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Cast |
| Max Harrington |
Ray Rumkee |
| Janet Harrington |
Helen Robinson |
| Suzy Stevens |
Mandy Green |
| Edgar Chambers |
David Burton |
| Mary Ticklewell |
Jenny Stewart |
| George Ticklewell |
Trevor Laws |
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Directed by David Burton & Val Howell |
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| Director's Commentary |
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Another
play from the prolific pen of Brian ‘Edge Of Darkness’
Clemens, written in partnership with another TV
professional Dennis Spooner, best know for his work on
such series as ‘The Avengers’, ‘The Baron’ and
‘Dr Who’. His contribution seems to have been to up
the humour quotient in a frantic story of murder, mayhem,
mistaken identity and mountain goats! At some points they
even appeared to be sending up their own plot. As there
were only three available men, I gave myself the smallest
part (even that wasn’t too small) and again asked Val to
give me a hand with the directing.
I can’t recall much about the rehearsals, so they must
have been problem free, although Trevor needed quite a bit
of confidence boosting in his first role.
However a moment of audience
participation on the first night sticks in my mind. Part
of the plot revolves around Suzy being murdered twice (by
different people!) and her dead body reappearing on stage at inconvenient
intervals. As I dragged Mandy back on for her third and
final reappearance one old gimmer in the audience shouted
out, "Ooh, she's back again". It’s hard
enough to carry a dead body by yourself but even harder
when it’s trembling with laughter. All good fun.
This was one of those occasions where cast, play, everything
clicked into place. I wouldn’t describe it as rare, but
doesn’t happen as regularly as perhaps it should David
David did all the hard
work and I did all the fine-tuning Val |
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Was I In That One? |
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Trevor
made his Chameleon debut as the put-upon George. |
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| Cheap Publicity |
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Ray did his publicity officer bit for the Mail
"A play which combines edge-of-your-seat murder mystery suspense with an unexpected comic twist. The
Chameleon Players try to do a wide range of different things. We have put on
some very challenging and serious productions in the last year, including
'Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead', so we thought it was about time we
tried something a bit lighter. We like to think of ourselves as a pretty
versatile group, capable of putting on a wide range of productions. I would
describe this new play as a comedy thriller - a bit of a soufflé - which packs
plenty of laughs" |
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| Wig City, Arizona |
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With
Suzy having to pretend to be Janet - and vice versa - we obtained several blonde
and brunette wigs for Helen and Mandy of varying degrees of credibility. We also
got larger than usual audiences for this one. Okay, so it had ‘Murder’
in the title but the photo of Mandy in her
swimsuit in the Hull Daily Mail probably
had more to do with it. |
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Quote, Unquote |
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Lots of fun apart from the swimsuit Mandy
Frightful
wigs, goats, David’s drunken writer and my accent Helen
Really funny comedy. Excellent comedic
timing from the whole cast Sharon
Another twisty-turny jobby in which I was yet another murderous swine who killed his
wife (Helen Robinson) causing her to drown in her own cornflakes, a manoeuvre
which had to be perfectly timed each night to avoid Ms Robinson REALLY
confronting her maker with sinuses crammed with brekkie cereal. The
play also demonstrated how nice Mandy looks in a bikini (even WITH the Chameleon
wig on) and what a truly awful selection of Hawaiian type shirts I have Ray
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