Weston-super-Mare
Dramatic Society
Not Now, Darling by Ray Cooney & John Chapman
Performed at Weston-super-Mare Playhouse : March 29th - 31st 1979 including Saturday matinee
CAST
Arnold Crouch CAMERON ELLIOTT
Miss Whittington SUE FOREMAN
Miss Tipdale LESLEY BLACKWELL
Mrs. Frencham CATHERINE MORSE
Gilbert Bodley SIMON SIDDALL
Commander Frencham
JOHN BUTLER
Harry McMichael CLIVE DARKE
Janie McMichael TERESINHA MORTON-HICKS
Sue Lawson ANN EDWARDS
Maude Bodley BOBBIE ROBERTSON
Mr. Lawson ANTHONY LAY
PRODUCTION
Director MARY HUGHES
Stage Manager BILL RIMMER
Asst. Stage Manager BARBARA SHAKESPEARE
Prompt MARY AMESBURY
Continuity JUDYTHE SMITH
Properties IVOR MORSE
Wardrobe MICKY DENING
Set Design BILL RIMMER
Scenery DEBBIE ATKINSON and Society Members
Furniture BRISTOL OLD VIC
Publicity LESLEY BLACKWELL
Sound ALAN HURMAN
Tony Lay, Cameron Elliott,
Ann Edwards, Lesley Blackwell
REVIEW - Weston Mercury, Somerset & Avon Herald Friday March 30th 1979 - DRAMATIC'S FUR LADIES IN CHEERFUL COMEDY
On a cold, grey, cheerless day in what was supposed to be spring, it was cheering to find laughter and pretty girls flinging off their clothes.
It was all in the cause of art or, more specifically, Ray Cooney and John Chapman's farce, Not Now, Darling, presented by an excellent cast of Weston Dramatic Society at Weston's Playhouse.
The setting was a fur salon - perhaps appropriate for the wintry weather - but the situation was not in the least frigid. Partner Gilbert Bodley had this scheme to seduce his most recent girl friend with the gift of a £5,000 mink. The problem lay in delivering it to her without arousing her husband's suspicions. Simon Siddall looked very much the successful businessman and suave man of affairs.
Tall and elegant he was in good contrast to his shorter and less flamboyant partner, played with bristling attack and righteous indignation by Cameron Elliott. Left to conduct the all-important transaction, he messed it up, of course, and caused two hours of frantic hilarity.
The prize for all the plotting was a strip-tease artiste from Paris played with style and allure by Teresinha Morton-Hicks but there were other ladies scenting spring, too. Ann Edwards was also in the running for a fur and Bobbie Robertson won a glamorous set of underwear for the night.
How it all came about is hard to explain - the best laid plans came very much unstuck - but it was all fun and stylishly presented. That is not to say that all the potential humour was fully extracted nor were all the laugh lines adequately pointed on the first night; no doubt these faults and the rather slow opening were improved in subsequent performances.
Lesley Blackwell played the much put-upon secretary, John Butler and Catherine Morse an intrusive nautical couple who further confused operations, Clive Darke and Anthony Lay the two husbands who were not so easy to trap with furs. Sue Foreman neatly opened and closed the show as a decorative model whose potential was obviously going to be the subject of further development at the salon of Bodley, Bodley and Crouch. The director was Mary Hughes. R.M.D.
Goodnight Mrs Puffin by Arthur Lovegrove
Performed at Weston-super-Mare Playhouse : December 11th - 15th 1979 including Saturday matinee
CAST
Mrs Puffin EILEEN HATCH
Nicholas Fordyce SIMON SIDDALL
Ethel Fordyce PAMELA LINHAM
Henry Fordyce GERALD WHITE
Stephen Parker PAUL DENING
Jacky Fordyce NATALIE BOOTH
Pamela Fordyce BARBARA HARDING
PRODUCTION
Director LESLEY BLACKWELL
Set Design JOHN BUTLER
Set Painted by CLIVE DARKE and DEBBIE ATKINSON
REVIEW - Bristol Evening Post Wednesday December 12th 1979 - WHIMSY WITH WISE OLD BIRD
Mrs Puffin, a wise but rather odd old bird, dreams that the Fordyce family's elder daughter will not be getting married on Boxing Day as planned. But when she barges into their home to give the bad news, no one believes her - until events make them change their minds.
Eileen Hatch is excellent as the quirky, cockney Mrs P, while Natalie Booth is confident and polished as the bemused bride-to-be.
The flummoxed Mr and Mrs Fordyce are well played by Pam Linham and Gerald White, and Simon Siddall gives an entertaining performance as their son.
Director Lesley Blackwell gets strong support from the rest of the cast.
This lightweight, whimsical comedy given substance by some first-rate playing continues until Saturday.
Andrew White
REVIEW - Weston Mercury, Somerset & Avon Herald Friday December 14th 1979 - MRS PUFFIN PREVAILS AT PLAYHOUSE
The first night of Weston Dramatic Society's "Goodnight Mrs Puffin", at the Playhouse, left me feeling sorry for both the cast and producer. Not because the performance was poor - it was workmanlike and witty - but because there were so few people in the audience. On that night at least of the play's five-night run it
probably felt almost as lonely to be in the auditorium as up on the stage itself.
Even the most appreciative tiny audience could generate only just so much of the vital "atmosphere" that goes to make a show successful. It was depressing - if that was really all the interest Weston could muster in the
first night of a major production by one of the town's own dramatic societies, then the volunteers who worked so hard on its staging must wonder if their efforts were worthwhile.
Where, for example, were all those people who complain that "nothing decent is ever on at the Playhouse - only those nasty farces"?
This was a clever play, competently staged and complete with some compelling characterisations from a keen cast. Here were no trouser-dropping sequences - not even a mad chase around a bedroom! Nothing but good, clean, inoffensive English comedy of the old-fashioned, "nice" sort.
Perhaps audiences have swelled since Tuesday night - and, as a whole, the cast deserves this. The performances of Eileen Hatch and Simon Siddall in particular are alone worth travelling miles to see.
Anybody who did not see Eileen Hatch as the ubiquitous Mrs Puffin could well have missed one of the most outstanding portrayals of the year. She conveyed the character so well that she dominated the action easily - even when she was offstage.
Eileen was surely exactly how the play's author, Arthur Lovegrove, intended Mrs Puffin, his determined Nemesis from Clapham Junction, to look and sound. From the moment she plodded on stage, we knew she would eventually prevail and alter the family's future.
Simon Siddall was totally relaxed as Nicholas Fordyce, the joker of the family pack. He was completely confident, treating the stage as if he was at home there.
Pam Linham made Ethel Fordyce the perfect counter weight to Mrs Puffin. She exaggerated the character's sheer, cringe-inducing awfulness in a most effective way.
Gerald White, as Henry Fordyce, sounded just right but looked a little youthful for a man in his position. Paul Dening was magnificently magisterial as Stephen Parker.
Natalie Booth, as Jacky Fordyce and Barbara Harding, as Pamela, her sister, both coped with the difficulties posed by their parts.
Producer Lesley Blackwell had done her work well. The production moved smoothly enough - aside from a few flutters of first night nerves - towards an effectively managed climax.
The set, designed and painted by John Butler, Clive Darke and Debbie Atkinson, gave the cast a real boost by providing them with a believable background.
There are further performances tonight and tomorrow. J.R.W.