Cranleigh School’s first plays of the new academic year were a double-bill of Alan Ayckbourn, rehearsed in less than six weeks and directed by VIth Formers Alex Strachan, Jamie Kitson and Ali Pritchard. The plays were produced by North House, whose Housemaster, John Haynes appeared in a cameo as the world’s first Australian Morris Dancer, with twinned House, West.

 

‘Table Manners’ is a six-hander and the younger actors Anna Rickenberg , Angus Peter (both LVth) and Hilary Cronin more than held their own in characterisation and comic timing against VIh Formers Nessa Mitchell , Doug Utting and Ross Jones-Davies. The casting, however, still meant that Ross and Doug could bring their tremendous charisma and stage presence to the extrovert roles of Reg and Norman. Alex Strachan directed with great confidence, ensuring the complex relationships between the characters were seen in the use of the acting space in the Vivian Cox Theatre.

 

The other play in the double bill, which ran from 16th-18th October, was ‘Gosforth’s Fete’, a comic tour-de-force employing 16 actors in a variety of hilarious roles. The central ‘love triangle’ between Millie (Ellie Setterfield), Stokes (Alex Goode) and Gosforth (Matt Emery), whose impregnation of Stokes’s fiancée, Millie, is announced on the fete’s loudspeakers ‘over 4 acres of fields’ and in front of the cubs and brownies, gave focus to the farcical comedy around it. Megan Abbott  made an imposing fur-coated Guest of Honour as Councillor Pearce and there was great visual humour, not least Sam Durant as a Vicar eating a biscuit- you had to be there, as they say.

 

Drama teacher Lucinda Peterken, who supervised the production commented, “It was great to see these young directors pulling off such slick and effective productions in just a few weeks.”

 

A fuller review will appear in the 2008 edition of The Cranleighan magazine.

 

PJL