THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Well, in recent weeks, the summer has turned out to be a little disappointing weather-wise, but I'm delighted to tell you that our summer show, "The Importance of Being Ernest" certainly wasn't! As you know, this year, we tried out a different format and instead of staging the production in the garden as usual; we took the decision to perform inside the theatre where audience, actors & crew could all benefit from the assurance of a warm, dry evening. But, we do have a lovely garden at our disposal too, so in keeping with the spirit of one of the play's main protagonists Jack, and his obsession with afternoon tea, we served a traditional Victorian high tea pre-show, provided by Divinity Café - which went down
a storm.
 
Audience members were able to get the best of both worlds - the comfort of warm seats to enjoy the performance and still spending some time in the early evening sunshine enjoying tea and cake, or Pimms from the bar, served by traditionally dressed Victorian servants. Huge thanks to Di and her team who had to produce a whole extra set of costumes on top of the beautiful dresses and suits worn by the cast!
 
Congratulations to director Gilly Thorpe for producing such an enjoyable evening's entertainment and of course to the cast, headed up by Stephen Upsall as the eponymous Ernest and Helen Winning as Lady Bracknell, who delivered Wilde's classic wit with style and confidence. And, as you may have heard on the grapevine by now, the show also made a stonking profit. In fact, in excess of £6,000 - commercially one of our most successful shows ever (excluding the Xmas productions of course). With Fran Pepper and her team, running a tight ship backstage as ever, a huge well done is due to everyone involved!
 
Finally, on behalf of the committee I must also thank everyone who assisted with the garden event - it added that certain something extra and we really couldn't have done it with out you. Special mention must also go to Brian Bissell and Don Foreman for their excellent MC skills, but our gratitude goes to everyone who came down and helped put up bunting, bring out chairs and tables, hang around to help put them away again and in the meantime donned a costume to serve tea and cakes. You were all stars!
 

AND ONTO THE NEXT ONE!

As you know, we've had a few trials and tribulations with this slot - director Helen Thorpe was keen to do another witty classic, this time Noel Coward's ‘Blithe Spirit'. Unfortunately, at the eleventh hour, it was discovered that this is being done during the very same week, locally by The Pantiles Players and it was felt that we had to change our show, while we still had the time, which was not possible unfortunately for the Pantiles Players. However, in its place, Helen has gone for a political comedy in the form of the manic ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist', which should be great fun for an autumn evening. Auditions have been held and the show is now cast and includes a welcome return to the club for John Martin, playing the Maniac; John Taylor, Glen Marks and Chris Woodward making a trio of constabulary and welcoming new members Kris Robertson and George Percy to our stage. The one solitary female role in this show, goes to Sam Comfort as the journalist - I'm sure with the aid of Helen, she'll have no trouble keeping all those boys in order through rehearsals! 

2011 PROGRAMMING

 You may remember that in a previous newsletter, the committee invited members to make suggestions for any plays you'd like the club to consider staging. Whilst we've not had an overwhelming response, we did receive some interesting suggestions from a few people, for which we thank you. Please do keep thinking and if just one idea occurs to you, do let a committee member know.

We're currently looking at a number of plays for 2011 and beyond, including two Tennessee Williams' - Night of The Iguana and Summer & Smoke; Hobson's Choice; Peter Shaffer's Amadeus and Five Finger Exercise, a  Shakespeare (for indoor rather than outdoor performance) Andre Obey's Noah and restoration favourite, She Stoops to Conquer, to name but a few.

While next year's programming is still a work in progress, we can confirm that our February slot will be the classic farce, ‘See How They Run' directed by Mike Tilbury, who we happily welcome back after too long a break. In May, Meg Nutt will be taking the helm once again, following her success earlier this year, to direct a meaty drama - watch this space!

SOCIAL EVENTS PAST

Cast your mind back to when the days were long and hot and we felt like summer could go on forever! Well maybe not forever, but for a bit longer than this anyway! Sunday 11th July was the date, Hilbert Recreation Ground was the site - where rounds were scored and heroes were made! A hearty thanks to everyone who pitched up and threw themselves into the first TTC rounders match & picnic, on that beautiful sunny afternoon. See the photos for evidence!

As all who were present know, I hardly covered myself in glory but many others did. Demon bowlers, fielders and batters included Jenny Hills , Paul Rowlandson,  Adrienne Fitzwilliam, Chris Woodward and our illustrious chairman, Glen Marks. Peter Emanuel must surely win the prize (if there were one) for most nonchalant player and thanks go to Jo Marks for providing a clear understanding of the rules (which we bent) and to Nicky Moreton for scorekeeping. We may have been largely shambolic, but we had great fun and for those of you who weren't able to make it, don't worry, we plan to do it all again next summer!

SOCIAL EVENTS FUTURE

As we haven't arranged a group to go to the open air theatre at Hever Castle this year, we are hoping to organise a theatre trip elsewhere sometime before the end of the year.  Ideally, we'd look to have a party of between 10 and 20 members but no dates, or indeed productions, have been decided on yet. So, yes you've guessed it - suggestions on an email please! (jennibing@yahoo.co.uk)

Within reason, we'll consider going anywhere - London, Chichester, Brighton, Tonbridge (only kidding about Tonbridge!) - so if there's a play currently in production somewhere that you'd like to see and think might make a good club outing, then please let me know and I'll check it out. Depending on when and where it is, there's a possibility we may be able to organise some group transport but further information will follow, as always, in a separate email soon.

AND FINALLY....  CAN YOU HELP?

Paul Rowlandson has had a call from Alex at Trinity wondering if any of our members would be prepared to offer a few hours to help with some general painting at Trinity over the next month or two.  There will be literary limitless amount of work so any and all help will be greatly appreciated!

An example of the sort of task to be undertaken is the painting of the studio rooms and various other places. 

If anyone is interested in helping Trinity with this project, please contact Paul Rowlandson at paul.rowlandson@ttctw.com