1, 2, 3A closed competition for members of: Swan Playwrights, The Nonentities and The Nonentities Youth Group |
dramaturgy and direction by Alexander Delamere and Bella Merlin
MONOLOGUES! DUOLOGUES! THREE HANDERS! AN EVENING OF EXCEPTIONAL DIVERSITY WITH THEMES COVERING CHILDREN, OLD AGE and MEDICINE.
The performances followed by a talk back were at Worcester Arts Workshop (7th and 8th July, 2004), The Main House, The Rose Theatre, Kidderminster (9th and 10th July) and the Skills on Show exhibition at Worcester County Hall (10th and 11th July)
Della keeps in touch with her late husband by giving him an update on her progress while polishing his urn, but maybe he is no longer the centre of her life? (cast: Janette Summerfield)
War and Peace, a bed-ridden wife, Ella Fitzgerald on the radio, a new pair of hips, big-bosomed Annie: a dark mixture for the weekend. (cast: Sandra Tudor and Colin Young)
Three characters are affected by the closing of the Royal Mercia Hospital: surely just a matter of economics, a financial solution – or is it? (cast: Sarah Watts, Dan Roebuck and Peter Sutton)
Three teenagers joke about diets, nice legs, big bellies and turkey necks while reading the problem pages, but are they that different to the people who write the letters? (performed by the writers)
Roger, a child of the sixties, visits his young fogey grandson at university; both learn who they are and what they have in common. (cast: James Stevens and Peter Sutton)
Love, Lyme, the theatre, power, deception, independence: a naughty tale of wicked Victorian women! (cast: Georgia Clare, Keeley Harker and Janette Summerfield)
The casts were a mixture of friends of Swan Playwrights, Nonentities and the youth group at The Rose. Sound was by Matt Yarwood and lighting by Richard Williamson.
John Slim in The Birmingham Evening Mail, 9th July, 2004
Swan Playwrights, Worcester Arts Workshop
Six original short plays have subjects ranging from a widow's soliloquy with the ashes of her husband to three teenagers expressing their views about weight and dieting.
My Generation by David Keyworth, a splendid study of what amounts to a generation gap in reverse.
The Very Thought of You, by Nicholas Corder, and Closure, by Nigel Knowles, are two other thought-provoking pieces but the real impact comes with the final offering Nibbling Away, by Martin Drury.
This turns out to be a Victorian leasbian love triangle in which, for good measure, a mother and daughter are involved.
The show moves from Worcester to the Rose Theatre, Kidderminster, today and continues tomorrow.
John Slim in The Birmingham Post, 14th July, 2004
My first visit to Worcester Arts Workshop for the Swan Playwrights production on 1,2,3 yielded a feast of sharp writing and excellent performances.
The group exists to encourage new writers and on this evidence its efforts are paying dividends. Some of the writers were also involved on stage, but for the most part their scripts were in the assured hands of other performers. In both cases, full justice was done to the scripts.