Just Five Minutes...

Blimey! It's been a busy week.

Sunday night we continued rehearsing for Whose Life Is It Anyway? Eek! It's about time I updated that blog too...

Monday - Ottershaw Players committee meeting.

Tuesday - rehearsals again.

Wednesday - AGM of the Woking Drama Association, which I needed to attend as I have (for some mad reason) agreed to act as publicity officer for the group.

Thursday - back in Woking again to see The Woman In White presented by Horsell Amateur Drama Society in the Rhoda McGaw.

[Capsule review: Not a bad performance, though it was at least 30 mins too long at 2.5 hours! Though that's partly due to the script (Victorians must have had sturdier bums) the production also could have done with some pep and pace in places. Standout performance was the actress playing Marion (sorry, can't find her name online!) with an honourable mention to Tim Morley as Sir Percival Glyde. Richard Walton gave a good performance as Mr Fairlie, but the decision (his or the director's?) to play the role for laughs, rather than to show what a nasty man he really was, did not help us to believe in the character. Finally, the story seems to come to a precipitous halt with a rather ludicrous explanation, entirely dependent upon unlikely coincidence, and leaves plenty of gaping holes in the plot. I'm not familiar enough with the story to tell whether this was the fault of the original material, the play or the production, but it made for a very unsatisfying ending. All-in-all, a decent effort from HADS, but let-down by a poor text in the final act.

One surprise was seeing housekeeper Mrs Vesey credited as "Marion Fields". This was the name of my 5th form teacher who also taught me drama for 4 years. And the lady did indeed bear a remarkable resemblance to my teacher. The only reason I thought it might not be the same lady is the fact that last time I saw her (a school reunion a few years ago) I'm sure she said she now lived down in Devon... Now I wish I'd gone backstage to say "hello"!]

Friday - I'm doing front-of-house (tickets and seats!) for Teechers at Brook Hall tonight. There's still a few tickets available for the performance on Sat 28th April if you want to come along.

Saturday - along with watching the football (this week I shall be mostly cheering for Man Utd and Bolton) I also need to get some miles on my bike in readiness for my charity ride. And we're entertaining my out-laws in the evening, which is always fun.

So - it's been nothing short of hectic this week. I haven't had a chance to watch anything on the Sky+ box (so it's lucky we've got 20% free). We've got the whole series of Spiral (8 spisodes) to watch at some point. Who knows when we'll get the time...