Always eager to explore alternative approaches to theatrical entertainment, the Wilmslow Green Room's next production is an exciting new venture for the society.
It's in the form of four one act plays performed in repertory thus providing the audience with a choice of seeing all four plays over two separate nights, or choosing just the plays they want to see. The stage crew for the run is the same, giving a consistency of approach and the casts although linked as one company of players, are separate for each play.
'The Lesson' by Ionesco - His new pupil is bright and accomplished, so the professor (Richard Ellis) wastes no time in commencing his zany and nonsensical lesson. He demonstrates that the pupil (Lindsay Barker) still has a lot to learn and impresses on her his formidable mastery of all subjects. Whilst supremely ridiculous, Ionesco's comedy becomes a grapple for power and dominance in which the fate of professor and pupil alike is already sealed.
'The Dumb Waiter' by Harold Pinter – Ben (Steve Williamson) and Gus (Nick Brown) are hit men holed up in a dingy basement awaiting their next job. In a wonderfully lean, darkly comic and suspenseful script, the characters veer between incarnations of the Kray twins and Laurel and Hardy as tension and farce build skilfully, punctuated by mysterious interruptions from the dumb waiter.
'Gosforth's Fete' by Alan Ayckbourn - Publican Gordon Gosforth (Charlie Cook) is in his element organising the annual village fete. Gradually, however, his relationship with the cub master's fiancé, inanimate objects and even the elements, conspire together to turn his best laid plans into farcical chaos.
'A Chip in the Sugar' by Alan Bennett - Graham's harmonious yet hum-drum life is thrown out of kilter when an old flame of his mother butts in. Graham's stability comes under threat in every respect. But when Graham (Ian McBride) realises that his growing paranoia is not born of imagination, the revelation leaves life 'restored to the perpendicular'. Alan Bennett's remarkable talent for getting inside someone's head and giving us a view from that vantage point is outstanding in this poignant yet amusing tale.
Join the Wilmslow Green Room players and accomplished directors as they perform these classics over 8 nights for you from Friday January 27th to Saturday February 4th. Tickets can be purchased on Saturday mornings at the Green Room theatre between 10.30am and 12 noon or via the ticket hotline 01625 540933. Performances begin at 7.45pm.
For further information visit the Wilmslow Green Room's website.
This is a member post by Hilary Pinnock.
