And so to the next 80 years… 2004

A Timely Event

After the 80^th Anniversary celebrations of 2003, 2004 presented us with a ‘follow that!’ challenge. We kicked off with a ‘timely’ event in March, when the timeless Pauline Foreman presented As Time Goes By, another of her hugely popular afternoons of poetry and prose, read by a talented team of readers. The theme - as you may have guessed - was 'time' and tea time was respected with cream teas being served to a very appreciative capacity audience of fifty or more, enabling a good donation to be made to the Meningitis Trust.

Lucy Hyett Cup presented to the Croft School

In May, we donated a trophy - to be known as the Lucy Hyett Cup - to the Croft School, to be awarded annually as a Prize for Drama. During the process of searching the archives for last year’s 80th anniversary celebrations, it was discovered that when the Players’ formidable founder, Miss Lucy Hyett, died in 1962, the Players had given a Drama Prize of 1 guinea a year to the School in her memory. This annual guinea having been swallowed up in general school administration, the Players decided to mark their anniversary by updating the prize in the form of a trophy to encourage drama in the School.

The presentation to the Headteacher, Mrs Janet Hoyle, took place on 6^th May, during the interval of the first night of our production of Habeas Corpus.

Habeas Corpus wins awards...

Habeas Corpus by Alan Bennett ran for three titillatingly excellent performances in front of near sell-out audiences from 6th - 8th May 2004 and won awards in the process.

Not only was it a great success in terms of audiences, but it also drew critical acclaim in the annual Gloucestershire Drama Association awards, where Hamish Maclean won Best Supporting Actor as the throbbing Canon Throbbing and Jackie Herbert was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her ever 'oovering Mrs Swab.

Actually, we all thought we should also have won 'best supporting neck' for that unforgettable moment at the end of the first Act, when the chair on which the partially suspended Tony Gibson (as the suicidal Mr Purdue) was standing, was kicked from under him to leave him fully suspended as the curtains slowly closed. The audience gasped in astonishment. They gasped even more when the curtains reopened after the interval to find him still dangling there! As Churchill might have said: “Some acting… some neck!”

Summer Garden Party

What has become an annual event – The PP Summer Garden Party – took place on a Sunday in June courtesy of Ann & Charles Dorman. Beautiful weather, an idyllic setting, superb food and a fair bit of wine made it a memorable event. As these pictures show…

There is, of course, always one…

This picture was taken three seconds before Jack slid from the chair. There is a major prize for guessing what he was doing with his left hand and another for what was going through Julia’s mind at this moment, but nothing for what was going through Jack’s mind, which by a strange coincidence was also clearly nothing.

AGM

September's AGM was in the great tradition of PP AGMs, ie quick. After the niceties had been completed, the Committee for 2004 - 2005 comprised:

· Chairman - Jack Burgess

· Secretary - Jackie Herbert

· Treasurer - Andrew Leach

· Gill Mohin

· Avril Dorey

· Valerie Dugan

· Mike Breeze

A Man for All Seasons …a memorable production in a memorable setting.

All the hard work and nail biting paid off memorably for our final production of the year, A Man for All Seasons, which was staged in the magnificent and historic setting of St Mary's Church in Painswick in November, as part of the Painswick Festival.

Alongside a pretty good critical verdict from the GDA adjudicator, we received fulsome tributes (unsolicited!) from members of the audience, such as:

‘Thank you for a wonderful evening. The acting, the set, the dramatic lights and setting were just magnificent. Such hard work but aren’t we lucky to live in Painswick!’

‘I have, this evening, been given one of the most uplifting experiences I have ever had in Painswick. The imagination and scale of the production was, without any reservation - superb. The depth of study each and every one, on and off 'stage', applied to this play was without equal in my experience of amateur drama.’

‘Last night was truly inspired and for me an extra dimension was added as I contemplated the fact that the church had itself – with its priesthood – passed through those turbulent days. Congratulations to all. Cast to perfection; production, set and lights incomparable; and the timing could have sent a rocket to the moon. And I’m quite sure I heard William Kingston join in the acclamation.’

The reference to William Kingston highlights a remarkable historical link between St Mary’s Church and the events of the play: it turns out that the Governor of the Tower of London, responsible for holding Sir Thomas More, was the then Lord of the Manor of Painswick, Sir William Kingston, who was buried in the Church in 1540.

For the full cast list, programme notes and more pictures, go to the A Man for All Seasons page.

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Painswick Players list of productions 2000 -