Laughter after sadness of war
Jan 28 2009 Amateur theatre by John Slim
THERE is laughter on the menu in the second half of The Nonentities’ current season, with April in Paris, Ladies Down Under and Arsenic and Old Lace all due for an airing between April and June at Kidderminster’s Rose Theatre.
Before then – from February 9-14, in fact - comes a special treat. The play will be Alan Ayckbourn’s Improbable Fiction, a tale about an amateur writers’ group trying to turn out a script in which everybody collaborates. Separate scenarios and situations become inextricably mixed.
For good measure, the comedy will be augmented will be a one-night presentation of Last of the Summer Wine by a visiting company on March 28.
The forthcoming laughter is a far cry from last week’s superb but sobering Nonentities presentation of Not About Heroes, centred on First World War poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. This was a studio production which the Rose brochure mistakenly places in the main house; one of three brochure errors which was corrected in notices on the wall of the foyer.
Kidderminster Operatic & Dramatic Society’s production of The Hot Mikado is credited with a matinee on March 15 instead of March 14, while Last of the Summer Wine has been shifted in the opposite direction to Not About Heroes, being allotted to the studio instead of the main house.
The brochure-maker has my sympathy. I can only blame my eager anticipation of Great Witley Operatic Society’s HMS Pinafore for the fact that I said last week that it would be at the Norbury Theatre, Droitwich this week and at the Rose next week. In fact, patrons will have to wait until March 25-28, when it arrives at the Norbury, then April 2-4 for its unveiling at the Rose.
* Hall Green Little Theatre holds its annual civic night next Wednesday, during the run of Strictly Murder, the Brian Clemens thriller.
The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Birmingham, Councillor Chauhdry Rashid and Mrs. Shafait Begum Rashid, will be there. Strictly Murder opens on Friday and runs all next week
* Ten-week courses for adults in acting and sound and lighting are being held at the Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Birmingham. Enrolment is on Monday, from 8.30-9.30 pm. More information is available on 0121-244-3214 or at classactdrama@aol.com
* To conact John email johnslim47@aol.com
* WHAT’S ON
Of Mice and Men, Crescent Theatre, Birmingham (to Feb 7).
The Grimm Tales, Stage 27, Firs & Bromford Community Centre (Jan 28); Pype Hayes Community Centre (Jan 30); & Acocks Green Methodist Church (Jan 31)..
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13¾, Fellowship Players, Grange Playhouse, Walsall (Jan 29-Feb 7).
Strictly Murder, Hall Green Little Theatre (Jan 30-Feb 7).
Nobody’s Perfect, Highbury Theatre Centre, Sutton Coldfield (Feb 3-14).
The Dresser, Sutton Arts Theatre, Sutton Coldfield (Feb 5-14).
