Dawn

Natalie Marcus-McBride

From Our Chairwoman  Welcome to our latest production and this years entry to the Townswomen’s Guild Drama Festival, the finals of which are being held in Welwyn Garden City in July. I must admit that there was an overwhelming response from our members when they heard that we were taking our first "stab" at the Bard and I would like to extend my thanks to our producer, David Plummer, who has worked so hard over the last nine months to see that our usual standards have been maintained. I would also like to welcome our special guest, Mr George Peach, who has travelled all the way from London to adjudicate tonight’s performance. I am certain that his professional insight will be much appreciated by all of us and will provide some "talking points" after the show. 
Now a note for your diary - on Monday next Felicity Cheshire will be holding her flower arranging classes and as a special bonus, her husband Giles will be giving an illustrated lecture on The Living Tradition Of Gypsy Folk Music, accompanying himself on the violin! On a more serious note, I must inform you that Sylvia Frobisher’s arc-welding classes have been cancelled indefinitely but I’m sure you will be pleased to hear that Sylvia’s condition has been described as satisfactory and she will be released from the Burns Unit shortly. It only remains for me to wish you an enjoyable evening.
PJ Reece (Mrs)

Director's Commentary  Another Farndale farce performed with diminishing returns, I felt. The only similarity between the play as I’d imagined it and the one actually performed was the title! It lurched aimlessly from one scene to another and never rose above the adequate. The play was full of too many short scenes and sudden blackouts to get a smooth flow going. (I know, I know, the words "workman", "tools" and "blame" spring to mind). But a few years later we saw another group do this one and they encountered the same problems and created a few more for themselves. Now ours was no Citizen Kane but theirs wasn't even Plan 9 From Outer Space! So although I still don't regard this one very highly, I don't feel as bad about it as I did David

Was I In That One?  Yes, another member of the cast bites the dust so we persuaded Natalie to take time off bringing up a family to help us out. We didn’t tell her about the song and dance routine until she’d agreed to do it! But she loved the swordfights and ended up destroying several swords and half the set. The Haltemprice Herald had also bitten the dust by this point so no more glowing reviews from that quarter. (Not that we'd have got one for this). Despite Helen saving the witches noses, they weren’t required for our 2001 production of the "Scottish Play"! Shame.