Celebration
by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall
Directed by Noreen Spall
April 20th - 27th, 2002
The Tower Theatre Company performing at the Tower Theatre, Canonbury
Cast List
The Bride
Christine Lucas : Cassie Wolfinger
The Bride's Family
Rhoda Lucas, her mother : Sheila Burbidge
Edgar Lucas, her father : Chris Holmes
Jack Lucas, her brother : Craig Carruthers
Irene Howes, her cousin : Nadine Allexant
Lilian Howes, her aunt : Jill Batty
Frank Broadbent, her uncle : Guy Saunders
Arthur Broadbent, her great-uncle : Jim Spall
Stan Dyson, Irene's fiancé : Michael Greener
The Groom
Bernard Fuller : Peter Miller
The Groom's Family
Edna Fuller, his mother : Denyse Macpherson
Alice Fuller, his aunt : Ann Rooney
Lionel Fuller, his cousin : Tom Bailey
Margo Fuller, his cousin's wife : Vanessa Westing
Friends of Arthur's
May Beckett : Sara Randall
Sergeant-Major Tommy Lodge : Stephen Davies
Production Team
Director : Noreen Spall
Set Designer : Wendy Parry
Lighting Designer : Simon Payne
Costume Designer : Noreen Spall
Sound Designer : Phillip Ley
Stage Manager : Margaret Ley
ASMs : Terry Baker-Self, Dominic Batty, Jayne Lawrence, Phillip Ley, Nathalie Lake, Alison Foulds, Celia Reynolds
Lighting operator : Sophia Archenes
Sound operator : Richard Thornton
Wardrobe : Noreen Spall, Sheila Burbidge, Jill Batty, Denyse Macpherson
Set construction : Keith Syrett, Robert Myer, Trevor Parry, David Miller, John Morton,
Robert Dodd, Alan McKenzie, Ella McKenzie,
Lea Tunesi, John Feather & members of the cast and crew
In-house review by Richard Pedersen
Richard Pedersen was to have been a Witch and other sundry characters in Macbeth,
but was stricken with health problems. He is well on the way to recovery
and looking forward to continuing his 13-year-long playgoing record at the Tower.
Not too many years ago, my mother surprised me with the revelation that I had a
great uncle of whom I had not heard before. When asked why he had not figured at
family gatherings, my mother replied "Oh well, he was living with a woman and they
never married so your grandfather wouldn't have him in the house". I was
immediately reminded of this when watching Noreen Spall's delightful production
of Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall's play Celebration, and being
Yorkshire-born and Yorkshire-bred I felt an instant rapport.
What an odd little play this is! For those of you unlucky enough not to have seen
it I should explain that the play is basically two one-act plays joined in the middle.
In Act I respective families prepare for the imminent wedding of Bernard Fuller
and Christine Lucas, setting out the tables for the reception in the upper room
of a pub. In Act II the same people gather six months later after the funeral of
great uncle Arthur Broadbent and a few home truths are told. Maybe not the stuff
of great drama, more akin to soap opera than anything else, but nonetheless very
entertaining and amusing to watch.
In a way I almost want to review the two halves separately, because they were so
disparate, but I shall try and avoid that temptation. The sheer business of the
first half was what impressed me the most, and the way in which Noreen Spall had
choreographed her huge cast. Fourteen people on stage, all being busy while carrying
on a host of different conversations - it was wonderful just to watch. In the space
of an hour the cast had transformed a dingy room with three trestle tables into a
room fit for a wedding banquet.
Despite the size of the cast, some lovely characterisations and eccentricities
shone through. Strangely enough this didn't apply to the younger male members of
the cast whose parts, I felt, were all a bit lacklustre. The authors reserved their
best lines for the older women who very much dominated the proceedings and stole
the show - Sheila Burbidge as Rhoda Lucas, Jill Batty as Lillian Howes, Denyse
Macpherson as Edna Fuller, Ann Rooney as Alice Fuller and Sara Randall in Act II
as the scarlet woman May Beckett.
Also looming through the first Act was Jim Spall as Arthur ("Everybody knows me")
Broadbent. Pint glass permanently in hand, he seemed the eternal pub bore - but
you couldn't help but like him. Only later on in the play did I realise the level
of pathos here, because although he was invited to the wedding, his "long-time
companion" was definitely persona non grata.
Then he was dead and the Lucas
family closed ranks to bury him as they thought fit. They hadn't thought to invite
Mrs Beckett, a side of Uncle Arthur's life that they chose to ignore, but she
turned up at the funeral nonetheless. Sara Randall gave us a bravura performance
as May Beckett, pointedly wearing a green coat and cream outfit in contrast to
the funereal black of the others, and with a shock of ginger hair that outdid
Rita Fairclough's coiffure.
There were some extremely touching moments in the
second Act which contrasted very well with the hustle and bustle of the first.
Old softy that I am, must admit to getting a bit of a lump in my throat when
firstly Rhoda presented May with Arthur's photograph (and well done props for
acquiring such a photograph of a younger Jim Spall), and then when May, despite
all the calumnies against her, told Irene and Stan that they could take over her
house and therefore get married.
In the space available I can't go into great
detail about all the performances but the actors were all well cast and made the
most of sometimes limited roles. I must commend new member Nadine Allexant for a
brilliant debut performance as Irene, while Vanessa Westing as Margo and Guy
Saunders as Frank Broadbent gave us extremely amusing comic cameos. If I were to
quibble, I would say that lines on this first-night performance were a little
shaky in parts - there was some noticeable jumping-in ahead of time and in other
places a slackness in the cue-bite, but I'm sure that this will have improved over
the week.
While props generally were very well-organised (plates, knives,
glasses, table decorations etc.) I felt that more thought could have gone into
Jim Spall's pint. It was his constant prop and yet he appeared to be drinking
lager - in Yorkshire, in 1959? Something more resembling bitter would have been
far more in keeping. Costumes, too, in the capable hands of the director herself,
were generally spot-on for period and location. I was not convinced, however,
that Stephen Davies, as Sergeant Major Tommy Lodge, would have been in uniform
when not on duty. But then, I'm sure readers old enough to remember National
Service will put me right on this.
Wendy Parry's set was functional, and
managed an air of drabness without being uninteresting. The change between
the two Acts was cleverly managed.
All-in-all this was a heart-warming play
which sent me home dreaming nostalgically of Yorkshire puddings (each course,
just as I remember them).
Celebration
by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall |
|
April 20th - 27th, 2002 |
The Tower Theatre Company performing at the Tower Theatre, Canonbury |
Cast List
The Bride's Family
The Groom
The Groom's Family
Friends of Arthur's
|
Production Team
|
In-house review by Richard Pedersen
Richard Pedersen was to have been a Witch and other sundry characters in Macbeth, but was stricken with health problems. He is well on the way to recovery and looking forward to continuing his 13-year-long playgoing record at the Tower.
Not too many years ago, my mother surprised me with the revelation that I had a
great uncle of whom I had not heard before. When asked why he had not figured at
family gatherings, my mother replied "Oh well, he was living with a woman and they
never married so your grandfather wouldn't have him in the house". I was
immediately reminded of this when watching Noreen Spall's delightful production
of Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall's play Celebration, and being
Yorkshire-born and Yorkshire-bred I felt an instant rapport.
What an odd little play this is! For those of you unlucky enough not to have seen
it I should explain that the play is basically two one-act plays joined in the middle.
In Act I respective families prepare for the imminent wedding of Bernard Fuller
and Christine Lucas, setting out the tables for the reception in the upper room
of a pub. In Act II the same people gather six months later after the funeral of
great uncle Arthur Broadbent and a few home truths are told. Maybe not the stuff
of great drama, more akin to soap opera than anything else, but nonetheless very
entertaining and amusing to watch.
In a way I almost want to review the two halves separately, because they were so
disparate, but I shall try and avoid that temptation. The sheer business of the
first half was what impressed me the most, and the way in which Noreen Spall had
choreographed her huge cast. Fourteen people on stage, all being busy while carrying
on a host of different conversations - it was wonderful just to watch. In the space
of an hour the cast had transformed a dingy room with three trestle tables into a
room fit for a wedding banquet.
Despite the size of the cast, some lovely characterisations and eccentricities
shone through. Strangely enough this didn't apply to the younger male members of
the cast whose parts, I felt, were all a bit lacklustre. The authors reserved their
best lines for the older women who very much dominated the proceedings and stole
the show - Sheila Burbidge as Rhoda Lucas, Jill Batty as Lillian Howes, Denyse
Macpherson as Edna Fuller, Ann Rooney as Alice Fuller and Sara Randall in Act II
as the scarlet woman May Beckett.
Also looming through the first Act was Jim Spall as Arthur ("Everybody knows me")
Broadbent. Pint glass permanently in hand, he seemed the eternal pub bore - but
you couldn't help but like him. Only later on in the play did I realise the level
of pathos here, because although he was invited to the wedding, his "long-time
companion" was definitely persona non grata.
Then he was dead and the Lucas
family closed ranks to bury him as they thought fit. They hadn't thought to invite
Mrs Beckett, a side of Uncle Arthur's life that they chose to ignore, but she
turned up at the funeral nonetheless. Sara Randall gave us a bravura performance
as May Beckett, pointedly wearing a green coat and cream outfit in contrast to
the funereal black of the others, and with a shock of ginger hair that outdid
Rita Fairclough's coiffure.
There were some extremely touching moments in the
second Act which contrasted very well with the hustle and bustle of the first.
Old softy that I am, must admit to getting a bit of a lump in my throat when
firstly Rhoda presented May with Arthur's photograph (and well done props for
acquiring such a photograph of a younger Jim Spall), and then when May, despite
all the calumnies against her, told Irene and Stan that they could take over her
house and therefore get married.
In the space available I can't go into great
detail about all the performances but the actors were all well cast and made the
most of sometimes limited roles. I must commend new member Nadine Allexant for a
brilliant debut performance as Irene, while Vanessa Westing as Margo and Guy
Saunders as Frank Broadbent gave us extremely amusing comic cameos. If I were to
quibble, I would say that lines on this first-night performance were a little
shaky in parts - there was some noticeable jumping-in ahead of time and in other
places a slackness in the cue-bite, but I'm sure that this will have improved over
the week.
While props generally were very well-organised (plates, knives,
glasses, table decorations etc.) I felt that more thought could have gone into
Jim Spall's pint. It was his constant prop and yet he appeared to be drinking
lager - in Yorkshire, in 1959? Something more resembling bitter would have been
far more in keeping. Costumes, too, in the capable hands of the director herself,
were generally spot-on for period and location. I was not convinced, however,
that Stephen Davies, as Sergeant Major Tommy Lodge, would have been in uniform
when not on duty. But then, I'm sure readers old enough to remember National
Service will put me right on this.
Wendy Parry's set was functional, and
managed an air of drabness without being uninteresting. The change between
the two Acts was cleverly managed.
All-in-all this was a heart-warming play
which sent me home dreaming nostalgically of Yorkshire puddings (each course,
just as I remember them).