Don’t Dress for Dinner
by Marc Camoletti and Robin Hawdon
7 – 14 December 2024
Ooh La La! This is an hilarious French farce from the early 1990s that tells the tale of Bernard who invites his chic Parisian mistress, Suzanne (Suzy for short) to spend the weekend with him at the country house that he owns with his wife Jacqueline, because Jacqueline is going to her mother’s. As an alibi Bernard also invites his best friend, Robert, and he also arranges for a cordon bleu cook to come along to provide haute cuisine for them all. However, Bernard isn’t the only one having an affair and when Jacquline decides not to visit her mother and the catering agency send their cook Suzette (Suzy for short) the stage is set for multiple mistaken identities and confusion which Bernard and Robert must navigate with all the ingenuity they can muster.
This amateur production of “Don’t Dress for Dinner” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
The Unexpected Guest
by Agatha Christie
25 January – 1 February 2025
A classic whodunnit from the Queen of Crime herself. The setting is Llangelert House near the Bristol Channel on a foggy November night in the 1950s. A man crashes his car in the fog, goes to the house for help and finds that the owner, who is in a wheelchair, has been shot. His wife stands nearby holding a gun and confessing to the murder. Is she really guilty and can the ‘unexpected guest’ help her?
This amateur production of “The Unexpected Guest” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
Murder, Margaret and Me
by Philip Meeks
25 February – 1 March 2025
Margaret Rutherford and Agatha Christie: two national treasures behind one of the British film industry’s greatest franchises. Rutherford is famed for bringing Christie’s beloved spinster, Miss Marple, to the screen. However, it almost didn’t happen because Agatha Christie did not approve of Rutherford as Marple, and Margaret Rutherford had no interest in being involved with anything so sordid as murder. Murder, Margaret and Me is the story of an unlikely friendship between “the funniest woman alive” and the world-renowned “Queen of Crime”. Christie then turns detective herself, to uncover Rutherford’s shocking and tragic secret.
This production will be performed in the studio on the first floor, which is accessed by a flight of stairs.
This amateur production of “Murder, Margaret and Me” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
The Father
by Florian Zeller
22 – 29 March 2025
‘The Father’ is a darkly humorous and deeply poignant portrait of an elderly man with dementia (Andre), gradually losing his memory, and the efforts of his daughter (Anne) to balance her love for her father and the need to care for him with the demands of her own life and relationship with her partner (Pierre). The play sees things as if through the confused eyes of Andre, as he struggles to make sense of a progressively befuddling world. The audience can never be sure whether Andre lives in his own flat or not, nor what his relationships are with those around him. It is very powerful!
This amateur production of “The Father” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
Sense and Sensibility
by Jane Austen, adapted by Jessica Swale
17 – 24 May 2025
Jane Austen’s classic romantic comedy dates from the Regency period (early 19th century) and centres on Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, daughters of Mrs Dashwood, who are forced after the death of their father to leave their comfortable Sussex home because it is to pass to their only male relative, John Dashwood, and his snobbish wife Fanny. They move to a cottage in Devon owned by their wealthy cousin Sir John, who lives nearby with his good-natured, talkative mother-in-law, Mrs Jennings. Marianne falls in love with the dashing Willoughby, ignoring the attentions of Sir John’s more modest friend, Colonel Brandon. Elinor hoped she was winning the affections of Edward Ferrars, Fanny’s brother, whilst she was in Sussex, but finds her future happiness under threat from Fanny’s determination he should marry into a rich family. Poor Elinor suffers further heartbreak when she later learns that he is apparently already secretly engaged to Mrs Jennings’s niece, Lucy Steele.
This amateur production of “Sense and Sensibility” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk