pyekan

SONDHEIM

As Craig Glenday, chairman of the Stephen Sondheim Society said.“The Fourteenth Annual Stephen Sondheim Society Student performer of the year 2022 competition” is definitely the Longest title in the West End.

All the Drama and Music academies in the country have competitions to find their most talented performer in musical theatre. It is a very special evening at the Sondheim Theatre. The sadness is that the man himself is not able to be there. Instead there are the lovely  Liz Robertson, Theo Jamieson, Caroline Sheen,and MIchael Zavier to judge the finalists. The chairman of the judges, is music Critic and music theatre obsessive, Edward Seckerson . Hosting the evening is Jennia Russell .and the prize giving presentation is by probably the most popular interpreter of Sondheim’s work, the great Julia Mackenzie 

We are to see the twelve finalists. Group into parties of three. Each student does a Sondheim popular song and a completely new song written by a young composer. 

It was not surprising that the first prize of a thousand pounds went to Desmonda Cathabel from the Royal Academy of Music who sang first “The Miller’s Son” from A Little Light Music and then “I’m ready” fromThe Snow Queen by Eamenn O’Dwyer, who is also a Royal Academy student.

Desmonda is a true professional wearing a sexy black dress split to the waist. Desmonda is from Jakarta, Indonesia where English is a second language, so she has worked exceptionally hard to arrive at this state of professional artistry.. She has obviously appeared in cabaret and one of her prizes is an evening at the Crazy Coqs as a subject of Comparing Notes intimate conversation.

The girl who won second prize was Ella Shepherd from the Bird College Conservatoire, who performed “I  Read” from Passion and “Press Hash to Record” a delightful comedy song by Alex James Ellison from the Brit School and Mountview, whose work has been seen  at Southwark Playhouse and the Crazy Coqs and was nominated for Best Off West End Show.

The final prize went to Jade Oswald from The Royal Academy of Music who sang “On the Steps of the Palace”  from Into the Woods and  “Coming to Terms” by Christopher J Orton   and Jon Robyns.. Orton’s new musical “Then Now and Next, written with Jon Robyns, is in the workshop stage.

There were nine more wonderful performers who kept the audience intrigued, andtghey more than succeeded in making his a fascinating show. The names you will soon be familiar with are Caitlyn Allen,ihvit Anduguola, Annabelle Aquino, Tommy Bell, Jee Boyle, Demonda Cathabel, Ed Cooke, Cassius Hackforth, Izzi Mackie, Callum Matin, Jade Oswald and Ella Shepherd.

Stephen Sondheim left a message for them

“Good luck to the singers, and remember to honour the songwriters”

Good luck to the Songwriters and remember to honour the Singers”

By Tobias Kunzel and Harry Meacher

Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate

Here is something to shout about. The exceptional production of Charles Dickens’ semi autobiographical novel.

The thing that comes over the footlights is the huge amount of love that has gone into this show. 

Dickens’ characters are so well known and rightly so, Mr D had an eye for the eccentricities and dishonesty of the human race. His central character was not so perceptive. There were so many villains in his life, any sweetly spoken person was an angel in his eyes and a great disappointment when the misdemeanours are rCOPPERFIELD!  *****

The Musical

evealed. The Steerforth story is a good example 

The boy’s sweet mother marries the cruel, selfish monster  Murdstone. The chanting of Murstone Murdstone from the whole cast shows the hatred and agony this man caused in the life of a child and why Dickens campaigned all his life  for the rights of children

It was fascinating how the 13 cast managed to play 25  parts with absolute accuracy.  It must have been very busy off stage. It is almost Incredible that the evil Murdstone played by Timothy Weston also becomes the grown up David and Mark Underwood as the upper class charmer, Steerforth, is also the villainous weirdo Uriah Heep.  

The sound system was tricky at first but it righted itself as the play progresse

The whole of act one shows Davy growing up in the atmospheres surrounding children in the nineteenth century. The boy was well played with enormous confidence by a girl Georgia Beresford-Smith.

Debden Clarke plays the powerful woman who dismissed Murdstone from the life of Davy. Wonderful to have a really strong woman. She literally saved his young life. .Dickens had a romantic view of middle class women, although Steerforth’s Mother shows how her attitudes were reflected in her son’s performance. She actually says in this production something like  “ the working class have such a rough time, it is lucky they don’t have feelings like us”.So in Steerforth’s eyes, the seduction of Emily was not important. That is what she was there for.

Much of the enchantment of this piece is due to the author Harry Meacher who ldirects and who also plays the role of Mr D himself who gave many readings of his own work.

The music is by Tobias Kunzel and has a definite German feeling about it which reflects the romance and sometimes sombre trends of the story.

The performances throughout are exceptional but A special mention needs to go to Georgio Galassi as an enchanting Micawber, having miraculously taking over the role at the last minute. His song and dance number with Uriah Heep brings the house down

alinewaitesreviews.uk

ADAPTED BY KERRY LEE CRABBE 

FROM THE NOVEL BY HAROLD PINTER

At the White Bear Theatre.

The Dwarfs is a semi autobiographical novel about four very close friends – young people adjusting to a world of work. In the years after the second World WAr…

An utterly charming and loveable eccentric is played by remarkably versatile actor Ossian Perret well known for his appearances on film and TV. .He is introduced to us at the very beginning of the play. It  is a wonderfully accurate and very funny performance producing gales of laughter from the audience. One is almost convinced this is going to be a comedy. Len wears glasses and it is not until he takes them off that he can actually see things.The others treat him with a kind of amused condescension, althoug they all want him to be their best friend., 

Charlie MacGechan,one of the producers of the Flying Colours company is Mark,  a jobbing actor with pretentious ideas about  his attractiveness to women. He quoted the “I want them down on their knees and calling me sir” an expression I have heard before by another jobbing actor who eventually became famous.

 The third young man is Pete (Joseph Potter) Carefully  coiffeured and suited, full of sophisticated charm, but we find out that he is in fact mentally disturbed with suicidal tendencies and uncontrollable bouts of anger and violence.

Virginia (Denise Laniyan} is gorgeous and sexy and is the catalyst for most of what happens in the play.  She is Pete’s girlfriend but he is a strange kind of lover and bursts into a violent rage, when she mentions “Hamlet” He thinks she has no right to talk about things she obviously knows nothing about. There are a couple of violent scenes, one of which is played in front of his friends. He tries to do anything he can to bring her down. What makes it even more effective is that at the White Bear the audience is so close, almost on top of the stage. We are in Pete’s unhappy violent life. Virginia is cool and composed through everything, even in the way she says goodbye to the relationship.

The dialogue of the play is very much Pinteresque in style. A kind of heightened everyday speech that creates the feeling of real life and it is wonderfully  performed by the actors. 

Len, who can only see when he takes off his glasses. Mark  the hopeful actor sleepy and often bored. They are most probably phases of Pinter’s young life..  Probably the different phases of PIntes own life. Three characters about  himself. Accurate and fascinating. I was interested in the jealousy they all displayed over each other’s attachment to Len. 

How wonderful it is to find a PInter written in his young days when his talent was burgeoning and brilliant. Kerry Lee Crabbe was responsible for this clever adaptation and the director is Harry Burton who has brought out the energy of the characters. The fifties  music adds to the period feeling, as does the fact that the men wear suits and proper leather shoes.Costume design by Isabella van Braekel who has also designed the set. – a seedy room in  Notting Hill Gate. before it got posh. 

The Play is produced by Flying Colours.

Aline Waites

From the novel by Virginia Woolf *****

Adaptation by Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Stella Powell-Jones.

This is a well thought out adaptation of the most enchanting pseudo biographical novel by Virginia Woolf of an imaginary young man with the Romantic name of Orlando. . She wrote this as a joke descrribing it as “a writer’s holiday”, making fun of her lover Vita Sackville West’s enormously aristocratic background. She begins it during the reign of Elizabeth the First and the young man is living in his house of 365 rooms. During this episode he fascinates the Queen herself and becomes her lover.

The young man remains the age of 35 all during the centuries which he lives right up to the 1920s. Taking on the clothes and attitudes of the different centuries.

He lives an aristocratic life of sex and luxury right until the Victorian Age when, after a long sleep, he wakes up as a Victorian woman, with all the restrictions and inhibitions expected of the upper class female. She marries because she feels she has to. 

Happily, she enters the twentieth century with a flourish and finds that the whole world has changed by being a woman, not only the clothes are different, also the attitudes of people around her. Even the beloved Sasha returns in her life this time as a man, just as the tiresome woman who drove him wild during the Regency period turns out to be just as tiresome as a man.

Orlando is played in this production by a delightful redhead Taylor McClaine, a girl who easily convinces as a boy and man, just as the one she loves, Sasha , the Russian Princess, played by Skye Hallam. becomes a man in the present day.

The authorial voice is played by three people, billed as the Chorus. Tigger Blaize who also inhabits the soul of Elizabeth the first. Rosalind Lainley and Stanton Wright who fill in all the other characters and keep Orlando dressed in the clothes suitable for each century.

Ceci Calf designed the setting which resembles a child’s toy theatre giving the feeling of make believe right from the beginning. The clothes provided for the hero/heroine at various times during the centuries are shown to the audience,  pinned up on the backcloth where they are collected by the chorus members when required..

It is a very clear adaptation of the book, a series of comedy scenes, but I wonder whether it is well enough appreciated by some of the audience, who take it rather seriously as a classic novel. Occasionally I felt rather embarrassed to laugh.

There was a popular movie of the story with Orlando played by Tilds Swinton and the Queen by Quentin Crisp. Something I’ve always wanted to see, but have sadly not been able to catch  up with it

This is a lovely show, well directed by Stella Powell-Jones.

alinewaitesreviews.co.uk

Adaptation by Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Stella Powell-Jones.

This is a well thought out adaptation of the most enchanting pseudo biographical novel by Virginia Woolf of an imaginary young man with the Romantic name of Orlando. . She wrote this as a joke descrribing it as “a writer’s holiday”, making fun of her lover Vita Sackville West’s enormously aristocratic background. She begins it during the reign of Elizabeth the First and the young man is living in his house of 365 rooms. During this episode he fascinates the Queen herself and becomes her lover.

The young man remains the age of 35 all during the centuries which he lives right up to the 1920s. Taking on the clothes and attitudes of the different centuries.

He lives an aristocratic life of sex and luxury right until the Victorian Age when, after a long sleep, he wakes up as a Victorian woman, with all the restrictions and inhibitions expected of the upper class female. She marries because she feels she has to. 

Happily, she enters the twentieth century with a flourish and finds that the whole world has changed by being a woman, not only the clothes are different, also the attitudes of people around her. Even the beloved Sasha returns in her life this time as a man, just as the tiresome woman who drove him wild during the Regency period turns out to be just as tiresome as a man.

Orlando is played in this production by a delightful redhead Taylor McClaine, a girl who easily convinces as a boy and man, just as the one she loves, Sasha , the Russian Princess, played by Skye Hallam. becomes a man in the present day.

The authorial voice is played by three people, billed as the Chorus. Tigger Blaize who also inhabits the soul of Elizabeth the first. Rosalind Lainley and Stanton Wright who fill in all the other characters and keep Orlando dressed in the clothes suitable for each century.

Ceci Calf designed the setting which resembles a child’s toy theatre giving the feeling of make believe right from the beginning. The clothes provided for the hero/heroine at various times during the centuries are shown to the audience,  pinned up on the backcloth where they are collected by the chorus members when required..

It is a very clear adaptation of the book, a series of comedy scenes, but I wonder whether it is well enough appreciated by some of the audience, who take it rather seriously as a classic novel. Occasionally I felt rather embarrassed to laugh.

There was a popular movie of the story with Orlando played by Tilds Swinton and the Queen by Quentin Crisp. Something I’ve always wanted to see, but have sadly not been able to catch  up with it

This is a lovely show, well directed by Stella Powell-Jones.

alinewaitesreviews.co.uk

ADAPTED BY KERRY LEE CRABBE 

FROM THE NOVEL BY HAROLD PINTER

At the White Bear Theatre.

The Dwarfs is a semi autobiographical novel about four very close friends – young people adjusting to a world of work. In the years after the second World WAr…

An utterly charming and loveable eccentric is played by remarkably versatile actor Ossian Perret well known for his appearances on film and TV. .He is introduced to us at the very beginning of the play. It  is a wonderfully accurate and very funny performance producing gales of laughter from the audience. One is almost convinced this is going to be a comedy. Len wears glasses and it is not until he takes them off that he can actually see things.The others treat him with a kind of amused condescension, althoug they all want him to be their best friend., 

Charlie MacGechan,one of the producers of the Flying Colours company is Mark,  a jobbing actor with pretentious ideas about  his attractiveness to women. He quoted the “I want them down on their knees and calling me sir” an expression I have heard before by another jobbing actor who eventually became famous.

 The third young man is Pete (Joseph Potter) Carefully  coiffeured and suited, full of sophisticated charm, but we find out that he is in fact mentally disturbed with suicidal tendencies and uncontrollable bouts of anger and violence.

Virginia (iDanis Lanyon} is gorgeousl and sexy and is the catalyst for most of what happens in the play.  She is Pete’s girlfriend but he is a strange kind of lover and bursts into a violent rage, when she mentions “Hamlet” He thinks she has no right to talk about things she obviously knows nothing about. There are a couple of violent scenes, one of which is played in front of his friends. He tries to do anything he can to bring her down. What makes it even more effective is that at the White Bear the audience is so close, almost on top of the stage. We are in Pete’s unhappy violent life. Virginia is cool and composed through everything, even in the way she says goodbye to the relationship.

The dialogue of the play is very much Pinteresque in style. A kind of heightened everyday speech that creates the feeling of real life and it is wonderfully  performed by the actors. 

Len, who can only see when he takes off his glasses. Mark  the hopeful actor sleepy and often bored. They are most probably phases of Pinter’s young life..  Probably the different phases of PIntes own life. Three characters about  himself. Accurate and fascinating. I was interested in the jealousy they all displayed over each other’s attachment to Len. 

How wonderful it is to find a PInter written in his young days when his talent was burgeoning and brilliant. Kerry Lee Crabbe was responsible for this clever adaptation and the director is Harry Burton who has brought out the energy of the characters. The fifties  music adds to the period feeling, as does the fact that the men wear suits and proper leather shoes.Costume design by Isabella van Braekel who has also designed the set. – a seedy room in  Notting Hill Gate. before it got posh. 

The Play is produced by Flying Colours.

Aline Waites

At the Vaults

This is a production to celebrate  the 400th anniversary of Moliere 

A combination by the Theatre Lab Company and Exchange theatre present Don Juan with alternating dialogue in English and French. Don Juan is a play by the greatest French playwright. It is played by a band of bilingual actors and the director Anastasia Revi, all of whom understand the entertaining quality of Don Juan. And it is entertainment gone mad.

As an onlooker I felt a little like foreigners feel when they see an English pantomime. Something crazy not totally understood but lots of laughs, music, singing, dancing and knockabout comedy.

In this  instance some of the cast wear masks – not the covid ones – some with the beaks, some black, some full faces whited out, all manners of disguise. This of course muffles the sound a little, but the plot is quite easy to follow once you get used to the bilingualism of it.

Don Juan is of course a sexual adventurer, a philandereer. Using the words “I love you” and “Will you marry me” as a matter of course, in order to achieve sexual pleasure but  getting him in constant trouble from the dozens of ladies to whom he has spoken those words.

In the play he is newly married but still looking for love outside the marriage. But he is helped out of scrapes by his servant Sgnarelle played by the astonishing and highly revered actor David Furlong. He is the whipping boy,  always managing to receive the blows meant for his master, loves him to the end.  He tries very hard to reform him, but, alas, Don Juan is set in his lubricious ways.

The   director Anastasia Revi has directed it for the greatest amount of fun, using wonderful appropriate songs like ‘Je ne regrette rien’ A true sentiment from the Don Juan ‘Show me the way to the next whisky bar’ sung by the statue or God or an angel whatever he is and the rest of the cast joining in the singing and dancing..

The weird thing is that when they do the curtain call, you realise there are only  six people in the cast. The masks and other disguises make one think there are lots more.

After the show we went to the bar and were given a most delicious Religieuse  – made of chou pastry and filled with chocolate creme patisserie. I did know why at the time, but I’ve forgotten

The most unusual evening I’ve had for ages. Memories of the Comedie Francaise and teenage passions including Gerard  Philippe were abounding in an  extremely entertaining and jolly evening.  

Aline Waites

The
Man Behind The Mask

At the Churchill Theare, Bromley

The stage is set beautifully and with elegance. There is a piano, a handsome red velvet armchair. The back drop is a screen with a sketch of BH and his signature. 

It is a full hose, the audience is eagerly waiting the appearance of the 88 year old variety star.

There is an announcement over the air waves, “The man behind the mask” Oh here we go.

Barry Humphries enters stage left. He wears a red velvet tuxedo and is looking sprauncy.

An immediate wave of love comes oer the footlights from the enthralled audience.  All Barry news to do is just stand there but he started to chat to the people of Bromley . They are delighted when he mentions Croydon in a condescending manner. He knows how to win the affection of an audience.

He speaks in a gentle, but perfectly audible Australian Audience, telling stories of his childhood in Melbourne and his earlier theatrical experiences before he set sail for The Old Country and went into rep with all the Pommy actors..

Sadly, when I say audible, it is not his fault  when screams of loud laughter come from elements of the audience. Either because they are trying to prove they  understand what he is saying, or that they’ve seen it before and are kindly letting us know that a laugh is coming. 

I suspect quite a lot of the people don’t  know who he is, I found when mentioning the show that people were puzzled until I mentioned Dame Edna Everidge. 

He doesn’t seem phased by the misplaced laughter, but then maybe he can’t hear it. 

He tells some stories that are appealing because of the humility. Once an audience member wanted to deliver a message. Barry, expecting a lovely compliment, allowed the man to speak. The message was ”My wife can’t stand you” 

He spoke of his parents who thought he had no talent, as an actor.  He agreed with them then and still does. The result is that he just continues doing the job he loves.

He tells of his appearance in Snow White. He really hated Valerie, the girl who played the lead. He wanted to kill her, and he made an apple full of nasties like cochineal for the redness. If  you want to know the rest of the story ,Humphries is on tour at various places around the country so you can catch him there, where noisy people don’t laugh just as he does the punch line. 

Everyone wants to know how Dame Edna evolved. She started as somebody he knew in Australia. He was fascinated by her behaviour and conversation. So, starting with a real person, he tjust took on the personality and exaggerated a bit, turning her into an incredibly successful character

Pretentious, and snobby, over dressed and over made up; the purple wig and the diamond studied spectacles.are a clever disguise and- her bitchy remarks are so funny,  because she herself is so appalling, and because she is not a real person just an image.

In Act two, barry returns in a blue velvet DJ. This time there are films of the outrageous Dame Edna. It is more lively and enormous fun. Like joining Prince Charles and Camilla in their box at the Royal Variety Performance. They laughed so much.

Barry’s show is touring many towns theatres around the country. Do go if you get a chance. You can let me know what happened to Valerie.

Aline waites

THE WOODS ****

By David Mamet

David Mamet is a writer whose work we haven’t seen for quite aorder to have their sexual weekend.

What is most interesting about Mamet it is with the ease he uses colloquial language, making his characters utterly believable

Unfortunately this play was written on 1970s so the actual dialogue marks it as an old fashioned attitude to sex, marriage and the behaviour orf men and women when in the throes of a passionate relationship. There is no doubt about the passion, they cannot stop put their handprints all over each other.

However she is woman, he is man and that is the problem.

What is so interesting is that Mamet can invent two utterly irritating people and yet you can become embroiled in their story and happily watch to the end. It’s a kind of magic, He makes sure that everything they say to each other seems absolutely real. And it is irritating to somebody who lived in the seventies because that is exactly how it was.

Ruth is a girl who loves the country life, the rain, the birds, the trees, the weather, the water and talks far too much.

Nick is a man who hates the country, life, hates the rain, the birds, the weather,  the water and doesn’t talk enough. 

This is a war of the sexes and follows these two people through their explicitly sexy life at the beginning and carries on through the insults, the hatred, that physical fighting, the fist fighting and the beating of each other with an oar.

But things have changed so much since the seventies. He does finally say he loves her, only when he has been beaten into the ground and forced to admit his feelings. She has already been through the humiliation of speaking her love  for him while he denies his affection for her and is purposefully hurting her. She grows to hate him and starts to leavee, but he prevents her. 

There is so much truth here about a toxic relationship, there was no way they could possibly begin to understand each other.

This was written in the nineteen seventies when as they say men were men and women were women – just when things were beginning to change.The woman wanted to be loved but also needed to be respected. The man thinks he has to be in charge of her, himself and the world. It wasn’t until he broke down and confessed his need. That there may be some hope for them. The play finishes wondering what will happen tomorrow. 

Despite the irritating characters, the acting, direction and writing are all so good that one is completely held by the story and even empathises with them. Mamet has magic..

alinewaitesreviews.wordpress.com, pyekan

THE MARRIAGE OF ALICE B. TOKLAS BY GERTRUDE STEIN *****

By Edward Einhorn

At the Jermyn Street theatre

The strangest beginning of any show yet seen. The two partners sit on a bench uttering the dialogue “I am Gertrude Stein pretending to be Alice B Toklas . I am Alice B Toklas pretending to be Gertrude Stein pretending to be Alice B Tokas pretending to be Gertrude Stein, pretending ….etc  

They have decided to have a wedding to show to the world their extraordinary relationship Lesbian duos were not expected to have actual weddings in the early nineteen hundreds, but Gertrude despised the accepted rules and  conventional {masculine} thinking.

To me, Gertrude Stein had always been a kind of mythical creature who wrote in an almost incomprehensible way – A rose is a rose is a rose (is pretending to be a rose?)

She had an absolute horror wpf what she called a paternalistic misogynistic language and tried to invent a whole new way of writing that would be purely female (without femininity)

She and Alice ran their Salon in Paris especially for what Gertrude considered Geniuses. The said Geniuses  all brought their wives and mistresses and Alice entertained them in a different  room,  chattering at length about recipes and other household business. This silly, giggling  gathering is exactly what men – and Gertrude – would think about female conversation.

After this comes a scene in another room – where the geniuses are. Here they all sit around in complete silence, thinking. – the privilege of Genius! This is difficult for Gertrude’s old friend Ernest Hemingway who joins in, trying terribly hard to think. Putting on every version of his thinking faces but Gertrude will never accept him as a genius. Hemingway, played by Mark Huckett  is a big and butch and has no real interested in thinking. He is an action man. who writes about masculine subjects like Bull Fighting. His heroes are matadors. How could he possibly be a genius?.

The members of the Salon  talk of many things when they actually get around to it. What makes a genius? Gertrude knows of course…and Hemingway isn’t. This brings us to realise that being a genius is often just a matter of publicity. only telling the public over and over again until they believe it. Of course so many of her Geniuses are famous, Picasso possibly the most famous of them. A female actress, Kelly Burke plays Picasso – and also pretends to be all the rest of the geniuses in the Salon – apart from the ones played by Mark Huckett who also portrays Leo, Gertude’s estranged brother.

Alice is portrayed by Alyssa Simon  who conveys beauty and femininity . She was the other half of Gertude Stein whose fierce lesbianism is wonderfully portrayed by Nathasha Byrne. 

The sole male actor is Huckett who is so funny as Hemingway, longing to be considered a genius but of course he is just too masculine. 

This is an extraordinary, deliciously dotty play. It is intelligently funny portraying the personality  of Gertrude, a woman  not crazy, not even eccentric but incredibly sure of herself and her own ideas. A strong, intelligent [genius?] 

I have not counted the number of characters in this play – all portrayed by the versatile Burke, Huckett and Simon. Gertrude remains stolidly herself throughout. 

The play follows the whole length of the relationship until the publishing of the two famous autobiographies that made them world famous with Stein pretending to be Toklas and vice versa.

Aline AWtheatricals

SCENE TWENTY TWO

Fran was pretty much a home at the Grey Dragon.The actors seemed pleased to see her. Roxxie was really delighted to have got rid of ED  although it was a possibility that he might return. They had to be aware of this.

They started work at ten. Fran was blocking the whole show so that they could get on with learning what she had come  up with. It was still not a wonderful show, the more she knew of i, the more she knew it was hardly a number one. Buit

 it and she would do her best to make is as funny as possible.

It suprirsed her a litt when she notice that Maisie had attracte Roxie to her side and was shipering in her ear.

“Am I interrfupting you” asked Fran

“Er yes” said Roxie “ Maisie has just reminded me that we should be having a coffee break”

“Oh who says?”

“Its an Equite rulin”said Maisiew” Its half past eleven. We ae supposed to have a       coffee break at eleven”

“Oh then. OK” said Fran

“Thats stupid” protested Jay.2 We never take notice of those silly rules”

“Might I suggest” said Roxie”that I make coffww up hww. But if y ou are not needed in the current scene you            can go and get yourself oe downstairs. We dont kneed the two ladies, so you tow   can go and chat among yourselves”

“Not exactly a break” said Maisie

The two ladies went down the stairs, Jay following them, turned to Fran as he began to go.

“You’ll have to watch that one/2 he said “t ypical Equity freak” He turned to Saul and Leowho were waiting to get on with the scene.

“I take it you are both members of Equity.Not that it matters on    the fringe. Anoyone can join Equity thats why we are awash with amateurs – no offence intended to you guys. You re both great people and I am sure you will be brilliant Queens” and he went off down the stairs, laughing at his humour.

2I have to say” said Saul” that actors are pretty weird.”

“Lets get on with it” said his wife.

It seermed that no sooner had everyone got back again and the rehearsal was restarted, that it was nearly time for lunch. They all went downto the pub for Corttage of Shepheards pie. Fran switched on  heer phone and was amazed to find she had a message.

“I’;; be with you in a minute. I have to make a phone dall”

“Who is it The Old Vic or tha National?”

Fran laughed “ Neither, Its the pig man”

“Are the pigs missing hyo?” asked Leo

“They will be what I expect. I’ve told them I’ll be another week or so”

“Is it Shepherds or      Cottage? I;; order it for  you.”

“Well fish something if they have it. Fingers or Pie, whatevewr.”

She was glad when they had gone. The phone call was something she had never expected and she was apprehensive.

“Hello Edmond. I am surprised to hear from you.I thought you had given up on the olay”

“WEll I have really. We’ve never met properly, have we?”

“Actually not at all”

2Id like to see you, but please dont tell the others. I want hyo to meet somebody/2

“I am staying with Leo and Saul. Ill havew t

“Well OKo make an excuse. Are you sure this is important, Who is it that I want me to meet?”

“Can we make an  appointment tomorrow? Say Supper? I like to go out on a Wednesday “

Fran was intrigued, she had to say yet to this strange invitation.

“ “well Ok” she said

“Don’t tell anyone, please”

“I don’t like to lie”

£It is hyper important. I’ll pick you  up  after rehearsal tomorrow. I’ll callyou first so I dont bump inot anyone there”

Fran put down the phone. She had no idea what she was getting into. She went down to the pub and saw that fish and chips with tartar sauce had been ordered for her. Saul brought it to her table and refused ot==to let her pay.

“You are         doing us a big favour. I love the way you work.”

“We haven’t done anything yet” she protested but was happy to receive a compliment from hil.

They had all settled themselves down at the pub tales and at the one remaining table  she sait with a strange young girl

“Hello” she said, “You are Fran arent you?”

She explained that she was a waitress from the coffee bar. She was a pretty girl, didnt look more than sixteen years of age. 

Jay called Fran from the next table.

“This is Freda, he said,” Queen of the coffee bar.

/2why are eating here, instead if at the cafe?”

“Its my lunch break and I fancied fish and chips” she said.

Freda was a nice girl. Fran warmed to her. She was the kind of girl who had no problems about talking about herself.Fan found her interesting and encouraged her to talk about her family. Freda found Fran wa warm and good listening post. Onew question about her family  and Fran learned all about her long suffering mother and her violent father. She had managed to get the police to him abd he was ;now in prison. She was worried about what he might do when he came out.

Fran thought she should like to know more about heer. Having told her so  much during one meal of fish and chips.

Freda finished her lunch and left, saying “See you later”. It seemed specifically to Frean who she obviously considered her a friend.