had exactly 2 weeks off before launching straight into our next
project! ‘
Only in the Dark’ is a return to the Whole Hog speciality, the one act play! Written over 2 years ago it is a tribute to the absurdist drama of Becket and Ionesco with a touch of Pinter thrown in!Not that we would deem to say it’s anywhere near that calibre (!) but the idea of producing something ambiguous which allows the audience to interpret multi meanings is always interesting (and downright frustrating for some audience members!) Telling a story is always great but it can be equally as fun to produce a piece of theatre that doesn’t offer answers or reveals anything just maybe asks more questions?
‘Only in the Dark!’ deals with two characters that, at thebeginning of the play, are in total darkness –literally and philosophically! As the play unfolds a third character with ‘light’ appears and the answer to their prayers seems to have arrived. However, the new found happiness and freedom doesn’t always bring contentment and sooner or later questions will be raised again…
Cast members Darren Little, Maxwell Sly and Dom Bray had instant onstage rapport and we spent half of the rehearsal corpsing! The play has broad comedy, black comedy and downright slapstick but there is a serious undertone to the play which is revealed. The actors leapt on the comedy straight away and produced some great moments. After one rehearsal we felt that we had something special already. Just three rehearsals left before our debut in
Abingdon on June 5th.
After the two festival performances in June there will be a summer break as we prepare for our next two projects.The first begins in September when we begin rehearsals for aHalloween performance. After the success of last year’s ‘Call of Cthulhu’ we return to the horror genre with a new stage adaption of the 1970’s cult classic movie ‘Asylum’. With four spooky stories to tell our tongues are going to be very firmly in our cheeks as we aim to make the audience laugh and scream in equal measure!
In the New Year, we will start rehearsal for another new play which will debut at the 2015 Madam Renards Festival in April before possible entry into the Manx Easter Festival of Plays. ‘Private Widdle’s Rep’looks at the early career of ‘Carry On’ star Charles Hawtrey as he begins work at the Swindon Repertory Theatre which was based at the Mechanics Institute. A local story which is a mixture of fact and fiction and explores life in 1950’s theatre and how society was changing all around.
A busy time ahead…