As we hurtle towards Christmas, the final non-panto play of the 2018 season at Chorley Little Theatre was For the Love of the Game. Normally I wouldn’t go to a play about rugby, but of course I go to all the season ticket productions.
This was a very thoughtful and funny production, and even more impressively, had half the cast singing hymns in half the church scenes. It was fast-paced, flicking between church hall and rugby changing room until we headed off to Westminster.
Good word by CADOS!
Back to school week, but the pensioners are off on their summer holiday for the Last Tango in Whitby. A light-hearted fun play, poking fun at characters who can easily be part of everyone’s lives. The play has it all: the bore, interfering busy-bodies, party animals, and downtrodden friends.
As the title implies, there is (hilarious!) dancing, but very little singing, as the characters enjoy their annual group holiday and reshape their relationships.
A good start to the autumn season by CADOS.
The reason I was retrying Discworld was the knowledge that Guards! Guards! was on this season’s programme at Chorley Little Theatre.
As could only be expected at this juncture, the play was well-acted and directed, and the set builders had done a brilliant job. There was one entertaining moment where the Night Watch managed to all end up inside the secret society without all making their way through the door!
The set and costumes were designed to mimic the cartoonish designs of Discworld covers, and many of the jokes are taken word for word from the text. In some ways, there are more jokes in the play as timing and delivery allow for some which are not possible in text.
I liked the use of a crow to deliver footnotes and other important asides. And Death, one of my favourite characters, appeared in a way which managed to be both humorous and ominous.
A good night, but I expected no less from the Little Theatre, and am sorry to have missed the talk on staging that ran today.
This was, as can only be expected, well-acted and funny. A parody of a family Christmas, with an aunt getting drunk in the kitchen, the hostess falling for one of the guests and the men slouching around trying not to do anything. Although the children were oddly well-behaved in this party, always staying where they were told: just off the stage.
My disappointment was that it all ended in a rather unresolved fashion. Although of course that is how family gatherings do work: a continual rolling conversation spanning months or decades as people travel to group together infrequently. Potentially the unfinished nature is therefore a comment on the subject matter rather than a failing.
Even though the title of the play clearly gives away the trajectory this must take, this was a very watchable play, even if it is one that could do with a more closed-off ending. Jim Cartwright, the playwrite is a local man, who now runs a drama school in Chorley, and this play does have a very local feel.
Steve Unsworth was as always a very competent actor (and I’ve nearly forgiven him for picking me out of the audience in the Complete Works of Shakespeare), and Eleanor Anderton played Little Voice brilliantly, with beautiful singing switching seamlessly to shy, browbeaten LV.
The new seats are very plush, although it was odd to be on the “other” side of the auditorium from our previous season ticket!
Totting up beforehand we realised we had watched about half a dozen of Shakespeare’s plays between us, although that did count the three times I have seen Romeo and Juliet as one. But of course we have had exposure to the rough plot of many more.
We laughed out loud at this. The actors were lively and the script did not run through each play formularically, but instead tackled them in vastly different manners. From a cook show to a rugby match through to just skipping between main scenes, each was satisfying to watch. The two of us ended up on stage for the audience participation though, with my husband having to scream as I ran back and forth.
Good customer service from the Little Theatre too, who came to find us in the interval and ask if we wanted the same seats next year (a definite yes from us).
Play number four of our 2016/17 season ticket was Kindertransport, this year’s serious drama. It was indeed very serious, an intense play with very few light moments. Of course this is to be expected from the subject matter, and certainly we weren’t expecting a light-hearted comedy.
We live through Eva’s trauma and recovery, and how that effected herself and her relationships within her family. There were so many points where I had tears rolling down my face, as recovery seemed impossible. The actors were very powerful, in what must have been an emotionally tiring play.
In terms of angles on the impact of war theme, this stood in sharp contrast to Pals, which had been a story about men’s friendships, as instead a story about women’s family bonds. My only sorrow is that the playwright ended it where she did. It could easily have turned more towards a reconciled note at the end, although of course that would lessen the impact.
Its panto time! For this edition of using our Chorley Little Theatre membership, we also took the little lad, because panto is really for the children after all. He asks a lot of the time when he can go to the theatre again, and when something suitable for under-fives comes up at any vaguely local theatre I try to take him. For this one he was bouncing off the walls with excitement.
This panto was written by the local director, for “Little Theatres” to put on. It stuck faithfully to all the tropes, but with a story we hadn’t already seen a hundred times. There were only two little criticisms, firstly that the Evil Asp was too scary: my reception-aged child was genuinely terrified and he wasn’t the only one hiding on a parent’s knee in the audience. He didn’t want to watch the second half until we explained that we needed to see Cleopatra defeat him and we were all going to shout “Booo” even more loudly to let him know we weren’t really scared of him. And secondly, the sing-along was very complex with an unfamiliar tune (instead of a minor rewording of a nursery rhyme/carol) so even I struggled to follow and the young audience didn’t stand a chance.
But we still had a fabulous time. The chorus were great: doing complex dance routines and singing well known songs. Everyone liked shouting “Ali Ali Ali!” although at the end my son reported that a man and a lady and two ladies had got married. Apparently he didn’t quite get the cross-dressing part! I didn’t have the heart to tell him that one of those two ladies was supposed to be a man…
And in the little one’s own typing:
BEAUTIFUL WEDDING AND DRESS AND THANK YOU FOR MAKING THE MONSTER GO DOWN!
Edit: I’m told the song is a One Direction song called “History”. I am clearly not down with the kids.
Chorley Little Theatre try to produce their own material, and this is something that their director adapted (with permission) from “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”
You’ll have had your tea?
This was a light, silly play of Hamish and Dougal, as they muddle through life, together with the rest of the village. It was packed with innuendo, along with gags at every opportunity, and we had a good giggle.
Pals was written by artistic director Mark Jones, specifically for Chorley Little Theatre. It is very much feels set in the textile industrial background of Chorley, although no place names (or even pub names!) were mentioned explicitly.
It is a look on the front of the Great War, of course, and the stories that came out of that. But more than that, it is a story about life, and men’s friendships. How shared work and a quick drink after developed bonds, where gradually the truths about family and love become clear. But then also friendship between a history student and an elderly man. A friendship with a rocky start, but finally a chance for Bill to tell the tale of his life.
I love that we don’t just see Bill in those key minutes where everything changes, but we also see the human side before and after. What was there, what was lost, and what little was saved. There were few dry eyes in the house by the end, which speaks volumes for the strength of both the writing and the acting.
Bristol Bookworm 