The Adventures of Dick Turpin
by Richard Lloyd

When Clemency Turnip’s Coffee House is closed down for ‘low morals’ and dealing in illicit liquor, her son Jack and serving-girl Polly Flinders find themselves out on the mean streets of 18th Century London and surviving on their wits. For Polly, it’s a path that may see her find her real parents. For Jack it’s a road to fame and notoriety as the land’s most celebrated highwayman!

Set in the colourful time of ‘Poldark’, ‘Tom Jones’ and Hogarth’s ‘Rake’s Progress’, this all-new pantomime adventure comes complete with outrageous Dame, girls dressed as boys, an audience participation song and every opportunity to boo the villains and cheer the heroes.

Will Turnip’s Coffee House be re-opened? Will moody and smouldering Ross Poldork regain the rights to his Cornish treacle mine? Will merchant banker Sir Beastlie Fugg get his deserved come-uppance? Will true love find its way?

‘The Adventures of Dick Turpin’

December 10, 15, 16, 17 at 8pm and December 11, 17, 18 at 3pm

at Coulsdon Community Centre

Cast

Mr Strappem, the bumbling Beadle
Mike Brown

Mrs Edna Birch, the cruel superintendent of corrections
Chloe Collins

‘Hanging’ Judge Jeffreys, the High Justice
Paul M Ford

Celestius Fopwell, extravagant yet effete Captain of Dragoons
Joe Wilson

Lady Ludelia Foldarol-Trumpington, a woman with a past
Dawn Ford

Fanny Foldarol-Trumpington, a feisty debutante
Rafaella Piscina

Woss Poldork, a moody and impetuous Cornish mine-owner
Pete Bird

Redrob Davey, a villainous highwayman
Rupert Miles

Pretty George, Davey’s moll and partner-in-crime
Alfie Brown

Clemency Turnip, proprietor of Scratting’s Coffee House
Bruce Montgomery

Jack Turnip, Clemency’s son, in search of a destiny
Rosa Ruggeri

Beige Bess, a pantomime horse freshly rescued from the knacker’s yard
Sean Young and Neil Grew

Polly Flinders, a much put-upon pot girl and foundling
Lucy-Ann Martin

Old Mother Thistledown, a gypsy fortune-teller with a secret
Lisa Lloyd

Sir Beastlie Fugg, a black-hearted and sly merchant banker
Chris Argles

Mr Biffem, the soft-hearted and soft-headed Headborough
Aldo Piscina

Whiffle, a dung shoveller
Tim Young

Hubert Grovel Esq, a lawyer
Neil Grew

Mr Snivell, the madhouse keeper of Bedlam
Sean Young

Waifs, lunatics, drummers, gin palace habitues and general mob
Charles Calafato, Kiera Ford, Francesca Ruggeri and others of the Company

Directed by Richard Lloyd

Musical Director Jeannie Lewis

Band

Simeon Dawes       Bass Guitar

Jeannie Lewis        Percussion

Keith Lewis             Guitar

Jon North                Piano

Charles Taylor        Guitar

Review

by Liz Sheppard-Jones of the Croydon Citizen,

Tuesday 13th December 2016

There’s proper Fanny and Dick available in Croydon this Christmas

Editorial disclaimer: It’s likely that by choosing to open this review, and perhaps even to consider an evening’s entertainment entitled ‘The Pantomime Adventures of Dick Turpin‘, you declare yourself un-averse to content of a bawdy, or even of a mildly licentious, nature. 

You’re going to get that.

Before reading on, you may also wish to note that mulled wine was consumed, and tweets of a salacious nature dispatched, by the Citizen‘s reviewer whilst contemplating this revelry. 

You have been warned. 

They know how to get you into the festive spirit at Theatre Workshop Coulsdon: a member of front of house staff having an astonishingly good hair day showed us cheerily to our seats and confirmed that we knew where the warm mince pies were. In the interval, we were invited to hail the ‘ice-cream wenches’. Then it’s on with the show, which opens with a medley of Loreena McKennitt’s cover of ‘The Highwayman‘ by Alfred Noyes (both the poem and the song being amongst my favourites things of all time: those boots are, after all, up to the thigh and his breeches sufficiently well-populated as to fit with never a wrinkle) and ‘ Yakety Sax‘, better known as the Benny Hill theme tune. That’s how to set a scene, that is.

After that, it’s panto time.

You know what you’re going to get. There’s a game dame (Clemency Turnip, confidently played by Bruce Montgomery) and gender-bending romps with a leading man (Jack Turnip, aka the dastardly Turpin, played by Rosa Ruggeri) who’s clearly a girl. There are his two female love interests (Polly Flinders, played by Lucy-Ann Martin, and Fanny Foldarol-Trumpington played by Rafaella Piscina) who for plot purposes don’t realise their Dick’s not as up for it as he seems but for panto purposes clearly do, and play up knowingly to an audience enjoying the mild frisson of watching them snogging. There’s lots of ‘”oh-yes-he-is! Oh-no-he-isn’t!”, a bit of “behind you!” and two wonderfully black-hearted villains to hiss at: Hanging Judge Jeffries (Paul M. Ford) and Mrs Edna Birch (Chloe Collins).

Give us more satisfying opportunities to boo the bankers

The mulled wine went down a treat and the show (which actually has quite a complex story line but was well told and therefore remained clear throughout) cracked along far faster than Beige Bess, the pantomime horse, could have managed. There was a moment of unscripted danger in the arrival on stage of two impossibly cute small children (no, really) during the ‘volunteers from the audience’ section: it’s a high-risk age group for performance. But these two were sweeties with their big serious eyes, just shy enough to get you worried in case it was all too much for them, then just confident enough to steal the show. Best of all, there were satisfying opportunities to boo the bankers (and make more of these, I say).

There were also two stand-out performances: Paul M. Ford’s Judge Jeffries, a fabulous baddie who lacked only clouds of smoke issuing forth at his entrance, and Rafaella Piscina’s Fanny Foldarol-Trumpington, who grew more and more confident as the show progressed and by the end was the focus of every eye: cool, sassy, captivating and super-shiny-haired, like a golden retriever. She’s clearly another user of Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s magic shampoo (please email me details at once).

This Dick needs to stand and deliver

There’s also Woss Poldork: this character, who spoofs the BBC’s remake of ‘brooding drama’  Poldark (ridiculously buff, notably scornful of authority and never missing an opportunity to take his shirt off – although he didn’t actually take it off, and should have) was a wonderfully funny idea and Peter Bird’s a bed-headed dead ringer. It needed just a tad more swagger and a bit louder and clearer lines: one or two of these got swallowed, which was a shame. (This was also frustratingly the case with the very first scene-setting hold-up in the coach.) I also wanted a slightly more definitive Jack/Dick: he needs to really stand and deliver for the hot Fanny right alongside.

This Dick goes deep down south, but if Southern trains seem chancy (understandable), the 60 bus gets to Coulsdon in no time (that’s how we got there) and the Community Centre is just a six or seven minute walk from the shops and both train stations (Coulsdon Town and Coulsdon South). The show’s on all week, so head for Scratting’s Coffee House and join the ‘waifs, lunatics, drummers and general mob’ of Croydonian panto fans.