Show: Season’s Greetings
Society: HATS Drama Group
Venue: Meppershall Village Hall
Credits: Alan Ayckbourn
Type: Sardines
Performance Date: 27/09/2019
Season’s Greetings
Alex Wood | 01 Oct 2019 22:29pm
This was a memorable occasion, being the first production away from HATS’ former base at the RAF Henlow. Whilst not as familiar – and no doubt far more costly – as their old home, the brand new Meppershall Village Hall should provide the base for HATS to make a new start with a changing audience and, potentially, new members.
The choice of Season’s Greetings for their debut here possibly seems a little eccentric in early autumn but this is one of Alan Ayckbourn’s most popular and more frequently performed plays – a real crowd-pleaser.
The events over one Christmas at the Bunker’s probably need no explanation to regular theatregoers but it may be worth commenting that Ayckbourn presents us with a rich feast of all-too-believable characters in situations which stretch real life just that little further, causing us to laugh but also giving us pause for thought about the human condition.
At short notice HATS did a great job in transforming their new home into a theatre.
It’s hard not to be amused by Season’s Greetings by my overall feeling was that the play – on its second night – lacked pace. The last minute replacement of the actor playing Pattie certainly would not have helped but there were several prompts for other members of the cast, which was very disappointing.
The role of Uncle Harvey is a classic and, with one or two noticeable blips, Geoff Fagg portrayed the psychopathic pensioner very well, getting lots of laughs along the way. Likewise I enjoyed the performance of Keith Lander as the kindly and bumbling Bernard.
As usual, Linda Winfield was very convincing, this time as Belinda. And I enjoyed the ‘double act’ of thoughtless husbands Neville (Lee Masters) and Eddie (James Ward playing a rather different sort of role to his usual ones).
Phyllis was convincingly played by Sue Summan.
A key element of the play is the presence of Rachel, Belinda’s sister and her ‘friend’, Clive – ‘outsiders’ with their own issues to add to those of the family. Another sterling performance by Liz Stephens in the tricky role of Rachel and a promising HATS debut by Perry Quinton as Clive.
Stephanie Allen, a very short notice replacement, coped well with this extra demand of playing Pattie.
I’m a regular visitor to HATS shows and one of the pleasures of this is to see a group of regular players taking on different roles. The converse to this, of course, is that one is unable to escape the conclusion that the group perhaps needs new playing members. This production, for example, needed two or three younger actors and with their ‘new start’ in their new location this may be the time to start thinking about recruiting new people to HATS’ admirable cause.
- : admin
- : 27/09/2019