As you can see from the write up many of the Pantoloons helped to make this production a great success!!
Croydon Advertiser 14th May 2004
The Farndale Avenue Macbeth
Parlour Players
****
IT’S not easy to put on a play that’s so bad it’s good That is the challenge posed by the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society plays, which in the best traditions of acting require all sorts of disasters to beset the production.
Anyone who sees amateur plays on a regular basis will instantly recognise the nightmare scenarios which happen once in a while: missed entrances, lost props, wrong sound cues, dialogue which gets into a loop no-one can get out of...
They all happen by the dozen in Farndale productions.
These are enough of a challenge to the cast, but this Macbeth makes great demands on the technical crew and Keith Hughes and his team did a brilliant job with all the crazy props and scores of lighting cues.
There was plenty of enthusiastically (deliberately!) dreadful acting from the company and Rosemary Stern as Gwyneth set the scene with her hilarious murdering of some of the tunes from the Sound of Music at the piano - also difficult if you are a good musician.
Madeline Reeve presided with dignity and a fixed grin as Mrs Reece, later appearing as Lady Macduff (still holding her trusty handbag) and the doctor.
Jane Swale’s Thelma took things frightfully seriously, soldiering on as Macbeth while the whole production crumbled around her.
Simon Vines was a wonderful Lady Macbeth and charged about lke a maniac to become the eight kings who appear as a vision.
There was also sterling work from Janet Hughes, Theresa Hallahan, Angie MacLean and Cordelia Smith, who each had to tackle a variety of characters and Roger Dale as the fraught stage manager. Chester Stern made the most of luvvie adjudicator George Peach.
The play reached a frantic climax as the company “ran out of time” and had to rush their ending. This was a great fun evening: a real tonic. More please!
Diana Eccleston
