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SPRING PRODUCTION 2009:
Bazaar and Rummage:
By Sue Townsend.
A comedy set in Acton, West London, in the early 1980’s,
this is the story of three agoraphobic women from different backgrounds,
who are managed and "bullied" by Gwenda, herself an ex-sufferer.
She and Fliss, a trainee social worker, decide to organise a grand
jumble sale in the local church hall with the intention of getting
the "girls" out of their houses and into the "real
world". Their fears, hopes and disappointments are humorously
portrayed by Sue Townsend, author of the popular Adrian Mole books,
who has crafted this very entertaining, witty and poignant play.
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Director:
Jill Akhurst. Actor. Director.
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Jill Akhurst
Director – Palace of Varieties; Bazaar and Rummage; Night Must Fall.
Director's Assistant The
Accrington Pals
Singer of saucy songs; Actor Fallen
Angels; Two; Arsenic
And Old Lace; The Vortex; Dark of the Moon
I directed Night Must Fall twenty years ago in London, where it was a great success. I had a good cast then, but I've got an even better cast now. This is a superbly written play which, with good actors, cannot fail to keep the audience in a state of suspense right up until the last moment
Jill recently appeared at the Gulbenkian as Clara in The Vortex by Noel Coward and has sung the part of Lotte Lenya in “I’ve Looked in the Window at Diamonds” for the Really Promising Company.
One of her favourite roles was as Aunt Abby in Arsenic
And Old Lace for the Canterbury Players in October 2009. |
As Gwenda
Anne Hancox. Actor.
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Anne Hancox
Committee Member
Actor: RolePlay;
Play It Again, Sam; Fallen
Angels; Bazaar and Rummage;
Two; The Vortex.
Anne's early performances were all in music theatre. Later came a shift
to straight drama.
Her involvement with Canterbury's long-established amateur theatre group
Playcraft for 21 years and now, with The Canterbury Players has provided
a wealth of acting opportunities.
She has enjoyed numerous leading roles ranging from Nora in
Ibsen's "A Doll's House", Katharine in Shakespeare's
"The Taming of the Shrew"; the drunken and shameless Arabella
in Ayckbourn's "RolePlay"
and Julia in "Fallen
Angels" by Noel Coward. |
As Fliss
Louise Gibbins. Actor. Publicity.
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Louise Gibbins
Actor: Play It Again Sam;
Gosforth’s Fete;
The Accrington Pals;
La Ronde; Much
Ado About Nothing; Bazaar and Rummage
by Sue Townsend; Woman in Two; Day
After The Fair
Louise joined the Players in 2006 & has since been involved in several
productions.
The first was Harold Pinter’s ‘The
Birthday Party’ where she was the official teapot bearer between
Acts II & III. Following the success of teapot placement, she was
cast as Councillor Mrs Pearce in Alan Ayckborne’s ‘Gosforth’s
Fete’. Louise proved herself to be a massive hit when Charlie
Jubber (Gosforth) omitted to catch her as she fell off the podium backwards.
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In Schnitzler's ‘La
Ronde’, she played a prostitute which was lucky as Louise was
concerned about being typecast! Louise also appeared in the production,
"The Accrington
Pals" by Peter Whelan. Here, she played Sarah, a hardworking
but fun loving mother in her late twenties.
Louise is seeking film extra work, her public profiles on casting websites
can be found HERE
and HERE.
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As Katrina
Sharon Gair. Our Treasurer and an actor.
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Sharon Gair
Treasurer
Actor: Much Ado About
Nothing; The Accrington
Pals; Bazaar and Rummage; Night
Must Fall.
Sharon has recently returned to acting, after having a break in 2005/06
to undertake real-life motherhood! She returned in 2007 as Annie Boggis
in ‘The Accrington
Pals’.
Whilst she has enjoyed all her roles over the years, from Rattigan to
Coward, some of Sharon’s real favourites are: Linda Loman in ‘Death
of a Salesman’, Muriel Wickstead in ‘Habeous Corpus’,
Alison Porter in ‘Look Back in Anger’, Elvira in ‘Blithe
Spirit’ and Sybil Railton-Bell in ‘Separate Tables’.
It has been interesting for her to revisit “Night
Must Fall”; in 1995 she played the part of Olivia Grayne.
She is also Treasurer for the Players.
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As Bell-Bell
Sally Parker. Actor.
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Sally Parker
Actor: Bazaar and Rummage; Roleplay;
La Ronde, Two;
The Vortex, Night
Must Fall, Barefoot in the Park.
Sally made her stage debut as Noddy at FHODS Little Theatre at the age
of ten, and on leaving school played Honey in "Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolf". She made connections with CDS while acting in "Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight" and was immediately cast as the prompt for
"Dr Faustus". She went on to play Pattie in "Season's Greetings",
Dr Scott in "Who's Life is it Anyway", Olivia in "Twelfth
Night", Julie-Ann in "Roleplay", Ilsa in "La Ronde",
Bell-Bell in "Bazaar and Rummage",
the Landlady in "Two" and Olivia in Night Must Fall.
Sally is currently a full-time mother.
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As Margaret
Ruth Cameron
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Ruth Cameron.
Actor: Much Ado About
Nothing; Bazaar and Rummage;
Arsenic And Old Lace; The
Vortex; Night Must Fall
Ruth was a singing, dancing, and acting child and won the best actor prize
for Lady Macbeth at age 16. Despite gaining a provisional place at the
Hampstead School of Drama, she did not follow an acting career.
In the 1980s Ruth co- produced a school pantomime with the writer John
Larr and took part in local sketches, but then did not return to drama
until 2006 when she joined the Canterbury Players; Ruth has been involved
in most productions since. This includes singing in Marie Lloyd songs
in "Palace of Varieties",
being an attendant in "Much
Ado About Nothing" and performing the outrageous, yet poignant
part of the blaspheming vulgarian Margaret Gittings in "Bazaar
and Rummage" the 'innocent' murderess in “Arsenic And Old Lace” and the shocking socialite Florence in Noel Coward’s “The
Vortex”.
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As WPC
Bazaar and Rummage, by Sue Townsend.
Canterbury Players.
Whitstable Playhouse. March 2009.
The popular writer of the Adrian Mole books has set her play in a church hall
where a group of agoraphobic women is holding a jumble sale. It is a comedy
with underlying pathos which, in this performance, was poignantly unfolded by
six actors who are ostensibly on stage to entertain. And entertaining moments
there are in abundance, from each of the characters diverse personalities, as
well as the moments of latent pain behind their condition.
Anne Hancox played
Gwenda the (not quite) qualified but supercilious social worker in charge of
the event, and Louise Gibbins
was her assistant Fliss, still in training but well-intentioned and striving
to be sympathetic.
Katrina is the most obviously neurotic of the women and Sharon
Gair supplied plenty of humour, but not without revealing the pitifulness
of her situation.
Sally Parker was Bell-Bell,
a quiet and more dignified but forlorn widow whose husband has committed suicide,
and Ruth Cameron took the
outrageous part of Margaret, not really wanted in the venture by some of her
fellow-sufferers for, from the blast of copiously rich vulgarity of her first
obstreporous entrance to the comparative but heart-rending restraint as she
tells the wretched tale of her rape, she commands the stage, as did the actor.
Sarah Gooch was the brisk
police woman who appears briefly at the end of the play, and concluded a production
by Jill Akhurst which was
both hilarious and thought provoking.
Elaine Godden.
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