. If you take-away just the one thing about her, it’s that she’ll not stand for any oriental skulduggery. She might sit of course, if the seat is comfortable enough, but obviously not the ones in the hall that you’re sitting on.

(The Director would like to point out that no real Santa Clauses were harmed in the course of making of this pantomime, and that all Santas appear by kind permission of the REAL Father Christmas, who is, as we all know, busily preparing for Christmas in Lapland at this very moment.)