Tania Gauci – Theatre Workshop Coulsdon

The Canterbury Tales (2011)

It is the 14th Century, and in the bustling courtyard of The Tabard Inn, Southwark, men and women from all walks of life gather for a pilgrimage to the cathedral at Canterbury. Friars and priests, pardoners and summoners, millers and good wives. In order to entertain these good folk, the host of the inn asks that each traveller tells a story as they make their way across Kent. And so they, and we, begin our journey.

In this joyous adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic work by Richard Lloyd, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon present six of the best and most colourful tales, creating an exuberant and and often hilarious portrait of ordinary folk preoccupied with petty jealousies, mundane squabbles and simple pleasures. Bold and often bawdy, these tales bring home vividly just how little the English people have really changed over the last six hundred years!

The stories presented are The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The Friar’s Tale, The Pardoner’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale and The Reeves Tale, neatly wrapped in an engaging background as host and landlord Harry Bailey attempts to maintain order amongst his boisterous and often wayward charges.

Chaucer (1343 – 1400) is widely considered to be the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, and was the first poet to be buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer, Chaucer also maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, diplomat and courtier. His many works include ‘The Book of the Duchess’, ‘The House of Fame’, ‘The Legend of Good Women’ and ‘Troilus and Criseyde’, but it is ‘The Canterbury Tales’, in which he uses the tales to paint an ironic and critical picture of English society, for which he will always be remembered.

The Tempest

Torn from the sky!

Returning to its homeland from a royal wedding in distant Tunis, the ‘Napoli Rex’, flagship of the King of Naples’ airfleet, is pulled from the sky by a violent and unnatural storm.

The survivors find themselves scattered across a barren island populated with magical creatures and spirits, fearing for their very lives. And behind this seeming disaster is Prospero, an exiled sorcerer seeking vengeance…

Shakespeare’s final play is his crowning glory, a tale of magic, love, humour and redemption.

Theatre Workshop Coulsdon have placed ‘The Tempest’ in a steampunk-flavoured Victorian age, where the might of an industrial revolution with its airships, guns and steam-power is confronted with forces beyond its wildest imagining…

Years ago, Prospero forsook his duties as the Duke of Milan to study the arcane arts. With his attention elsewhere, he was unprepared for the coup that saw him dragged from his position and sent out to die alongside his baby daughter, Miranda. By merest chance they survived, crash-landing on a remote and barren island in the Mediterranean, and with the help of two servants, the sprite Ariel and the twisted creature that is Caliban, Prospero lived on and plotted revenge. Now chance again plays into his hands, as those he would mete out vengeance to have been driven to the island by a tempest, their airship torn from the skies and the passengers and crew thrown down. However, he has reckoned without Miranda (now grown to womanhood) and her response to these strange new visitors, one of whom she falls in love with…

Shakespeare’s last play is here transported to a neo-Victorian setting, played out in the traverse among the broken spars and debris of his downed airship, the ‘Milano’. Prospero’s sorcery here vies with magic lanterns and steam-powered pistols in a unique take on the bard’s farewell to the stage.

The Return Of The Three Musketeers

Twenty years on from his greatest adventure, D’Artagnan is disillusioned. Still only a lowly-paid lieutenant in the musketeers, his friends long gone, forgotten by the powerful people he once rescued from death and dishonour. But where once he saved a queen, a chance turn of events gives D’Artagnan the opportunity to save a King, and a King of England at that! But he can’t do it alone. Can he recruit his old comrades Porthos, Athos and Aramis from retirement? And can they save themselves from the vengeful agent of death that follows their every move?

Freely adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ own stirring Musketeers sequel ‘Twenty Years After’, this is a colourful new story of swashbuckling high adventure, fun and derring-do!

All for one, and one for all, once more!

There are two stories to be told here. One is the best part of two hundred years old, the other just sixteen.

1844. The French author Alexandre Dumas published ‘The Three Musketeers’ as a serial in a magazine. It was an immediate success, and a sequel came out a year later, and a third and final instalment two years after that. ‘The Three Musketeers’ seized the public’s imagination and to one degree or another, has continued to do so ever since.

The four great friends, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and the younger D’Artagnan became over the course of the books embroiled in plots and plans that changed history. Dumas was an avid historian and liked to show off to his readers how much he knew. Mind you, that didn’t stop him riding rough-shod over history when it suited the story!

It’s arguably the most successful piece of French literature ever. (Let’s draw a discreet veil over ‘Les Miserables’ please) There have been movies (lots of them, the first in 1903, the last one just last year), musicals (one part-written by P G Wodehouse of all people) and operas, television series and even cartoons. (those of a certain age may fondly remember ‘Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds’ though others might run screaming from the room…) One such version was a play written by Willis Hall, which caught the eye of Theatre Workshop Coulsdon founder member and director Chris Argles.

1996, and TWC first comes to grips with the original action-heroes. Richard Lloyd played Athos, Mike Brown was Porthos and I played Aramis. We swashed buckles, waved swords and saved the day. Mike even ran across the stage naked (except for a large musketeer hat!) but only of course because the script demanded it… His grandmother was never quite the same after seeing it!

2011. We’re looking for a follow-up to the open-air success of ‘The Canterbury Tales’. ‘The Three Musketeers’ is suggested, but we really don’t want to revisit the same script because, well, we’ve done it before. Why don’t we do the sequel? Because no-one’s written one. ‘I’ll write one’ says I. The fact I’ve never written a play in my life before seemingly not a stumbling block. Ahem.

2012. Here we are. The play is written, we’ve taken the same three actors to play the original Three Musketeers, and that’s deliberate. The sequel to the first book was called ‘Twenty Years After’ and it’s not far off that between our productions. We’re all older. Probably a bit slower and a bit heavier, maybe even a little wiser. But are we growing old gracefully? Are the Musketeers? Probably not. But is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. Oh, and a note for any Dumas purists out there. I have taken huge liberties with the book. And if you have a problem with that, I’ll meet you outside…with my three friends! All for one, and one for all!

Cinderella’s Puss In Boots

Take the classic story of Cinderella, add the bluff and swagger of Puss in Boots, and you get two much-loved seasonal tales woven into one sparkling festive show.

Yes, we’ve put panto favourites Cinderella and Puss on stage together for the first time, in an irreverent mash-up of two much-loved seasonal tales. That means you get two principal boys for the thigh-slapping price of one, the most deliciously appalling Ugly Sisters ever to grace the stage, and the ultimate in hissable baddies – King Rat, evil lord of the underworld. Plus, of course, Puss-in-Boots at his irresistible, swashbuckling best. Beautiful Cinderella undergoes the usual series of traumas, trials and torments – until her Ab-Fab style fairy godmothers and fashion gurus breeze in to save the day with a haute couture transformation guaranteed to catch a prince’s heart. This is a top-notch Cinderella, with just that little bit extra panto goodness thrown into the mix.

Set in, and under, the fairy-tale land of Cornucopia, ruled by good(ish) King Egbert, the action starts with something evil stirring in the darkness below, and it’s got a tail, whiskers and cheap crown…

Treasure Island (2010)

Long before Jack Sparrow was ever dreamt of, an even more irredeemable rogue bestrode the rolling quarter-deck of pirate fiction. A one-legged villain by the name of Silver…

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote ‘Treasure Island’ in 1883, he created not only the most famous adventure story in the English language, but an entire genre. Maps marked with crosses, buried treasure chests, one-legged seafarers with parrots, tropical islands full of mystery and danger, black spots and ‘Yo-ho-ho’s – all these commonplaces of pirate fiction were entirely Stevenson’s invention. He was writing about a world 150 years before his own time, about which he knew very little. That didn’t stop him writing a thrilling story that also held a wry commentary on coming of age and the ambiguity of morality – in the maimed shape of Long John Silver – unusual for children’s literature both then and now.

In our 40th year, choosing Treasure Island for our summer, open-air production seemed both obvious and fitting. It marks the fourth time we’ve set sail with this tale of derring-do, having done so previously in 1974 and 1989, as well as spoofing it with a panto version in 1995. One tradition has remained throughout, the trademark of TWC. In the absence of female characters (with the exception of Mrs Hawkins) we have the heroes played by women and the villainous pirates played by men. Now that might sound a little strange perhaps, but believe me, it works well.

The songs in this production are traditional sea songs and shanties, a rousing accompaniment for life and adventure aboard the Hispaniola. Several hundred of these traditional songs are known, with literally thousands of versions, many blurred into hybrids of several different songs They formed a constantly evolving oral tradition passed on by seamen around the world during the great age of sail. The songs took their influences from different languages and cultures: from Gaelic and Scandinavian dialect song to Wild West ballads; from the rhythms of the South Sea Islands to Negro Spirituals. They were only ever sung on merchant ships though, not the Royal Navy, who frowned on the practice.

Traditional sea songs divide into two main types: the shanty, a chanted work song with a repetitive chorus designed to help gangs of men synchronise the heavy tasks hauling, heaving or pumping aboard ship, and the foc’sle ballad – songs composed and sung just for entertainment. The divide is far from hard and fast however, and many shanties have, over time, developed a more lyrical form.

Our band for the production, pressganged into service of course, are called ‘Ninepence Three Farthings’. Enjoy.

Dracula

A bloody, poetic and sexually-charged interpretation of the world’s most infamous horror story!

Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ wasn’t the first Gothic Horror tale (that honour falls to Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’ published over a century before) but it is, arguably, the most famous exponent of the genre, though it has stiff competition in Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’, R L Stevenson’s ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde’ and Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. However, none have quite the strange sexual allure that the Transylvanian aristocrat has, even to this day. This creature, for human he most certainly isn’t, should be repulsive, but yet the opposite is true. The vampire has taken on an eerie glamour, coupled with a sense of tragedy. Hence the success of Anne Rice’s ‘Vampire Lestat’ books and the ‘Twilight’ series by Stephanie Meyer.

Of course, folkloric vampires predate Dracula by centuries, with demons showing what we would consider to be vampiric ways and practices noted by the Romans, Mesopotamians and the Ancient Greeks. But these creatures were ruddy, or purplish in colour, and bloated from the drinking of blood, a far cry from the slim, pale skinned figures we associate with the term now. And frankly a lot less sexy.

Liz Lochead is a Scottish playwright and poet who adapted ‘Dracula’ for the stage in 1985. She made a number of changes to the tale, but then reducing a novel of several hundred pages down to a workable two act play was always going to require that. Lucy Westernra and Mina Murray became sisters sharing the surname Westerman. Arthur Holmwood, also known as Lord Godalming, and American Quincey Morris, two of Lucy Westernra’s suitors, are excised from the script while Renfield’s part is expanded on. In come new characters, such as Nurses Grice and Nisbett, as well as Orderly Drinkwater, at Dr Seward’s asylum, and to add a working class voice to the narrative, Florrie Hathersage, the Westerman’s maid. Across the whole script, the language has been updated to provide a level of humour and innuendo, while focusing on female sexuality and madness.

Do the changes work? Certainly Renfield’s character, and the story, benefits from the extra time spent with him. He’s more articulate, even sympathetic. A victim who can see his own doom coming. Mina though is something less in this version. Pared back, she’s no longer the architect of Dracula’s downfall, nor is Lucy any the stronger for having been reshaped for the late 20th Century. Dracula remains however, untouched, his presence throughout underlined by over a century of cultural familiarity.

Dark Deeds at St. Mildred’s

Welcome to ‘Dark Deeds at St Trynian’s’ – a homage to the St Trinian’s books created by the cartoonist Ronald Searle (1920 – 2011) between 1941 and 1954. Searle’s cartoons were hugely popular – the antithesis on the Enid Blyton-type posh girl’s boarding school; its pupils are wicked and well-armed, and mayhem is rife. The Gothic cartoons often showed the dead bodies of girls who had been skewered with pitchforks, tortured by their classmates, or succumbed to violent team sports. Searle started to draw these cartoons whilst a prisoner of war of the Japanese. Perhaps it was his way of dealing with the unimaginable horror.

Four movies, based on Searle’s cartoons, were made between 1954 and 1966. There was a remake in 1980 and another in 2007. St Trinian’s is portrayed as an unorthodox girls school where sex, smoking, drinking and gambling aren’t on the curriculum – but they’re not exactly frowned upon either. The girls come in two categories: the Fourth Form, most closely resembling Searle’s original drawings of ink-stained, ungovernable pranksters, and the much older Sixth Form, sexually precocious to a degree that must have seemed alarming in 1954 (one of the girls is even married). The Fourth Form includes a number of much younger girls who are the most ferocious of all. The rule of thumb is that the smaller a St Trinian’s girl, the more dangerous she is – especially with a lacrosse or hockey stick in her hands.

Sadistic, cunning, dissolute, crooked, sordid and capable of any excess, the films implied that the girls were mainly the daughters of well-off gangsters, crooks, shady bookmakers and other low-lifes.

Our production is loosely based on some of the characters from the St Trinian’s books and movies, but with a wholly home-grown script and story. Firmly set in a comfy, non-specific era of post-war nostalgia sometime around the middle of the last century, it bears no resemblance to the recent ‘updated’ movies of St Trinian’s. (Sorry about that, if you were expecting Girls Aloud…)

Sinbadaladdin

Sinbad sails into panto peril with Aladdin on board for laughs!

Sinbad the sailor, or Sinbad of the sea, was the hero of a series of stories outlining his seven voyages across and around the Indian Ocean. He came from Baghdad, now capital of Iraq, then the capital of the sprawling Abbasid Empire that stretched from Tunisia in the west to Pakistan in the East. The original tale of Aladdin is also set in the Middle East. And yet, in panto, this tale of a poor boy made good is landed in a Chinese laundry, surrounded by absurd cod-Chinese names and a mother, Widow Twankey, closer to the East End of London than the Far East. This has long been the case, since 1788 in fact, when John O’Keefe staged the first Aladdin pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Richard Lloyd has leant into the exotic influence, with his new pantomime mash-up featuring a significant flavour of the Orient (not the Leyton version). Wizards, pirates, genies, beautiful heroines and brave heroes abound, even if these last do look a lot like girls. Widow Twankee gets up to her usual mischief as manageress of the laundry – not so ably assisted by slopper-out Wishee-Washee, while the feisty Princess Jasmine steals Aladdin’s heart and risks the wrath of her father, the Sultan Ming the Mirthless and her ghastly mother, the Sultana No-Lo-Fat. The terrifying magician Abanazar, meanwhile, proves a formidable rival for Jasmine’s hand in marriage.

Songs, sorcery and silliness, with a touch or two of derring-do. Now that’s a pantomime, wherever it comes from.

The Comedy of Errors

Shakespeare’s ‘The Comedy of Errors‘ tells the unlikely story of two pairs of identical twins, separated while they are still babes in arms when shipwrecked. The father of one pair, Egeon, continues his search over the years for his missing son, and his search eventually takes him to Ephesus. Sadly, Egeon hails from Syracuse and at this time, his home city and Ephesus are at war. As a result, Egeon is sentenced to death, and has just 24 hours to raise a one thousand mark ransom to avoid the executioner’s axe. As a comedy, this is an unlikely start.

Egeon’s son, Antipholus, (the one that didn’t go missing) has also joined in the search for his brother. And coincidentally he also arrives in Ephesus, unaware of his father’s fate. He’s also unaware that his long-lost twin lives in Ephesus, like him a successful merchant. And so a sequence of events involving mistaken identities is set off, compounded by the even more unlikely situation that his manservant, Dromio, is also an identical twin. And that this twin, who strangely is also called Dromio, just happens to be the manservant of Egeon’s missing son, who by sheer coincidence is called Antipholus too. Because, well, they’re such common names. Honest.

There’s a lot of running around, slapstick violence, misconceived sexual encounters, accusations of theft and even demonic possession, certainly enough to consider this a pure farce, but the shadow of Egeon’s fate lingers across it all, and makes this something a bit deeper. In the end, all is well. Brothers cheerfully embrace and a husband discovers not only a lost son but a lost wife (who he seemingly spent little time looking for).

This was one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, and also his shortest. The concept is clearly absurd, but it still retains a level of poignancy, and the broad strokes of humour are from time to time put aside to make way for lyrical verse the equal of which you might find in his most highly regarded dramas.

The music for the production was composed and performed by Pete Bird, the fifth such project he’s undertaken for the group. Inspired in part by the period dance tune ‘My Lady Hunsdon’s Puffe’ by the English lutenist John Dowland (1563-1626), whose works have been brought to wider public notice recently by Sting, Pete has attempted to create a sound reminiscent of a small chamber orchestra or string quartet. To that end he has played all the music you will hear, with the exception of the mandolin theme, which is played by Simeon Dawes.

The She-Wolves Of Doctor Schlock

“But if we fail, we will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister by the lights of perverted science.” Sir Winston Churchill, 18^th June 1940

Wilkommen zu der Schloss Schlockhöfen… an eerie, isolated fortress, perched on a precipitous crag rising from the trackless Bavarian forest. The retreat and laboratory of the mysterious, reclusive Doktor Hieronymus Schlock, sometime scientific genius of the long fallen Reich…

That’s the setting for this B-movie musical schlock horrorfest – a hearty soup of pulp-horror goodness. A tongue-in-cheek melange of mad scientists, zombies, nymphomanic werewolves and gung-ho lost patrols. All spiced up with a risqué dash of sub-S&M gender-bending!

Barney Bridgework and Diane Dentine of CDBDBN Broadcast News are filming an investigation into mysterious disappearances around Schlockhöfen. But having lost the keys to their jeep, they are forced to knock at the castle door…

Can they survive the night within its forbidding walls with only Herr Doktor and his weird household for company? The denizens of Der Schloss include Beauty, a handmade nymphomaniac S&M junkie; Beast, who makes Frankenstein’s Monster look a complete pussy; Otto Plügbutt, Herr Doktor’s devoted batman, and his terrifying yet drop-dead gorgeous She-Wolves – an all singing, all dancing troupe of PVC-clad lycanthropes – the ultimate security detail to die for…

And dropping (quite literally) into this freakshow, a gung-ho squad of U.S. Airborne rangers, attempting to snatch Herr Doktor for a top-secret CIA programme…

The scene is set for a rip-roaring, rock n’ rolling evening of gothic devilment and pure pulp horror wickedness. So sit back, relax, and place yourselves in the horribly capable hands of Herr Doktor and his lethal, latex-clad lady friends…