Bull in a China Shop

Bull in a China Shop is a delightful farce by the American writer C B Gilford. It tells the story of a group of ageing ladies living together in a boarding house. They fall in love, through their binoculars, with a handsome homicide detective, who lives across the road, and plan to lure him over.....and so the murders begin!

The play was performed by the drama scholars' masterclass. The ladies were skilfully portrayed by Tracy Aryee-Quao, Angela Hermann, Katie Dale, Kaya Worrall and Jennifer Whelan, as their landlady. Some hilarious acting and facial expressions by these not-so-prim old ladies had the audience in fits. Jarod Hardcastle and Harvey Cole shared the part of Elizabeth, the first victim, with great aplomb....and a wig, as well as playing the paramedics with Joseph Robson. The handsome detective, Charlie Carr, and his assistant, Jordan Thomas, cleverly unfolded the murders before the knowing audience's very eyes, with much drinking of tea and the odd flying teacup, occasionally laced with arsenic! Gabrielle Martin showed real stage presence as the cool-as-a-cucumber newspaper reporter and Harvey Cole made the forensics expert into a veritable cameo part.

The pupils selected their own genuine 1950's costumes from the Aladdin's cave of our costume cupboard and were ably helped with premature wrinkles and grey hair by Mrs Worrall's make-up. Mrs Collins was there to prompt, but happily was not much needed and Mr Meier produced some excellent lighting effects, such as sunlight streaming through the imaginary window used to spy through with the binoculars. Mrs Heminway, who runs the masterclass, and Mrs Adams were the direction team.

As well as being a great success on the night, before an appreciative audience, the play was good fun to rehearse and perform, and gave these talented players an opportunity to try out this genre of comedy.

Jeanette Adams