News Archive for 2008

Dracula's Christmas

Dracula’s Christmas was a huge success for the Players. Put on in the second week of December, it played to good houses every night with the usual sellouts on Friday and Saturday. Well done to all involved. It was well received by the adjudicator and hopefully in due course it will receive some of the recognition it deserved. Well done especially to Katherine Kingsford for her imaginative original script, and of course to Sarah Kingsford who did a fabulous job of direction despite her dodgy hip! The adjudication is available for those that haven’t seen it yet – contact Bill Tindall if this is the case, although we all felt it was pretty uninformative and didn’t tell us much we didn’t know already!!.
During the Panto we raised £393.20 for St Margaret’s Hospice from the proceeds of the raffle. This is as usual a great effort. The Panto itself seems to have made a big profit, but as yet we don’t have an exact figure. This will follow in due course. A DVD of the show has been produced by Steve Eggar, it costs £7 and to get your copy you will need to contact Steve directly.

Gammer Gurton's Needle; May 21st to 24th

Rehearsals for this year’s Spring play are going very well. The standard of performance is as high as ever although the cast have had to work pretty hard on their accents! It will certainly be ready in time for opening night. Many thanks to Patrick Daley who took on the part of the Curate in spite of having a heavy work-load directing “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” at the Regal, with equal thanks to Richard Beavan who has done a great job of “reading in” in Patrick’s absence. Geoff is especially pleased with the very accomplished singing from Allan Prentice, Ben Horrobin, Chris Marshall and Mickie Ritchie in her first acting role with the Players.

Posters are out and tickets are on sale from the usual outlets, so don’t wait – book now!

 

See the 'Next Up' section for more information.
 

The Annual Cinderella Awards

We have an initial allocation of 20 tickets although we could possibly have more if needed. The price, to include a buffet, is £9.00 for adults, £8.00 for SFD members and £7 for under-16’s. Priority will be given to members of the cast and crew but after that it’s first come, first served. At the time of writing we don’t know what nominations we have or whether we will be asked again to contribute to the cabaret.

Last year, you may remember, we had nominations in 17 categories and won 5 major awards, including the Spotlight shield for the best village pantomime, and Oliver won a “Star of the Future” award. We seldom do quite that well but always have a good time whether we win or not.

It is a long way to go but worth the effort. Last year we shared cars and petrol costs and that seemed to work well. If you want tickets please contact Mo Best on mobest@roadwater.freeserve.co.uk or on 01984 641175 as soon as possible as the closing date is May 2nd.

Sleeping Beauty DVD's

We haven’t forgotten about these. A few people have them but Barbara has not been well so they are not all finished. We hope to have them for you soon. In the meantime we send Barbara our best wishes and hope she is better soon.

The Annual Daley Skittles Compo

Our annual Skittles evening was a very enjoyable event. Numbers were down a little on last year but competition was just as furious.

 
After a two-team match involving everyone and won by goodness knows which side, we played a game of “Killer” – individual players in a knockout competition. There were some admirable performances, not least by the ladies present, but in spite of a sterling, skilful and very sporting effort by Nancy and Chris Marshall, Patrick Daley won – Again!!!

Don’t worry, Daley – there’ll be other years!
Many thanks to Simon for organising the evening and to Mike Twine and his staff for the buffet. 
 

Following his move from the local area we have heard from der Schloss Parke and it would appear that Sefton and Li have settled in well. It sounds an absolutely lovely place, straight out of a fairy tale.

Sarah Kingsford hosted a lovely farewell party for them and they enjoyed seeing so many of their friends.  We presented Sefton with an engraved tankard as a keepsake from the Players and we gave Li a bunch of her favourite flowers. Alan made a memorable speech! It was sad to say goodbye but they are very happy where they are and no doubt we will see them again.

Sefton’s Swan-song in England was Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” at the Regal with the Barnstormers which he directed.  It was very good – congratulations to him and all the cast.  Several of us went to see it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Costume Storage

For many years all our costumes and props have been stored in Sarah Kingsford’s cellar; she has kept them in good order and has been extremely tolerant of Players tramping up and down her cellar steps. We have accumulated so much that the space is no longer big enough and Sarah also needs the room for Katherine’s own production equipment.

 

Having found a suitable replacement store in an old stable building at Huish Barton, and having negotiated a measly rent from the landlord (excluding electricity!) we are now in the process 'doing up' the store. Some of the required carpentry and rails have been installed, but there is still much work to be done, in order for us to move the costumes to the new store from Sarahs cellar. Anyone who can help on Sundays from 10am will be welcomed with open arms!

 

I think this is an appropriate time and place to thank Sarah for letting us use her house for so long. She has undoubtedly saved the Players a lot of money and hassle. Other local groups are all experiencing problems with storage and it is hoped that, if we can all get our costumes into accessible stores, we will be able to borrow from each other, saving money and hours of sewing.