Late Of This Address by Ian Hornby

Northern Theatre Studio2
July 6-8 2001

Newlyweds Rick and Vicky Maddocks have bought a dilapidated house for a pittance. However, the house is still occupied by Jessica, a ghost who died in mysterious circumstances twenty years earlier. The trouble is only Rick can see her, much to the consternation of his bride. An attempted exorcism by the local weird woman only succeeds in conjuring up Jessica's equally ghostly husband, Ronnie. The trouble is only Vicky can see him. Wackiness ensues!

Cast
Rick Maddocks

Gerrard Yates
Vicky Maddocks

Helen Robinson
Jessica

Sonia May
Charlotte

Val Howell
Ronnie

Steve Clappison

Directed by Ailsa Oliver
Director's Commentary

'Late Of this Address' was a play I had read a while previously, and stored away as a 'possible, if we need something at short notice'. Well, guess what? After the rigours of 'The Scottish Play', we needed something undemanding with a small cast, so I dredged this one out. Even then I had to borrow a cast member from Hull Playgoers as many other Chameleons were in back-of-wrist-to-forehead mode!
Anyway, although the script was a tad predictable, it seemed to be this or nothing. The cast ranged from Chameleon stalwarts Helen and Val, through experienced semi-professional Gez (on loan from the Playgoers), and not-quite newcomers Steve and Sonia. I have to say they did their utmost to breathe life into it, but rehearsals were horrendous! I don't think there was a single member of that cast who didn't have something dramatic going on in their lives that prevented them a) from learning their lines and b) getting to rehearsals. We got there eventually, but I do remember that more prompts were taken during performances than we had ever had before, and that is just not the usual Chameleon standard.
I'm glad I had the experience, because there is something to learn from even the bad ones, but I wouldn't want to repeat it!! Ailsa
The seance Steve used trick photography to produce this publicity photo. You didn’t really think he was a ghost did you?
Cheap Publicity

Ray now had a regular column in the Hull Advertiser all about amateur theatre in Hull. In his preview he did claim "the show has lots of laughs and some nifty plot reverses" which was perhaps pushing it a bit!
Quote, Unquote

This script was great in the first read through but we'd gone off it by the end. I'd always wanted to play a ghost as well Steve
To be fair the cast and director only had six weeks to rehearse with a mediocre play - a neat idea if it had been forty five minutes shorter and had a few more characters to disguise the culprit. The script was so repetitious that there were a few hairy moments prompting. I think that's when I found my first white hair! Sharon
ENDLESS bickering. All good drama needs conflict, a good plot, decent characterisation and memorable dialogue. Well it had conflict David
(Sorry, couldn’t get a quote from anyone who actually LIKED it)
Vicky attempts to conjure up the spirits