3.30 P.M. – FOR THE LOVE OF A CHARTIST– STUART BUTLER
The Newport Rising was the last armed insurrection on British soil – 5,000 marched on the town in an attempt to kick-start a revolution. The leader, John Frost, had already been selected as the prospective Chartist candidate for the next election in Stroud. But the links do not end there – Stroud citizen Charlotte-Alice Bingham became the lover and tutor of the charismatic George Shell who was shot outside the Westgate Hotel and took three agonizing hours to die.
Written by Stuart Butler and read and performed by Keith Butler, Suzie Walker and Stuart.
A beautiful commemorative booklet, designed by Deb Roberts will be on sale, too.
5.00 P.M. – THE BEAR – THE SMALL SPACES THEATRE COMPANY
Anton Chekhov’s play “The Bear,” also sometimes called “The Boor” or “The Brute”, is a comedy said to have been inspired by his friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Solovtsov’s boorish performance in a French Vaudeville production, not dissimilar to today’s television situation comedies.
Elena Ivanovna Popova, mourning for the death of her cheating lying husband, has sworn to never love another man, or see any man until her death, just to show her deceased husband the meaning of faithfulness and true love.
Well, that is before she meets Grigory Stepanovitch Smirnov. Still owed money by Popova’s deceased husband Smirnov wants repaying and repaying immediately. But can she do this? Should she do this?
They get into an argument about propriety, the capricious female nature and the fickle “female logic” of women. This escalates to Smirnov challenging her to a duel and, which to his surprise, she accepts.
Fast-paced with biting dialogue and exaggerated over the top emotions this hilarious comedy reflected on, and poked fun at, Russian mid nineteenth-century liberal discussions and women’s emancipation. Has much changed in the 1950’s? We shall see.
The Small Spaces Theatre Company was formed in the autumn of 2016 following the successful summer tour of the murder mystery play “The Drop of a Pin” by Carol Sheppard. The Company intends to bring quality theatrical productions to audiences in both towns and rural countryside.
6.30 P.M. – LET’S SUMMON DEMONS – KATY SCHUTTE
– Written and performed by Katy Schutte
(With help from Edmund Fargher and Jonathan Monkhouse.)
Is it wise to ask the questions you always wanted to ask? Let’s Summon Demons is a semi-immersive folk horror play in the round. It examines our attitudes to ritual, to revenge and to the uprising of female power. Can community lead to mob mentality? What are ghosts and demons and do they come from below or from within? If you stare into the abyss, can you come back? Join our coven for one night to encounter comedy, folk horror and – perhaps – some demons.
8.00 P.M. – THE ACCIDENTAL ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
– TOBACCO TEA THEATRE COMPANY
When Sherlock Holmes unknowingly murders his own client, the game is on to track down the criminal mastermind who did it – Holmes himself! Do Watson’s troubling financial straits and inability to pay his rent have anything to do with the accident? Has this case been secretly planned by a narrative genius? Could Moriarty’s hunger for detective fiction fuel a global terror plot of unimaginable proportions?
Satire maestros Tobacco Tea Theatre Company bring you this witty, absurd take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation. Expect extraordinary plot twists, metafiction, twisted logic and “almost unparalleled entertainment”! Sell-out show at Edinburgh and Brighton Fringes. ***** Theatre Bath. ‘Fine crime foolery.’ **** TheReviewsHub.com
