Cast

David Burton

Val Howell

Gordon Berry

Sarah Gregg

Lisa Wilde

Judy Gilson

Directed by Yvonne Berry

Ah yes, Spring Street Studio Theatre; Hull Truck’s attempt to fulfil their contractual obligation for six weeks of amateur theatre a year by shunting us all into a space barely large enough to swing a cat or, indeed, a hamster; leaving the main stage free for the umpteenth revival of 'Bouncers'. They decided to promote this ‘event’ by staging a month long “Peace Play Festival” for amateur groups in the region.
The timing couldn’t have been better as we were struggling to find a) a play b) a venue, and c) some members. It would have been easy for the Chameleon Players to have called it a day but now we had something to galvanise us into action.
It was Yvonne who suggested we come up with an original piece so Dave Barber and I volunteered and formed a writing partnership to rival that of Galton & Simpson or, more likely, Cannon & Ball, and adopted the cunning nom de plume of Noel Lonsdale. While everybody else twiddled their thumbs we spent four weeks of hard graft creating 'Delayed Arrival', a pretty dire half an hour of cold war paranoia. The rest of the group were surprisingly positive and Sarah, in particular, was pleased that  such a good part had been written for her! Bless her. She might have been less pleased if she'd known that we'd based the part of Christine ON her, exaggerating some of her, how shall I put it, pricklier characteristics!
After we'd agreed on a final draft, Dave Barber unilaterally decided to rewrite it resulting in a chaotic rehearsal period as no-one knew which version of the script we were supposed to be using. I swore that if I ever wrote anything again, I'd do it by myself! David

"A whole host of local theatre groups have been busy at Spring Street this month doing their best to create lively theatre with a message of peace" said the Hull Daily Mail making much of the fact that most of the groups involved had generated their own material; "It is encouraging to see local groups stretching themselves into difficult subjects and styles and creating new work".
They were quite impressed with 'Delayed Arrival', saying "a slightly stilted delivery nevertheless allowed for some interesting interplay between the characters waiting at a railway station for a train that never arrives. The inaudibly muffled station announcements are a fine lightening touch as the tension rises among the passengers who turn out to be a mixed bunch of ‘peaceniks’ a bureaucrat and his wife and a young lad fed up that his Spanish 18-30 holiday has had to be cancelled in the face of mounting international tension". 

The most noticeable thing about 'Delayed Arrival' was Val’s acting debut after she was squeezed into the prompt’s corner for 'Spring And Port Wine'. Lisa made a whistle stop appearance. (But she'd be back!)
It was also the last we saw of Judy, which, as a hasty last minute rewrite had been done to accommodate the character of Alison, seemed a little ungrateful.

I know I'm my own worst critic but I'm not sure what the Mail's reviewer was on when they talked about "mounting international tension". Tension? There wasn't any tension. Just an awful lot of sitting around. Although that didn't stop a member of one of the other groups wanting to plumb the play's hidden depths with us after the show and we were forced to admit it didn’t have any.
I tell you, there's nothing quite so weird as hearing lines you've written being spoken on stage and hoping they don't go down like a lead balloon. Particularly when you're the one speaking them! Looking back, I doubt that any of my early performances were up to much but this one must have been especially distracted David

Performed by Modicum Theatre Company, this was the title was the other half of the evenings double bill. Mmmm nice!