Person: Linda Gregory

Lords and Ladies

It’s a hot midsummer’s night in the tiny kingdom of Lancre, up in the far northern hill country of Discworld. Crop circles are turning up everywhere, bursting like raindrops, a portent of wayward magic leaking into the land from between the standing stones known as ‘The Dancers’.

Magrat Garlick, witch, is getting married in the morning – to King Verence of Lancre no less. The wizards of the Unseen University are journeying north from the great city of Ankh-Morpork to bless the union, and the Lancre All-Comers Morris Team have been lined up to stage a rustic entertainment for the happy couple. In short, everything should be going like a dream.

But all is not well in Lancre. Elves, long banished from the human realm are pushing at the iron boundaries of their barren winter land, bringing with them all those things traditionally associated with the magical, glittering realm of faerie: cruelty, kidnapping, malice and murder.

‘The Dancers’ form the gateway between the two worlds, and for many years, Granny Weatherwax and her tiny argumentative coven have worked to keep that portal tightly closed. But now a new coven, led by the young, ambitious and wilful Diamanda (real name Lucy Tockley, but Diamanda sounds so much better) are determined to overturn the old order…

And when the Lancre morris team gets seriously drunk on a fairy mound, all Hell is ready to break loose. In short, it’s a festival of dwarves, wizards, trolls, morris dancers – plus an orang-utan, with a fair helping of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place… We hope you enjoy tonight’s performance!

A big thank you to Debbie Bradshaw and Katy Tupholme at Bluetree Design and Print of Rotherham for designing our posters for the production, and to Mark Lewis and Nick Hewson at Mastercolour of Tunbridge Wells for printing them.

‘Lords and Ladies’ (1992) is adapted from the comic fantasy novel by prolific author Terry Pratchett, his fourteenth set on Discworld, and the fourth to feature the Lancre coven of witches led by the redoubtable Esmerelda ‘Esme’ Weatherwax, a character who Pratchett clearly enjoyed revisiting. Astonishingly successful, he sold over 100 million copies of his books, forty-one of which were Discworld novels, and he was awarded first the OBE in 1998 and then a knighthood in 2009. He died at the age 66, from complications relating to Alzheimer’s Disease, which he had been diagnosed with in 2007.
 
Following on from ‘Wyrd Sisters’ in 1995 and ‘Mort’ in 1997, ‘Lords and Ladies’ is the third stage adaptation of a Discworld novel that Theatre Workshop Coulsdon have undertaken, and any similarities to Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ are purely intentional. Nor is it a coincidence that all three have been directed by Mike Brown.

Dick Barton – Special Agent

The star of the BBC’s first daily radio serial, private investigator and sometime Special Agent, Dick Barton appeared in in 711 episodes between 1946 and 1951 – the brainchild of BBC producer Norman Collins, who had of a visions of a ‘cloak and dagger soap opera’ broadcast every evening.

With his two sidekicks Jock and Snowy, Dick managed to get into some pretty tight scrapes – much to the delight of the listening audience but to the murmurings of stern disapproval from various clergymen of the day. Which seems strange, especially in hindsight, given that Dick’s adventures and last-moment escapes from deadly danger were all written and performed in accordance with a very strict code of conduct. No drinking, no swearing, no violence other than a good clean ‘sock to the jaw’ and even then only if evenly matched or outnumbered. Definitely no girlfriends or romantic associations, and no lying. If Dick needs to give chase to a fleeing villain in a conveniently available car, he must first ask the owner’s permission. No themes of horror should be used either, so no ghosts, vampires, other supernatural creatures or gorillas. (Yes, specifically no gorillas). It’s a wonder Dick managed anything more exciting than a trip to the shops.

Despite all this the show was a huge success, with, at its peak, 15 million listeners tuning in at 6.45pm each evening for 15 minutes of derring-do. The fast-paced, free wheeling adventures were just what post-war Britain was waiting for, and one-time commando Capt. Richard Barton MC was the hero of the hour. Or quarter of an hour, to be precise. However, the BBC were uncomfortable with their sensationalist success story, and when a new programme successfully debuted in a late morning slot in 1951, an everyday tale of life in a rural community, they quickly moved to replace the Special Agent with it. So for all the arch-foes and villains that Barton confronted, he was eventually killed off by ‘The Archers’.

An ill-fated attempt to bring back Barton to television in 1979 seemed to draw a far from discreet veil over any new adventures, but in 1998, Phil Wilmott wrote the musical ‘Dick Barton, Episode One – Special Agent’, part homage, part spoof, and with music from Stefan Bednarczyk, it was a roaring success when it debuted at the Croydon’s Warehouse Theatre, going on to tour Britain over the next couple of years. Since then there have been five sequels, the first two penned by Wilmott and then Duncan Wisbey took the reins

And now, it’s our turn to take on the mac and trilby of upright and uptight British manliness. Warning. The code of conduct will be disobeyed frequently.

During one of the Sunday set-building sessions for ‘Dick Barton’, Julian Cooper, who had been a well-liked part of the group in a backstage capacity for a number of years, suffered a sudden massive heart attack. Despite the efforts of both TWC members and ambulance crew to resuscitate him, Julian was pronounced dead on arrival at Mayday Hospital in Croydon. He was just 43. The play was dedicated to his memory.

The Arabian Nights

For our inspiration, ‘The Arabian Nights’ draws on the 1001 tales supposedly told by Shaharazad (or Scheherazade). King Shahryar, having suffered at the hands of an unfaithful wife, has become bitter and vengeful, undertaking to marry every day, but execute each wife as the next day dawns to prevent their infidelity. Shaharazad, the clever daughter of the court vizier, volunteers to become his wife, to try and prevent the needless bloodshed. Every night she tells Shahryar a story that enthralls him, but deliberately leaves it unfinished come the sunrise, and so the King stays her execution. She does this again and again, for 1001 nights, by which point he renounces his violent ways and spares her life permanently.

In reality, the stories, which are many but nowhere near 1001, are taken from sources across the Islamic world. From Moorish Spain to the borders of China, across the Middle East, reaching as far south as sub-Saharan Africa and north to the Balkans and the Caucasus mountains. The fullest version of the 1001 tales was compiled, translated and edited by the eminent Victorian explorer, Sir Richard Burton, who had published a massive 16 volume edition in 1885. However, it remains only one of a dozen or so major retellings written across the 19th and 20th centuries.

Most of the stories are simple folk tales, a number sharing many similarities with folk tales from other cultures. Two of the tales (strangely enough, two of the most famous, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’) were almost certainly shoehorned into the collection at a late stage, bearing little resemblance to the story structure of the rest and differing in other aspects too.

For our production, we kept part of Shaharazad’s tale to frame the other tales we wanted to tell, a mere six against 800 or so we had to choose from. We’ve tried to cover a range, from the profound to the absurd, the sinister and the scary to the comic and just a little bit naughty. All human (and some non-human) life is here. Enjoy.

The tales are;

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

The Talking Head

The Simpleton and the Two Sharpers

The Little Hunchback

The Lady and Her Four Suitors

The Strange Tale of Sidi Nu’uman

 

More Grimm Tales

The root of all theatre is storytelling, and the unfolding of a simple tale in the space between the teller and the listener is arguably the purest form of theatre.

Theatre Workshop has visited the stories of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, best known as the Brothers Grimm, before. Just three years ago we put on ‘Grimm Tales’ here in the pub beer-garden of The Woodman. That time we used a script taken from Tim Supple and the Young Vic Theatre Company, based on translations of the original German text by no less than Carol-Ann Duffy, the Scottish poet (who went on to become Poet Laureate in 2009). This time though we’re taking the project into our own hands, and the adaptation of the tales has been done by Richard Lloyd, with Heidi Bush and Mike Brown. This has the advantage of a script that plays to our company’s strengths. At least, that’s the plan. And though the tales hark back to some of the darker aspects of folklore, indeed we’ve leant into that idea, it remains a family show in more ways than one. The Lloyd family entire will be on stage this evening, as will three quarters of the Martin family, while the remaining quarter will have undoubtedly given you ‘The best seat in the house’ as you entered the auditorium area. So it can’t be that scary, can it?

The stories we have selected for your entertainment are;

Little Snow White

Briar Rose

The Robber Bridegroom

Clever Hans

The Musicians of Bremen

The Spirit in the Bottle

The Devil and his Mother

The Frog Prince

Now listener, make yourself comfortable and we shall let the tales unfold.

Peter And The Wolf! – A Pantomime of Old Russia

A pantomime drawing on all sorts of classic old Russian themes? Coming right up, comrade!

The villain of the piece is Grand Duchess Irina Bogovsky, whose personal vanity and quest for immortality has led her down a dark path, as only by sacrificing young peasant girls will she stave off her personal march of time. Against her is set the heroic, young, thigh-slapping principal girl, Pyotyr Pyotrovich, who must rescue her true love from the Duchess’s evil machinations.

Does Pyotyr stand a chance against the devilish Irina and her fiendish Cossack ally Ivan and his men?

Oh no, he doesn’t!

Oh yes, he does!

With Grandmother Masha by his side, and help from various over-sized and over-furry animals, Pyotr will trawl through an entertainingly curated collection of recognisable Russian folklore, from mad monks to Firebirds, rescue Dasha and free the motherland. With songs too!

That’s Theatre Workshop for you, always giving you plenty of bang for your rouble.

The Wind in the Willows

For our eleventh summer production, staged in the open air at The Woodman, we’ve picked a classic of children’s literature ‘The Wind in the Willows’, based on the 1908 book by Kenneth Grahame.

There’s not a great deal one can say about ‘The Wind in the Willows’. Almost everybody is familiar with the adventures of Toad, Ratty. Mole, Badger and co., either because they’ve read the book, or at least they think they have. It’s certainly amongst the most widely loved of books – a rural riverbank idyll of friendship and innocence which seems to strike some peculiarly English sentimental chord.

Maybe it’s the little furry animals. Perhaps, viewed through the prism of history, the modest, meandering adventures of Rat and Mole, set as they are in an evocative pastoral England where good manners and tranquillity are only occasionally disturbed by the vainglorious antics of a certain ‘Nouveau Riche’ amphibian, genuinely do call to mind an time of lost innocence and comfortably parochial concerns. An England before the cataclysm of The Great War, and all the horrors of the industrialised, globalised conflicts that have occurred since.

However, ‘The Wind in the Willows’ doesn’t simply hark back to a bygone age. It presages the uncomfortable shape of things to come as Grahame saw them in 1908 – the ‘menace’ of the motor car for instance, and the upheaval of the deferential norms of polite society, where Wild Wooders and other assorted ‘lower orders’ simply don’t seem to know their place any more, and are starting, as Ratty says, ‘to break out’.

Much of the appeal lies in the story’s great comic set pieces, its sympathetic characters and larger than life caricatures such as the irrepressible Toad. Appalling amoral and utterly incorrigible, he’s become a firm favourite on stage for much of the twentieth century, mostly due to A.A. Milne’s ‘Toad of Toad Hall’, the first and most enduring of the many adaptations that the story has undergone.

That said, we’re actually using the more recent (1990) adaptation by Alan Bennett, with a few choice embellishments of our own. Some critics have said that Bennett’s version is somehow truer to the book than Milne’s classic, but if you watch our show closely, it’s clear that Bennett’s voice can be heard intermixed with that of Grahame’s. Regardless, as Mr Toad so succinctly put it, ‘Poop Poop!’.