Appeal for benches

Hello blog reader,

My name is Ellie Dawes and I am co-directing a production of Alan Ayckbourn’s well known play Confusions at the Charles Cryer Theatre in Carshalton at the beginning of July.

An integral part of this production is a scene in which four strangers meet in a park. For this scene we need 4 park benches.

We are not performing this play for profit and have a limited budget, so I am looking for a local business who would be interested in loaning us these benches for the duration of the dress rehearsal and performances, 6th – 10th July.

You might have considered helping local theatre companies out before in exchange for some local publicity, or this might be a new idea to you. Either way I think you’ll agree that the package we are offering will give you valuable exposure to your target market, both online and in print, raising your profile as a company willing to give back to your local community.

In return for your support we would offer you:

- The full back page of our programme (A5, colour).

- I would email out a message of thanks to your company, including a link direct to your website and a description of what you do, to all attendees and potential attendees signed up to our Facebook event page (currently 861 people, all individually invited by cast members and friends.)

- I will also post this message directly onto the event page so future visitors to the page can recognise your contribution to your local community, and click directly through to your website.

- I also have a Twitter account which I use professionally and because I work on the website DIYWeek.net a large amount of my 2491 Twitter followers come from the DIY retail and garden centre sector. I will be happy to tweet my thanks to your company with another direct link to your site.

- If you would like to attend the play we will happily offer you 2 free tickets to a performance of your choice.

I believe this could be a great publicity opportunity for your business to advertise to your key local market completely free of charge. We have a large cast of 11 local actors who all live in and around Croydon and we fully expect to sell the theatre to full capacity, or close to full capacity, for 4 performances, including a Saturday matinee (the theatre has around 110 seats.) Ayckbourn is a traditional playwright who, along with local theatre in general, is popular with theatre goers with disposable income who would be likely to purchase garden furniture this summer.

I attach below the poster for this upcoming production. Breakfast Cat Theatre company pride ourselves on high quality performances and have received excellent reviews for past productions. Should you wish to lend us the benches in return for this valuable local marketing opportunity, we will collect them from you on Wednesday 6th July and return them on Sunday 10th. They will be safely stored indoors and under lock and key backstage at the Charles Cryer Theatre. We would also be able to provide you with a deposit if requested.

If you have any questions about this please do not hesitate to give me a call on 07956 237 939 or email me at ellie_dawes@hotmail.com.
Thanks and very best regards,

Ellie Dawes
Co-Director
Breakfast Cat Theatre Company.

Apology

I'm sorry my last few blog posts have been rather rushed. As you can see, I am keeping up pretty well with seeing the 52 plays, but finding the time to write about them is proving rather more of a challenge.

Please bear with me and stick with this blog, the entries will get better again, I promise! The reason this was been rather more rushed recently is because I am co-directing a play with Breakfast Cat Theatre Company. My co-director is my clever boyfriend James.

The play we are performing is the classic Confusions by Alan Ayckbourn. Here's the sell:

Confusions, from one of England's most popular and prolific playwrights, uses five inter-linked one-act plays to cover themes of obsession, isolation and human desire for companionship, all played out against a backdrop of the British suburban middle class. From frenetic farces to melancholy pieces, it is engaging, funny and occasionally touching. With a strong cast of Breakfast Cat regulars and a healthy dose of new faces, this production promises to be the highlight of the summer.


It really will be good, even if I say so myself. We have a simply cracking cast and some great ideas. We want to give you the traditional play you know and love, but refresh it a little bit with extra touches to make the play a joy for those who have seen it before.

So come and see it!

28 - Jeffery Bernard is unwell

This hilarious tour-de-force by Robert Powell seemed to give us a glimpse of a time that has now passed. A time when journalists could get drunk and fail to turn in articles and no-one seemed to mind particularly. It was an evening of nostalgia for many in the audience.

The play takes place in a pub in Soho where Jeffery Bernard has managed to get locked in overnight and wakes up to find himself trapped. Unperturbed he begins helping himself to the spirits behind the bar and regales us with anecdotes and descriptions of the colourful characters he has met living a life of hard-drink, gambling and womanising.

Watching the play is like having the good fortune to sit with someone in the pub who has not only led a fascinating life but also has the skill to tell you about it in a witty and engaging fashion. Robert Powell was a surprisingly cheerful Jeffery Bernard, I think we were expecting a little bit more bitterness from the character but his performance was altogether more philosophical. He was assisted in telling his hilarious tales by a strong supporting cast who emerged in the pub, conjured by Jeffery's imagination and memories, as dozens of different characters each one different and engaging.

27 - Happy Birthday, The Miller Centre

This classic farce with an amazing set and a strong cast.

There were a couple of slips with the complicated lines, but this did not effect the fast pace necessary for a farce.

Roberto Prestoni was particularly hilarious as the put-upon friend who is roped in to help conceal his friend's affair from his wife, who he in turn is actually having an affair with.

Sound confusing, but really it was just complicated and easy to understand because it was performed so competently.

The Miller Centre players really are worth checking out if you're local and want a good value night out.

26 - Abigail's Party, CODA

I really enjoyed this production by CODA. The performances were very funny and the set, and in particular the costumes, were spot on.

The person I was with did admit to being slightly irritated by the similarity of this production to the film. However as I didn't remember anything about the film this wasn't a problem for me!

It was a shame the audience was a bit sparse in the massive venue. I think the production would have benefited from a smaller theatre which would have made it much easier to create the atmosphere for a single set character piece like this one.

25 - Much Ado About Nothing, Wyndhams Theatre

Having spent 6 hours on the booking line trying to get tickets to see David Tennant's Hamlet last year with no success, I was ridiculously excited to get seats to see him and Catherine Tate in Much Ado.

Judging by the audience reactions I wasn't the only one a little bit in love with David Tennant. From the minute he arrived on stage driving a golf buggy, his every word was met with cheers. I thought, that's going to get annoying. However the fans calmed down after a while and we were able to enjoy the play.

And we really did enjoy it. The production is set in gibratar in the 1980's and was full of great culture references from rubix cubes to massive speakers. They occasioanlly were a bit gimmicky but really created the atmosphere.

The best scene in the play came when the men and women split up to go out for a hen night, and stag do before the wedding. It's difficult to create the amosphere of a club on stage but this production really capturd it. The set rotated to reveal scenes from both nights out in turn, from women dancing around their handbags to the men getting lap dances from a stripper culminating in the scene where Don John's leitenant has sex with margaret up against the wall in an alleyway. This graphic representation of a scene which is traditionally left off stage made it easier to sympathise with Claudio, because Margaret was wearing Hero's veil it was very easy to see how he was deceived.

Catherine Tate was very well cast as Beatrice. At times she reverted to comedy faces we recognised from her TV impressions and she did look like a TV actor placed on stage. However her character was believeable, the way she rcited the verse was very accesible and funny and I felt like she held her own.

David Tennant though is a great stage actor. I was prepared to feel a bit sorry for the other actors, particularly those playing Hero and Claudio. But actually it wasn't that they were not famous, they actually didn't have as much stage presence as Tennant.

This was a great production for capturing atmosphere. As well as the night club, there was also the wedding scene, which opened with the chairs being set up and a child just running excitedly round the room. Simple touches like this projected the image of 'family wedding' and made you feel it instantly, a bit like watching a John Lewis advert.

The watchmen were hilarious and really cracked us up. The final great touch was the music: Shakesperian song lyrics set to 80's pop style tunes. Watching the actors dance to 'hey nonny nonny' with Adam Ant dance moves was a joy.