Jeremy Simms – Theatre Workshop Coulsdon

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.

Cinderella Interstellar!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a pantomime that looked quite a lot like ‘Star Wars’…

Take Cinderella and her ugly sisters and then thrust them into a world of science-fiction adventure, inhabited by characters that are nearly, but not quite, those from the epic blockbuster trilogy of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

A cocky, star-faring smuggler and his hairy co-pilot, a kid who’s a whiz behind the controls of space fighter, a monk-like individual wise in the ways of the Source, a black-clad villain in a full-face helmet with breathing difficulties and an army of soldiers who can’t hit a Death Star at close range. They’re all there, just not as you knew them.

Throw in the best Cantina band this side of Tatooine to help belt out some brilliant songs, and you’ve got a powered up panto ready to do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

This is the panto you were looking for.

The Three Musketeers

France 1625.

A young nobleman called D’Artagnan leaves his family in Gascony, south-west France, and makes his way to Paris to seek his fortune and join the King’s Musketeers. Unfortunately he encounters Rochefort, Captain of the Cardinal’s guard at a rural inn, and after an ill-advised confrontation, loses his letter of introduction to M.de Treville, (the captain of the King’s Musketeers), his money and his sword. So, when he finally arrives at the French capital, his welcome is far from warm. Things take a turn for the even worse when his first meetings with Athos, Porthos and Aramis, the best of the Musketeers, result in him challenging each of them to duels. Finally, taken under the wing of the Three Musketeers rather than being killed by them, the young Gascon finds himself embroiled in the machinations of the cunning Cardinal Richelieu and his deadly agent, Milady de Winter, with plans to dishonour the Queen of France herself. A tale of high adventure, full of fun, swordplay and affairs of the heart…

Originally written by Alexandre Dumas (in collaboration with his regular ghost writer Auguste Maquet) and published in 1844, this swashbuckling historical tale became one of the most enduring adventures in literature, challenged only by, perhaps, ‘Treasure Island’. Numerous adaptations have been made, for stage and screen, including musicals, animation, and even an opera. The script that Chris Argles chose to direct was by Willis Hall, and had been published just the previous year, 1995. Although it keeps to the story, more or less, inevitably some liberties are taken and Hall leans into the humour, no doubt one reason for its selection.

It has passed into Workshop legend that Mike Brown, playing, or rather completely inhabiting the role of Porthos, at one point during the production ran across the stage completely naked, except for a strategically placed broad-brimmed musketeer hat (with a large feather). The part demanded it, obviously.

Treasure Island – The Panto, or ‘Panto Walks The Plank’

‘Treasure Island’, that perennial favourite of British children since its first publication, might seem like an obvious candidate for panto treatment. However, actually arriving at a well-rounded pantomime, incorporating all the essential elements of that genre but also sticking fairly strictly to the plot and characters of Stevenson’s great novel, poses a few problems!

So if ‘Panto Walks The Plank!’ gets under way as a close pastiche of ‘Treasure Island’, you might notice it change tack part way through, in order to accommodate a boarding party of pirate clichés inspired by a wider literature.

After all, as any fan of the Hollywood pirate epics of the 1930s and 1940s will tell you, ‘Treasure Island’ (one of the most famous adventure stories in English literature) is fatally flawed. There’s absolutely no love interest. In fact there are no women at all, with the exception of Mrs Hawkins, and she’s written out of the plot by page 27!

Now, no good pirate movie was truly complete without the love interest, usually represented by Maureen O’Hara. Or the presence of the dastardly Spanish, immaculately attired, elegantly presented and constantly scheming. In fact, the two elements were so quintessential that they were frequently combined through the well-worn dramatic device of ‘Swashbuckling hero falls for the haughty yet gorgeous daughter of the wicked Spanish governor’. So, expect to find both in our version too,

There are other important omissions from ‘Treasure Island’ that undermine its credentials as a bona-fide all-round classic pirate story. For instance, absolutely no-one walks the plank! Now, as it happens, that’s probably because no-one ever really did walk the plank. People who really know their pirates will tell you that this infamous punishment was simply the macabre whimsy of the Victorians and their overheated imaginations. However, if you’re set on telling a good old-fashioned blood and thunder tale of skulduggery on the high seas, you’ve got to include it. It’s part of the tradition.

Being a pantomime also dictates certain changes to the story. For instance, no-one is horribly murdered. Any violence is strictly of the gratuitous slapstick variety. And of course, Long John’s legendary parrot serves splendidly as a pantomime animal. This one even talks! And a ‘Crimson Parakeet’ does have a certain resonance with the 1952 Burt Lancaster comedy adventure movie, ‘The Crimson Pirate’, filmed in glorious Technicolour!

So, shiver your timbers and splice your mainbrace, while Theatre Workshop heaves to and delivers a hefty broadside of fun and adventure. And you may lay to that, arrrrrh!

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340 – 1400) has been called the father of English Literature. Certainly there is nothing quite like his epic ‘The Canterbury Tales’ to put the present-day observer in touch with the ordinary life of our medieval forebears. Nothing to match the unflinching realism of Chaucer’s portraits of his fellow men. And nothing quite so effectively holds up a mirror, not only to the England of his times – but to the unchanging nature of human experience.

We considered four different published playscripts before creating our own adaptation of ‘The Canterbury Tales’. In the end we decided against paying royalty fees to use someone else’s script. After all, Chaucer is part of our shared heritage – his words should belong to all of us.

Across the different playscripts there had been a range of selections made regarding which tales were best to tell. Clearly, given that there are 28 tales in all, you can’t use all of them in one two hour show (and note that Chaucer had intended for there to be 120!), so a choice has to be made. However, most seemed to go for the stories with classical settings, such as The Knight’s Tale, The Franklin’s Tale and The Merchant’s tale.

Focused on the nobility, and concentrating on stories of courtly love and mortal combat as they are, we decided that these rarified tales were not the ones we wanted to tell. We wanted to hear from the ordinary people, engaged in the medieval day-to-day of simple pleasures, petty jealousies and mundane squabbles. Exuberant and resilient folk, yet dominated by an overbearing Church. So, these are the stories we chose:

The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

The Wife of Bath’s Tale

The Friar’s Tale

The Pardoner’s Tale

The Miller’s Tale

The Reeve’s Tale

Our adaptation is actually based on the 1985 Oxford University Press translation by David Wright, though we’ve edited out much of the narrative in favour of dialogue. This is a drama after all, not a story telling, and that has meant some minor amendments in order to make sense of the editing. Regardless, we’ve actually added or rewritten very little. So the words you’ll hear spoken are Chaucer’s own, translated with fidelity into modern English by one of the foremost scholars in this field. If you take any pleasure from the tales we unfold for you today, reflect for a moment on the fact that these are the same stories that entertained your ancestors, some 600 years ago.

Wyrd Sisters

Terry Pratchett is rightly regarded as one of the fantasy genre’s most popular and successful authors. He is without doubt one of its most prolific, with a string of best-selling novels set on his imaginary Discworld, a planet-sized disc that sits on the backs of four huge elephants, who in turn stand on the back of an enormous turtle called the Great A’Tuin as it swims through interstellar space.

His books frequently parody the vast body of ‘sword and sorcery’ literature that has been spawned by generations of Tolkien imitators, but he doesn’t stop there. Social comment is often interwoven into his humorous tales, and then there’s Shakespeare, whose plots and themes have been known to appear. ‘Wyrd Sisters’, for instance, seems to resemble at times a certain Scottish play, at others ‘Hamlet’. ‘As You Like It’ and ‘King Lear’ get a look in too.

‘Wyrd Sisters’ was Pratchett’s sixth Discworld novel, written in 1988, and the first to feature the Lancre coven of witches, composed of Magrat Garlick, Gytha ‘Nanny’ Ogg and Esmerelda or Esme ‘Granny’ Weatherwax. Favourites of both the readership and Pratchett himself, they would go on to feature in a number of his other books. In neopagan traditions, there exists the Triple Goddess, the maiden, the mother and the crone, and Pratchett has knowingly taken this as a model.

In the play, adapted from the novel by long-time Pratchett collaborator Stephen Briggs, King Verence I of Lancre is murdered by his scheming cousin, Leonal, Duke Felmet, after his ambitious wife persuades him to do so. However, a fleeing servant manages to rescue Verence’s son and heir, along with the King’s crown, and both are given to the witches, who in turn pass them onto a troupe of travelling actors. The crown is hidden in the props box and the boy will be brought up as the actor/manager Olwyn Vitoller’s son. The witches understand that in the fullness of time, destiny will take its course and the child, Tomjon, will grow up to defeat Duke Felmet and take his rightful place as king. Of course, it doesn’t turn out like quite like that…

We’d like to give our particular thanks to both Stephen Briggs and Terry Pratchett for giving us permission to stage ‘Wyrd Sisters’ now. The authorised adaptation hasn’t actually been published yet, so we’re grateful to get a head start on the rest of the amateur theatre brigade.

Lark Rise

Welcome to the tiny hamlet of Lark Rise. It is the first day of the harvest, one summer early in the 1880’s…

Flora Thompson’s autobiographical trilogy ‘Lark Rise’, ‘Over To Candleford’ and ‘Candleford Green’, describing her childhood in a remote Oxfordshire farming community has been termed English Literature’s classic masterpiece of a lost way of village life – a vivid and moving account, rich in fascinating detail.

In 1978, Keith Dewhurst’s acclaimed adaptation for The National Theatre took characters and episodes, songs and scenes directly from the books, to create two composite plays – ‘Lark Rise’ and ‘Candleford’. Each of the plays also featured a wealth of traditional music contributed by the influential British folk-rock group, The Albion Band. (John Tams and Ashley Hutchings, both members of the band, acted as musical directors for the play.)

The result is an enchanting play which, while lacking a strong narrative, does offer an evocative and entertaining glimpse into how our ancestors lived and worked in the years before The Great War, and the machine age that finally succeeded in sweeping England’s rural innocence away forever. In place of The Albion Band we have The Royal Borough Band, led by Dave Hankey, with a few of our own members helping to provide vocals.

We hope you will accept our production of ‘Lark Rise’ as a pleasant diversion fit for a summer’s evening – especially in the garden of what is still, very much, a village pub.

Panto Goes West

Saddle up your horses and load your six-guns! This rootin’ tootin’ script (also known as ‘The Ballad of Hamster Gulch’) is headin’ back to the Old West for a rip-roaring pantomime adventure. All the very best of traditional pantomime, including custard pies, explosions, amazing costumes, and masses of audience participation, but with the added attraction of a brand new story and setting, way out on the prairie! From quick draws to man-eating saloon doors, and from bandidos to baked beans, not a Wild West cliché is omitted, and no opportunity missed to lasso the audience into the action!

Our tall tale relates the fiendish efforts of Badman Jake McCabe and his redskin sidekick, Speaks Like A Rattlesnake, to set Big Chief Running Buffet on the warpath – all in order to spark off a range war and get the Indians driven onto a reservation. With Running Buffet and his people out of the way, McCabe and his mad, bad hombrés, Dopey Hobart and The Cactus Kid, can get their sticky hands on the gold buried beneath them thar ancient burial grounds of the Magwumpa Sioux.

Fortunately, McCabe’s wicked plot is thwarted by an unlikely alliance of Clint Cougar of the Texas Rangers, Red Indian maiden Sings Like Mountain Stream, ornery ol’ timer Gus Varmint, and Clint’s outrageous auntie over from England – Calamity Dame!

Robin Hood

The Woodman has been Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s ‘local’ for the last fifteen years now – the nearest decent pub to our home base, the Coulsdon Youth and Social Centre in Chipstead Valley Road. Every Monday and Wednesday evening, TWC members can be found quenching their thirst in The Woodman after a hard evening’s rehearsing!

So when we set ourselves a challenge – staging a play in the open air, the gardens of our favourite hostelry seeming like an obvious choice. Fortunately our obliging hosts, Chris and Linda Matthews, (although probably not quite realising what they were letting them selves in for) fully embraced the idea, and you could hardly choose a more appropriate play to be presented in the open air than ‘Robin Hood’.

A ‘Robin Hood’ staged in the open air among real trees and under real stars is quite a different, and very special, proposition to one staged in a theatre or hall.

Although the popular mythology of a medieval Robin had evolved over many centuries, his origins as a powerful manifestation of the Wildwood can be traced back in time, beyond any supposed historical roots, to pre-Christian folklore. Folk plays on the theme of Robin Hood have an ancient pedigree stretching back to at least the thirteenth century. Such plays would have been a familiar entertainment to the common people of the time – and were of course customarily presented in the open air.

Our current production is a free adaptation of a quite recent American script – which in turn was a fairly straight retelling of what we consider to be the most common elements in any recounting of the legend of Robin Hood.

And so began what became our traditional open-air summer production. We would perform in the beer garden at The Woodman every summer until 2010, our last production in 2009 being an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s ‘Lord and Ladies’. A number of unsympathetic landlords who simply failed to understand the numbers of additional people we were bringing to the pub to eat and drink each year, a remodelling of the beer garden that didn’t seem to help the pub and certainly worked against us, and then the building of a new cricket pavilion next door with floodlighting that overspilled into the area we were using – all contributed to us taking the decision to move elsewhere. But in 1993, it was a marvellous new experience and one we enjoyed, and would continue to enjoy, for many years.