'The Winslow Boy': 4-8 May

Our May show saw Sally Bishop making a welcome return to TTC after a 6 year break from directing, having last directed the box office smash hit, Ayckbourn's House & Garden.

For this classic Rattigan play, Sally gathered a cast that included some of our most seasoned actors and her production fashioned some tour de force performances; notably from John Taylor as the campaigning father, Arthur Winslow and Glen Marks as the urbane barrister, Sir Robert Morten. With plenty of drama to hold an audience throughout, the play also gave ample opportunity for some excellent comic timing from Nicky Moreton, Catherine Allen and David Young particularly, plus some real moments of pathos - notably Peter Emanuel's moving declaration of love and proposal of marriage, as the bumbling family solicitor. Finally, our Winslow Boy himself, Danny Angell-Payne, fresh from TYT, was a true star in the making and we hope to see him acting with us again in years to come.

Sadly, our mid-week audiences were rather disappointing and despite excellent houses for both the Friday and Saturday nights, and especially the Saturday matinee, we didn't sell quite enough tickets to break even this time. However, the production has garnered much praise from our audiences and we move ever onwards and upwards.

'The Importance of Being Earnest' :20th - 25th July

And on that subject, we move onwards to our summer production of Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest, directed by Gilly Thorpe.

Auditions were held last week and I'm delighted to announce that casting includes Stephen Upsall, Emma Sharnock-Smith, David Young, Christa Gaskell, Helen Winning and welcome new members, Scarlet Leigh Fawcett, Paul Sysiak and John Watson.

Help for Earnest!

As you know, we're planning on creating a Victorian high tea in the garden during the week of the show. The lovely new cafe at Trinity - Divinity - will be providing a selection of sandwiches, cakes, scones and strawberries & cream for our audiences to purchase. The plan is to have chairs and tables set out in the grounds and to have club members dressed as immaculate Victorian servants to wait on our guests. If you can spare a few evenings and fancy coming along to dress up and help out, it should be great fun and not require much of a time commitment. Please drop me an email if you'd like to get involved.

Whilst still on the need for a little help from our friends; Fran Pepper, our stage manager on this show, is still on the look out for someone to help out backstage (at least this year, you won't have to hump the set in and out of the theatre every night!) and to either source and/or run props during the week of the show. If you can spare any time to help out, please drop an email to our Production Manager, Paul Rowlandson