The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery

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This was a very challenging play with a small cast but these formidable ladies did it like no one else! This is done to preserve the anonymity of the people in that area, as some postcodes cover a very small area, sometimes a single building. Once again, the Boxford Drama Group Ladies turned to the Farndale Avenue series of plays for their Spring production having previously produced two of the side-splitting Farndales, ‘The Haunted Through Lounge’ and ‘Recessed Dining Nook at Farndale Castle’with ‘Chase Me Up Farndale Avenue, S’il Vous Plait,’ which sees the hapless ladies of the Farndale WI attempt a French farce. That’s the joke. No nuance or subtlety here. No social consciousness, just women from an estate doing Macbeth really badly. It’s not an especially thoughtful or imaginative premise, and it shows. Jokes wear thin, and a considerable number of dead horses are taking a flogging after about 10 minutes. Long before The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong in which an amateur dramatic society experiences the horrors of what can go wrong right in front of a live audience, the fictional Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society have been resolutely presenting plays in which the scenery collapses, cues are missed, lines are forgotten and sound effects create illusions the director never imagined.

ambition. Picture: Colin Hill Chase me Up Farndale Avenue, S’il Vous Plait The Nonentities The Rose Theatre, Kidderminster Moyra Brookes was surely born to play Mrs Reece, the Chairman. The “one or two announcements” that went on forever, the rivalry with Thelma, exasperated asides to lighting & stage management, the succession of characters and the final upstaging of Felicity and everyone else. It was a monstrously fine performance.Review for THE NOMADS, Nomad Theatre, East Horsley June 2019 The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery established in the heart of the a free home valuation gets the village for over 40 years selling process started large residential Letting & highly trained negotiators can help Management Department you find a property across the UK confused the characters…particularly when the light switch also operated the telephone…great moment! The Isle of Man video was beautifully filmed and artfully projected. Very dignified performances by Mr Beasley and the Manx cat. Props were always available and hilariously inappropriate…particularly the recurring accordion. Costumes were well chosen, in that they were slightly eccentric for the characters and completely bonkers for the fashion show. West Midlands Labour Party accused the police of 'provocative action', particularly with regards to the deployment of the Special Patrol Group, which was used to chase away looters in Wolverhampton. But West Midlands Chief Constable Sir Philip Knight defended his actions, saying that the toll of the looting and rioting would have been much worse had it not been for the strong relationship between the police and community. Some residents claimed that disturbances in Whitmore Reans came after a police car had been driven ''too close' to pedestrians, causing anger. The Little Swan pub in Horseley Fields was another flashpoint in Wolverhampton Police line up behind riot shields as they run the gauntlet of petrol bombs, bottles and stones in Farndale Avenue, Whitmore Reans

There was such a rich vein of comedy that we, the audience, hardly dared laugh in case we missed the next nugget of humour. The violence continued the next day, as terrified Saturday afternoon shoppers witnessed stand-offs between police and looters in both Wolverhampton and Birmingham city centre. Police preparing for trouble in Wolverhampton Officers guarding the entrance to Dunstall Road police station in Wolverhampton The initial disintegration of the set was delightful and nicely timed. The pelmet & curtains fell down; a leg came off the chess-table, sending it and the pieces flying, and the fireplace flat collapsed. Lighting and Sound were perfectly co-ordinated. Deliberately mistimed cues peppered the action and As always with the Drama Group, the performers couldn’t be faulted for their enthusiasm and energy, with all the usual plot twists and a small cast of five playing what seems like hundreds of roles, confusion ensued. The tone was set from the start, as the lights failed to go down, the music came in at the wrong time and the set was revealed with doors in the wrong places, and the opening scene being interrupted almost immediately! It is 40 years since the infamous summer of rioting tore through the West Midlands. While Handsworth suffered the worst, Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury were also hit by copycat outbreaks. Although the disturbances fizzled out after a few days, they left scars behind which are still to fully heal.

I’m going to lay my cards on the table at this point. Farndale, as a play, is cheap and nasty. There were times when the laziness of its humour and its depressingly predictable trajectory made Miranda Hart look like Woody Allen. Despite this, and to the immense credit of the cast, last night’s production was, on the whole, decent enough fun for things not to devolve into the sub-Pontins ordeal that the play is such fertile ground for. Similarly, Adam Woolley’s barely competent stage hand Adrian, with his dry physicality, ineptitude and faithful adherence to health and safety regulations, was a welcome and entertaining presence. His most significant role, however, turned out to be pushing Chloe Petts’ Kate about the stage in a wheelchair – Petts is undoubtedly the funniest member of the cast, flitting deftly between cantankerous OAP and Glasgow bouncer in the roles of 3 rd Witch and Macduff respectively. So convincing was her angry Scots turn that, I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelid. The census collection is designed so that each group of postcodes should contain at least 100 people (50 in Scotland). It’s a cliché, but the title of this play says more or less everything about CUDOS’s latest production, it was a farcical and very funny take on Shakespeare’s tragedy. The ladies of the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate ride roughshod, bumbling their way through with the forlorn hope of impressing competition judge Mr. Peach, who’s come all the way up from that London! That’s the joke. No nuance or subtlety here. No social consciousness, just women from an estate doing Macbeth really badly! In Wolverhampton, teacher John Wassall was looking at rings at a jeweller's when the shop was surrounded by youths.

It was the heavy-handed arrest of 20-year-old Leroy Alphonse Cooper on July 3 that sparked the Toxteth riots. His detention led to a brief disturbance that left three officers injured, but instead of fading away, the trouble escalated over the days that followed. The crowds were eventually dispersed with the use of CS gas – the first time such a tactic had been used in Great Britain.

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Staging the play in the restricted area of the Studio could have caused a few headaches. But, in fact, the set design was a triumph; and the intimacy of the whole space added greatly to the atmosphere. There were four exits (SL archway, SR passage, SR stairway and a window), plus a false door and a fireplace

Juliana Anderiesz played Thelma, second in command and Mrs R’s implacable rival. She showed great comic timing as she flipped in and out of character. Wonderfully funny moment when she and Murray (as O’Reilly) appeared to get into a loop whilst discussing her former lover, Randolph. Very difficult to achieve and very nicely performed. Cheryl Chamberlain played Felicity. Her gentle character contrasted well with the butch portrayal of Dawn and Colonel King, who she played in insanely rapid succession and with good physical comedy. Particularly loved the moment when she switched on the standard lamp…not really believing that it would work. It’s a cliché, but the title of this one tells you more or less everything that you need to know. UCLU Drama’s latest offering, lamentably one of the last at the Garage Theatre, is a farcical and at points very funny production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. The ladies of the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate ride roughshod, bumbling their way through with the forlorn hope of impressing competition judge Mr. Peach, who’s come all the way up from that London.

Boxford Drama Group presents Chase Me Up Farndale Avenu, S’il Vous Plait at the Boxford Village Hall on 30th, 31st March and 1st April. The director, of this production, has faithfully followed the script and its instructions…and it has paid off. The pace was excellent and interactions were well co-ordinated…there was a chair arranging sequence that seemed to take up a whole act. It was impossible to spot any fumbling that hadn’t been Perhaps it’s because of the naff sounding titles, that the Farndale series of plays are sometimes confused with light, frothy comedies that are easy to stage and to perform…and to enjoy. But Farndale plays are complex, very carefully crafted and come with explicit instructions. You deviate from these at your peril.