Tales of the unexpected in theatres
THE delightful thing about going to the theatre on a regular basis is that you never quite know what is going to happen – however many times you have seen the show in question.
Every so often, the entirely unexpected occurs – and these are the things that tend to be remembered long after the show that accompanied them has faded from memory.
For instance, I was sitting on the end of a row in Kenilworth’s Talisman Theatre many years ago when a senior citizen whom I had never seen before went past me, making his way towards the back of the auditorium.
As he drew level, he paused, eyed me fixedly and asked, “Are you an act-or?” – using the strange delivery that does tend to crop up in not-too-serious discussions of the profession.
I said that er, no, I wasn’t – whereupon the other half of our conversation said “Neither am I” and walked out of my life for ever.
Then there were the three angels in a musical production, lined up to perform a song in a production which presumably had not had a technical rehearsal.
The theatre lighting managed to remove their dresses in their entirety, leaving the young ladies apparently proceeding in their underwear.
And there was the stagehand whose unexpected appearance at the end of a show was somewhat marred by the fact that he was suddenly flattened – by the descending safety curtain.
That’s the sort of idiotic irony that makes life worth living – for the rest of us.
* KIDDERMINSTER’S Nonentities are playing safe with their first production of their autumn season, opening at the Rose Theatre on September 14.
They are turning to Agatha Christie and her Witness for the Prosecution, which she adapted from her own short story in 1953 – and saw it become a successful film starring Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich four years later.
They will follow it in October with Michael Frayn’s three-hander Here, described as a play in which there is a hell of indecision as the couple who are the duelling protagonists endlessly circle.
November finds the company exploring Terry Pratchett’s Maskerade, with the theatre brochure cautiously pointing out that describing it would take too long and the Nonentities agreeing without noticeable anxiety that a large cast with many challenges for staging and costume will happily stretch the society. Then a lively New Year is promised, with Rattle of a Simple Man (January), Teechers (February), Dead Guilty (April), A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (May) and The Dresser (June) – a pleasing programme all round.
Meanwhile, Walsall’s Grange Players, who have the enviable habit of registering attendances averaging 90-plus per cent every season, spring into action next Tuesday with Corpse, the comedy thriller by Gerald Moon that will run at the Grange Playhouse until September 19.
* What's On
The Vortex: Crescent Theatre, Birmingham (Sept 5-12);
Once Upon a Musical: Nuneaton Pantomime & Revue Society, Civic Hall, Bedworth (tomorrow);
No Dinner for Sinners: Norbury Theatre, Droitwich (Sept 9-12; Corpse, Grange Players, Grange Playhouse, Walsall (Sept 10-19);
Sex, Lies and the Shakespeare Sonnets: Crescent Theatre, Birmingham (Sept 11 & 12).
