ALEXANDRA PLAYERS

NEWS 2012

Busman’s holiday for the Alexandra Players

Who’d be an actor playing an actor? It’s a minefield, surely. Flashbacks of drama school loom at every turn: the over-acter; the delusional under-cooker, and worst of all—the wooden plank. But how to inhabit these strange and mythical creatures without being too convincing?

Such thoughts hadn’t entered the heads of the borough’s best kept secret, the Alexandra Players, as they delivered Play On to a packed three-night run in Charlton. The premise of the Rick Abbot farce was simple: an amateur theatre group is staging a play, and this time we get to see the nuts and bolts of the operation……

Act One was the chaos, learning the lines, egos duelling, and building the backdrop. the devil really was in the detail—Liz Moss’s forays on to the stage to worry the set as Louise ‘Sound and scenery’

Janet Denne was effortless as stage manager Aggie Manville, and Janet Sweet was all too convincing playing the role of crotchety director Geraldine Dunbar. Juliette Harrison’s leading lady Diana Lassiter was a terrific foil for Renouf, and Christine Stiller’s ‘Doris the maid’ had the nervous energy of Father Ted’s neurotic housekeeper, Mrs Doyle.

Jackie Hartley was the perfect luvvy in the guise of Lady Margaret, and Pamela Bean as the interfering playwright, was a reminder of the delicate balancing act of fragile egos that goes into every stage show from Charlton to Chicago. Play on, indeed.The above is taken from Rod Kitson’s review of Play On which appeared in the Greenwich Time newspaper.

 Peary, transported the viewer into the tangible world of rehearsal. It felt as if we were included in the world of the actor, privy to some secret society that we’d never before been allowed to join.

The performance built on the triumph of past production Neville’s Island, and two of its standout performers returned here. Mark Higgins played Saul Watson, who in turn played Dr Rex Forbes, [you following?]...Higgins again demonstrated impeccable comic timing.

But where Higgins was top boy in Neville’s Island, here it was sparring partner Nik Renouf who stole the show. There was a mirthful glee in the way he bellowed out his lines with the timbre of Brian Blessed……..this was a smorgasboard of different techniques and takes, which only intensified the feeling of first night nerves as the chaotic play was finally staged.

Enchanted April is a gentle comedy, written and set in 1922. When two proper London-based housewives decide to rent a villa in Italy for a holiday away from their bleak marriages, they recruit two other, very different, English women to share the cost and the experience. During their enchanted month in the Ligurian villa, the ladies fall under the spell of their idyllic, sun-drenched surroundings. There, amid the wisteria blossoms, they rediscover laughter, learn new truths about themselves and find just the romance they need, though perhaps not the romance we, or they, expect to find.

The play is as much about inner voices as verbal communication, as the characters come to understand each other.

Elizabeth von Arnim’s witty and insightful novel has been the subject of two films, the stage play and a musical. The 1992 film, starring Joan Plowright and Miranda Richardson, was shot on location in Portofino, at the same castle where the author had stayed in the 1920s.

Lottie Wilson is played by Juliette Harrison and her husband Mellersh by Roy Moore. Sue Carroll returns to the stage after the birth last year of her son, Conor, to play Rose Arnott. Rose’s husband, Frederick, is played by Mark Higgins. Rebecca Williams, who has recently moved into the area, makes her debut on our stage as Lady Caroline Bramble. Antony Wilding is played by Nik Renouf, the elderly curmudgeon Mrs Graves by Pam Bean and Antonia Mochan completes the cast as Costanza. The play is directed by Keith Hartley and the set is designed by Vanessa Bouvier.

…………

Enchanted April will be presented at the Alexandra Hall, Bramshot Avenue, Charlton SE7 7HX on Thursday to Saturday February 16th, 17th and 18th at 8 p.m. The doors open at 7.30 p.m. Tickets are £8 (£7 concessions) and the Box Office number is unchanged on 020 8858 2769 or e-mail to alexandraplayers@gmail.com

(Please note that tickets booked by telephone or e-mail must be collected no later than 15 minutes before the performance or they may be resold.)

If you would like to receive your newsletter by e-mail send details to

Publicity Co-ordinator: Janet Sweet, 34 Eastbrook Road, London SE3 8BT

Tel: 020 8856 6204

The Alexandra Hall is part of Charlton U.R.C. in Bramshot Avenue. The church supports the work of the Alexandra Players thereby enabling the Players to put on their productions.