Tag: wharf theatre

Snow White Delight: Panto at The Wharf

Treated to a sneaky dress rehearsal of this year’s pantomime at Devizesโ€™ one and only Wharf Theatre last night, if forced to sum it up in a word, the word would be โ€œdelightfulโ€ฆ..โ€

With Ian dedicated to all things theatrical here on Devizine, panto is reserved for my tuppence; that has become as much a Christmas tradition as Brussel sprouts! Snow White is the choice to loosely base the crazy and fun shenanigans around this time, and while I usually attend just to announce what a treat you’ll miss out on unless you’ve a ticket, this time the Wharf has doubled the run to a fortnight, so it’s not sold out … .yet. The question remains, is it worth your while?

The answer is not hiding behind you. Oh, yes it is! Of course it’s worthwhile, silly!

The time, dedication and professionalism which goes into each and every pantomime at the Wharf is something the team behind them should be proud of. This year sees some unity with various local theatre groups, and their talents bless the show. โ€œThis year we see people coming from Stagecoach, Potterne Panto, Pewsey Vale Amateur Dramatics Society, Centre Stage Dance Academy, Devizes Musical Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, and Melksham Music and Drama,โ€ director and chairman of The Wharf Theatre, Pete Winterton informed, and with additional scriptwriting from Helen Pritchard, Pete wrote and directed this yearโ€™s panto.

Helen plays the face of the magic mirror, brutally honest yet cheeky with the Evil Queen, played with passion and skill by Georgina Watson, from PVADS and who undoubtedly performs the best solo. Yet a truly magnificent antagonist is never a thing without a trusty sidekick, and, no stranger to the Wharf and Stagecoach, twelve-year-old Gigi Underwood takes that role superbly. 

Georgina Claridge, perfect to play Snow White, choreographed the show, which, even at the dress rehearsal stage, looked polished. Archer Lee plays the prince, Rory Lee is his chaperone Dandy. Thereโ€™s a delightful team of seven young dancing villagers, Kira Drezanics, Maisie Lee, Bea Stacey, Myrah Williams, Madeleine Newman, Phoebe Newman, and Coco Fuller, ranging from nine years to thirteen years old and bubbling with talent. 

Of course thereโ€™s also seven, only slightly smaller people, a running copyright infringement gag, which mysteriously fades after time, and theyโ€™re returned to being called dwarfs without explanation, or hopefully, lawsuit, but does a panto need explaining?! If the show is loosely based on Snow White, the seven โ€œassociatesโ€ of Snow White are a unit of parodies, the most bizarre being Corrin Bishop, who plays a politician version, wittily just waving and shaking hands with the audience akin to a silent film star. Jessica Bone as Nurse seems the natural leader, but Jenni Prescott and Ben Byran add humour with roles called Misery and Snorey, respectively. Kelly Williams and Cameron Williams are either shy and throaty, but the icing on this cake is the youngest and smallest, Smiley, played by Stagecoach student Ella Cook, whose natural flair for dramatics charms.

Then, even more important than any plot, for there is a basic runoff narrative from Uncle Waltโ€™s adaptation of the Brothers Grimmโ€™s Sneewittchen, is the comical Dame and their sidekick. There can be no other team better chosen from these wild woods than Adam Sturges, who dons the drag so divinely, to play Dolly, and his partner Oli Beech to play their son James. Oli and Adam are stalwarts at the Wharf, playing apart they both shine but as a duo they are comical genius, naturally proficient at improv and breaking the fourth wall to take these essential roles, delivering them with hilarity, and binding the panto with joyful audience participation.

If panto at the Wharf follows its own methods which bucks traditions of pantomime, Snow White is no exception, and that is what makes it unexpectedly fun. Nitpicking, I thought it unorthodox to not end the first half with a song, though they right this wrong with such a fantastic musical finale it makes up for it. But, Iโ€™m left wondering if slapstick is a thing of the past. Because, cliche or perhaps not politically correct, there was a lack of visual humour in this show; is it too risque for modern kids to see a custard pie in the face?!

Though little ones will not tire of this, itโ€™s fantastic, yet summarised, and doesnโ€™t extend to unnecessary proportions. The humour rests majorly on gags, many of local direction; mocking neighbouring towns, etc. But there are the customary encouraged singalongs, games, and fun pop song adaptations for all ages to love. Thereโ€™s amusing treats, like the mysterious characters appearing from the woods, and the ingeniously adapted charactersโ€™ traits.

Pantomime is the golden opportunity to introduce young people to the theatre, and is the one occasion when those not regular theatre-goers will take a chance. Snow White is a delight, an enjoyable family treat; go see it and start Christmas. The children will be delighted; I was and Iโ€™m a 52 and three quarters-year old kid!     

Snow White opens on Tuesday 25th November and runs until Saturday 6th December. Curtains at 7:30pm, two matiness at 2:30pm on the Saturdays. Tickets HERE or at Devizes Books.

โ€œA Bunch of Amateursโ€ at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes, October 13th-18th 2025.

by Ian Diddams
images by Chris Watkins Media and Ian Diddams


Whilst probably best known for his editorship of โ€œPrivate Eyeโ€ magazine and thirty-five years as a team captain on the BBCโ€™s wonderfully satirical โ€œHave I Got News For Youโ€, Ian Hislop has also over time turned his focus to screen and playwriting. Amongst the five plays he has co-written probably the widest known is the one that has also been made into a film which starred Burt Reynolds, โ€œA Bunch of Amateursโ€. This week the Wharf Theatre, Devizes, performs the stage play albeit without Burt Reynolds!

The general plot of the play is a simple one โ€“ ageing, fading, Hollywood ex-A lister signs up to star in Shakespeareโ€™s โ€œKing Learโ€ at โ€œStratfordโ€ to find that in fact it isnโ€™t the Royal Shakespeare Company he will be performing at, but a village hall one hundred and seventy miles away at โ€œStratford in Pigshitโ€, where the local amateur dramatic society are trying one last dig at surviving by attracting a celebrity to perform with them to boost ticket sales.

The play’s style and plot follows in the grandest traditions of British comedies of creating a nonsensical scenario and running with it as if it was thoroughly possible, with the usual hilarious misunderstandings, fallings-out and fallings-in along the way before a glorious finale where everything pans out perfectly and everyone is happy ever after.

Directed by Lyn Taylor, there is a delicious irony โ€“ or indeed really homage โ€“ in a play about an amateur company being put on by an amateur companyโ€ฆ and here we can look at that label โ€œamateurโ€. As an adjective to the noun โ€œdramaticsโ€ the combined term often has a negative inference amongst many, but the reality is such consideration is to malign high standard productions and consummately skilled performances. To quote from a google search on the etymology of โ€œamateurโ€

โ€˜The word “amateur”ย comes from the French โ€œamateurโ€, which in turn comes from the Latin โ€œamฤtorโ€, meaning “lover”.ย It originally described a person who loves and practices an activity for the passion of it, rather than for money.โ€™

And there is the nub of it all โ€“ in this play, โ€œKing Learโ€ is being performed by a group of people that are doing so through love for the art form, and of course Lynโ€™s direction and perfect casting has brought together a group of amateurs performing this play for love of the art form. And talking of cast โ€ฆ

Gary Robson plays the allegedly professional Jefferson Steel, contracted to play King Lear himself, encapsulating the arrogance and insouciance of the Hollywood star in self denial to his waning star. He embraces the personality shift of his characterโ€™s journey from self centred egoist to life embracing acceptor bringing a palpable warmth to Steelโ€™s persona. Steelโ€™s daughter, Jessica, is delightfully and impishly played by Megan Hughes who herself moves her characterโ€™s unforgiving, surly teenager to loving offspring while taking the opportunities presented her with aplomb, as we can see mirrored in her deserved inclusion in the cast.

The inevitable ultimate love interest is superbly provided by Ange Davis as Dorothy Nettle, director of “King Lear”. Ange really drives the show along as the pivotal character for decisions and actions within the plot and she delivers this smoothly and thoroughly believably, with warmth and understanding when portraying Dorothyโ€™s insecurities allied to the protagonistโ€™s passion. Dorothyโ€™s total opposite within the company is Nigel Dewbury, excellently represented by Matt Bragg as the loathsome, self promoting and supercilious solicitor with pretensions. Its kudos to Matt that he has created a perfectly toe curling portrayal of Nigel, as well as sporting an extremely fine collection of bow ties during the show!

Two more depictions of lovers of their art, both full of over the top keenness and desire to become closely associated with Steele are from Steve Brookes as handyman and low key jobsworth Denis Dobbins, and Claire Abraham as local B&B owner Mary Plunkett. Steveโ€™s comic timing for Dennisโ€™ daft ideas is sublime, and his mobility scooter driving skills are thoroughly fine tuned to boot! Claire is simply brilliant with her initially gushing and fawning spinster acting, turning to surly and spurned grump!

But all productions need finances and so enter stage left Louisa Davison as the slightly slimy, cocksure marketing type Lauren Ball whose husbandโ€™s brewery is bankrolling Steelโ€™s visit, with appropriately named bottled beers including โ€œKing Beerโ€! Louisa encapsulates Laurenโ€™s executive-going-nowhere-slowly persona with ease and aplomb.

The whole show is kept smoothly on the rails by Stage Manager Jess Sneider who also arranged the genuine beer bottle labels mentioned above, with tech delivered perfectly as ever by โ€œThe Tech Teamโ€ on the simple but highly effective set built by John Winterton and his team and all wrapped up with music by Sam Warner.

โ€œA Bunch of Amateursโ€ is a simple to follow, laugh out loud, gentle and inoffensive comedy that will appeal to everybody โ€“ it’s easily worth the two hours plus interval of your life to sit back and enjoy the silliness in the lovely Wharf Theatre, Devizes.


โ€œA Bunch of Amateursโ€ runs from October 13th to 18th at 7.30pm each evening, and tickets are available from https://www.wharftheatre.co.uk/show/a-bunch-of-amateurs/

Still Alice at The Wharf Theatre Raises Dementia Awareness

Valedictorian graduate of Bates College in Maine, and with a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard, neuroscientist Lisa Genova self-published her debut novel, Still Alice in 2007. Acquired for publishing two years later, Still Alice made The New York Times Best Seller list, was adapted for the stage by Christine Mary Dunford of Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company, and spurred a 2014 movie by Memento Films, winning Julianne Moore an Academy Award. Under the direction of John Winterton, The Wharf Theatre brings this poignant play to Devizesโ€ฆโ€ฆ

It’s lovely to be back at Devizesโ€™ cosy and communal theatre. Ian assigned himself our theatre critic and while his brilliant inside knowledge is gratefully appreciated, I figured I fancy this one, as I have a personal angle on the plot. Alzheimerโ€™s Society suggests โ€œevery 3 minutes someone in the UK develops dementia,โ€ therefore I imagine many others will find relevance in it too, and if not, might one day.

We found it amusing at the beginning, my Nan in Dad’s car still wearing her slippers for a party, and other trivial mishaps. But the last time I saw her I was saddened to note she didn’t remember me, as she spoke to me of her โ€œhusband,โ€ rather than address him as โ€œgrandad.โ€ My children were young and understandably apprehensive about going into the care home. But when they plucked up courage my boy stood before her and she was delighted to be face-to-face with who she assumed was me. Here was the relieving point; I realised she hadn’t forgotten me, she just didn’t recognise me because thirty-plus years was missing from her memory; thank you genetics!

The journey between these two points in time was arduous for her and our family. For her it went from confusion to frustration and onto an immune state of obviousness. Lisa Genova wrote Still Alice in first person narrative from the point of view of Alice, a university professor at the height of her career who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimerโ€™s disease; it mirrors what we went through, and sheds a fascinating light onto what my Nan must’ve gone through too.

The play honours the narrative perspective by an ingenious method of a personification of Alice’s psyche. With a dual-Alice on stage, the real Alice, played sublimely by Linda Swann, says what she believes she should say, while her conscious shadowing her, equally delivered with skill by a younger version of Alice, Sophie Kerr, offers the audience an insight into what she is thinking. Just as I suggested, with the lost time of my Nanโ€™s mind, Alice perceives herself as being younger, so this age gap works as her sense of reason, until reason runs short in her mind and her consciousness is reduced to the childlike drawing of pictures.

There are many elements to the happenings in the play which anyone who has experienced a loved one going through Alzheimerโ€™s or dementia will recognise, and tears might trickle. There’s periods of thought-provoking awkward silence, intense confrontation at others, when the confusion turns to frustration. There’s poignant reality and touching scenes as the family come to terms with Alice’s deteriorating mind. There’s thought processes from Alice exposed, causing you to identify with her greater than that of her family; a window into the mindset of anyone suffering with this terrible condition.

Overall, akin to a film like Schindler’s List, this is a play you might not want to face, oh, but you must, and you should. 

Still Alice is evoking brilliance, you will leave impelled to discuss the subject further. It raises awareness of this horrifying condition and doesnโ€™t meander from this for any purposes of entertainment. On the impaired particularly, the sentiment is pragmatic, but also in her relationship with her family and their emotions, all poignantly represented and acted with believable precision by John Myles, as the calm under pressure husband, Adam Sturges as the solicitude son, and Kezia Richards as the estranged daughter.

Still Alice raises awareness about Alzheimerโ€™s or dementia in a similar way as Barry Levinsonโ€™s Rain Man raised awareness of autism, but only if we could have seen into the mind of Raymond would it be any more comparable. Thatโ€™s the beauty of theatre, this is a play with the power to change you.ย 

Still Alice runs at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes from September 1st until September 6th 2025, Tickets HERE or at Devizes Books.

World Alzheimerโ€™s Day is Sunday 21st September. You can find more information about local dementia groups at Alzheimerโ€™s Support, and sign up for their Walk to Remember at Wilton House, HERE.

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Ha! Let’s Laugh at Hunt Supporters!

Christmas has come early for foxes and normal humans with any slither of compassion remaining, as the government announced the righteous move to ban trailโ€ฆ

Rooks; New Single From M3G

Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward โ€œEโ€) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy tunesโ€ฆ

Burning the Midday Oil at The Muck

Highest season of goodwill praises must go to Chrissy Chapman today, who raised over ยฃ500 (at the last count) for His Grace Childrenโ€™s Centre inโ€ฆ

Devizes Rising Star Jess Self in Final for West End Kids

If youโ€™ve seen Jess Self performing at the Wharf Theatre, singing at the FullTone Festival or elsewhere Iโ€™m certain youโ€™ll agree with us; Jess has that star quality which lights up the stageโ€ฆ..

At 13 Jess won Vernon Kayโ€™s Talent Nation, studied performing arts at Trowbridgeโ€™s Stagecoach and has appeared in many productions including Devizes Music Academy’s Six:Teen, The Railway Children and lead roles in more pantomimes at The Wharf Theatre than I could name!

Weโ€™re delighted to hear Jess has made the final seven hopefuls for West End Kids, the UKโ€™s renowned pre-professional company for musical theatre training and elite performance. From hundreds of entries, the final seven young contestants are decided by public vote, to win a scholarship for their training programme.

Jess said, โ€œthe first show I ever went to watch was Matilda when I was 9, after the show I said I want to do thisโ€™ and I haven’t stopped singing since. This would be a dream come true for me!โ€

Now, this is where you come in, interactive which we are! Please help Jess reach the dream, vote for her and support local talent. Vote HERE by entering your name, and confirming by email. Voting ends this Sunday, 3rd August, so donโ€™t delay.

We wish you the very best of luck, Jess! 

WEK: Star National Singing Competition – Final 7

โ€œThe Last Actโ€, Devizes Arts Festival at The Wharf Theatre, June 4th and 5th 2025

by Ian Diddams
images by Ian Diddams and from Devizes Arts Festival

The pea souper smog swirls in the dark. A small light illuminates a bare room โ€“ hatstand bare but for a bowler hat, chair, side table with various bric-a-brac. A rug. Music plays in the distance. London, 1916. And The Wharf Theatre stage, 2025โ€ฆย  the lights drop to darknessโ€ฆย  and the show begins.

Such is the picture provided at the outset of โ€œThe Last Actโ€ by David Stuart Davies, on the first of two nightsโ€™ shows brought to us by Devizes Arts Festival, performed at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes by Fringe Management. A ninety-minute single hander performance by Nigel Miles-Thomas, directed by Gareth Armstrong, providing a potted history of the lives of Sherlock Holes, โ€œConsulting Detectiveโ€, and Dr. John H. Watson โ€“ formerly of the parish of Marylebone.

Nigel plays Holmes, of course, and also Watsonโ€ฆย  but into that also covers Inspector Lestrade, Stamford, Mrs. Hudson, Inspector Hopkins andโ€ฆย  arch enemy Professor James Moriarty.ย  This potted history, or timeline of Holmes and Watsonโ€™s friendship begins at the occasion of Watsonโ€™s funeral, followed by Holmesโ€™ recollections of their partnership marked by key stories in the Sherlock Holmes case history; โ€œThe Adventure of Abbey Grangeโ€, โ€œThe Speckled Bandโ€, โ€œThe Final Problemโ€, โ€œThe Hound of the Baskervillesโ€ and โ€œHis Last Bowโ€. Nigelโ€™s delivery skips nary a beat as his voice changes and facial expressions per character float in and out seamlessly from Holmesโ€™ character as the carefully woven tale even foreshadows itself. We gain an insight into Sherlockโ€™s childhood and brotherly relationship, of his mother and father mirroring the Abbey Grange lead characters, and his fatherโ€™s death mirroring in portrayal that of Moriartyโ€™s. A description of the wind โ€“ โ€œ…ย  cried and sobbed like a child in the chimneyโ€ is used both in Holmesโ€™ praise of Watsonโ€™s descriptive writing and that of his family home.

It is a story ultimately of loneliness and love โ€“ Holmesโ€™ solitary lifestyle – but also his attachment to his brother, but especially Watson. And a story written with affection for Conan Doylesโ€™ character, delivered with care by Nigel Miles-Thomas, packaged with fondness by director Gareth Armstrong. Truly a “Last Act” with love for the subject.

The Thursday 5th June performance of โ€œThe Last Actโ€ is already sold out, but Devizes Arts Festival continues until Sunday 15th June with a wide range of differing genres and arts to enjoy, with tickets just still available. To see what is available and tickets, browse https://www.devizesartsfestival.org.uk/events/

Hansel & Gretel: Panto at the Wharf!

Images: Chris Watkins Media

It was lovely to spend Sunday afternoon at Devizesโ€™ Wharf Theatre, to see how this yearโ€™s pantomime Hansel & Gretel, is coming along. If my preview is behind me now, or if โ€œoh, no, it isnโ€™t,โ€ Iโ€™m happy to confirm ticket holders are in for a real treat, and those without a ticket I urge you to be as quick as a quick thing being quickโ€ฆ..

Tickets for panto at the Wharf sell out fast every year, rightfully. I believe thereโ€™s only a handful left. It may beg the question why Iโ€™m here to preview it at all, but with our Ian hot on the scene of anything theatrical these days, Iโ€™ve missed being at our communal little theatre. While I may not be so knowledgeable on Shakespeare’s plays, I know what I like, and Iโ€™m smitten for a great panto.

First time panto co-director Karen Ellis, who works with Jessica Bone, told me thereโ€™s a slightly different approach this year. I couldnโ€™t tell, Jack & The Beanstalk was wonderful last year, Hansel & Gretel is going to be as amazing as a gingerbread house decorated with sweeties!

A few sweets need tweaking, Iโ€™m at an early rehearsal, neighbouring seats are occupied with ladders and paint pots. Opening night is Friday 29th November, and with extra dates added the show runs until Saturday 7th December, with matinees on the Saturdays. With professionalism abound from whatโ€™s essentially an amateur production, from my sneaky peek alone, Iโ€™ve no doubt, this show is going to absolutely sparkle and thrill young and old equally.ย 

It was interesting, though, to see the inner workings of a panto developing, the many elements needing synchronisation I wouldnโ€™t have contemplated before now, and the attention to detail to something which might seem somewhat improvised to an outsider. It might be a couple of hours of quality family entertainment to you, but from script, expertly crafted by The Wharf Writersโ€™ Group, to this stage where only a few Iโ€™s need dotting and Tโ€™s crossing, has taken a year of hard work from a thoroughly dedicated group of very talented people.

And the hard work explodes like a supernova. As any panto should, the narrative is slight and loosely based on the Brothers Grimm fairy-tale. The show concentrates on slapstick, corny gags, drag, parodies of pop songs, slight tragedy, and a huge dollop of funny banter and audience participation, with a sprinkling of storyline. Brush up on your children’s TV show themes, anything more might be deemed a spoiler, but I can assure you, youโ€™re going to love it; all these elements are in grand abundance, and it thoroughly entertained me.

Starter for ten, neither Hansel, parts shared by two great young actors, Rory Lee and Tamsin Antignani, nor Gretel, similarly played by Emily Edwards and Gigi Underwood, are the protagonists here, rather the main parts depict an investigating police officer, Buttons, and his love interest, comically named Carrie Okie. The latter is played superbly by Georgina Claridge, also responsible for choreography, and the former, Officer Buttons is sublimely brought to life by Darcey Oswin; both masterful and confidently versatile in acting and singing, they work together like the perfect double-act.

Adam Sturgesโ€™ thespianism flare, with a natural ability for improv makes for the quintessential dame; he remained in character and high heels when I chatted to him outside! Is this the first pantomime dame to have a son, I wondered? Shaken, but not stirred and played by Lucas Dowling.

Likewise, Helen Pritchard makes for an excellent witch, and there’s supposed to be a compliment in there! Lesley Scholes is hilarious as a discluded fairy godmother, and the randomly placed comical duo is supplied brilliantly by Oli Beech and Liz Sharman.

Other singing and dancing characters are cast aptly, with Archer Leigh, Jo Benyon-Tucker, Cathy Chappell, Corrin Bishop, Poppy Lamb-Hughes, Emily Webb and Ben Bryan. It wouldnโ€™t be Christmas without a panto, and even a Grinch like me, after watching just a rehearsal for this early in November, could sense sleigh bells jingling and ring-tingle tingling all the way home!

I cannot guarantee your Brussel sprouts will be perfectly timed to coincide with the turkey, but I can assure you without doubt, Hansel & Gretel at The Wharf Theatre will warm your hearts and send you home smiling from elf ear to elf ear!

But hurry and be lucky to pick up the few remaining tickets HERE.

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โ€œPericlesโ€ at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes, October 21stโ€“26th 2024.

by Ian Diddams
images by Chris Watkins Media, Jeni Meade.

It would be fair to say that once William Shakespeare found or invented a plot device, he wasnโ€™t one to avoid using it again. And again. And โ€“ wellโ€ฆ  again, and again. Letโ€™s play โ€œShakespeare Bingoโ€ and โ€œGuess the Playโ€โ€ฆ

Thereโ€™s a STORM AT SEA, a SHIPWRECK, a HUSBAND is SEPARATED from his WIFE, FAMILIES are SEPARATED, each thinks the other is LOST or DEAD, somebody is thought to be DEAD but is actually ALIVE, a RULER abuses his position of POWER, there is a MAGICIAN controlling SOMEBODY, BROTHEL OWNERS, PIRATES, and in the end EVERTHING is resolved and family REUNITED.

Hmmmm.  Well, itโ€™s a tricky one.  The Tempest? Twelfth Night? Comedy of Errors? Romeo and Juliet? Merchant of Venice? Othello? Winterโ€™s Tale? Much Ado? Allโ€™s Well? Henry IV Pt 1? Measure for Measure? Cymberline? Two Gents? Hamlet?

All of these plays have at least one and often more of the attributes listed โ€“ Will liked to avoid working on new plotlines for sure. However, at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes, handily enough as it turns out, placed beside boats on the water to add even more background to a tale of watery confusions, is yet another Shakespeare play reliant on all of those points.

Pericles.

No, it’s not some sort of small whelk, or a garden perennial. Itโ€™s the story of an eponymous hero who escapes from a dodgy tyrant by running away to sea andโ€ฆ  well, you can piece the rest together from that second paragraph and Wikipedia.  Needless to say, allโ€™s well that ends well. So to speak.

Now Pericles is not a popularly performed play. Indeed, according to a 2024 ranking of most performed Shakespearian plays it comes in 22nd of 49 positions since 2012. So itโ€™s a real treat to be able to see it at a local theatre which may understandably have otherwise put on one of the โ€œBig Sixโ€ [*], and running at the same time as the same play at the RSC to boot. The Wharf is no stranger either to putting on lesser known Shakespeare of course, having shown โ€œMeasure for Measureโ€ in 2023. One reason for this wonderful opportunity to see this play is that the director, Nic Proud, is working his way through directing the entire canon โ€“ and this is his twenty-fifth play of that list, and another is the bold and open approach of the Wharfโ€™s artistic director John Winterton.


The play rattles along โ€“ Nic has trimmed the script to the key plot points, although as he says the play is really a series of connected moments and he has created a smooth storyline using those moments. The usual top technical team (Three Ts!) deliver effects and lighting with aplomb of course, leaving the stage ready and waiting for the actors to take us on Pericles’ voyage not only of the high seas, but of his fate and inner turmoil. The set is simply adorned with white and purple drapes, which cunningly transform into a jousting tilt barrier, and ethereal wings of the goddess Diana. A roped balcony provides some height to the set.

Our titular character is well delivered by Chris Smith, one of the four cast who have only one part to concern themselves with (has two shipwrecks!), the others being Danielle Cosh as the ethereal Thaisa (dies at sea, comes back to life!) , Louise Peak as the perspicacious Helicanus, and Nic Proud as Thaliard, stepping into the role at a late stage when an unfortunate injury to Steve Brooks saw him unable to continue โ€“ we wish Steve a speedy recovery and hope he can return to the Wharf in the future.


The other six cast members play between them a bewildering array of twenty-one other characters! That list would run to volumes but huge kudos to Abigail Baker playing Marina, Pericles daughter (lost at sea โ€“ now THEREโ€™s a thingโ€ฆ), Andy Bendell as the seedy bawd (!) Pander, Tony Luscombe as the dastardly Cleon (and a sailor in a  storm!), Sian Stables as even more dastardly Dionyza (and a sailor in a storm!) , Pete Wallis as the vengeful Antiochus (and a pirate!), and Debby Wilkinson as a brilliant mix of servant, bawd (!), sailor (in a storm!) and fisherman!


Nicโ€™s scissors have created a play about the length of a football match, and which is wonderfully easy to follow โ€“ every cast member deliver the lines of Elizabethan English so well that its totally understandable and comprehensible. The costumes are totally sublime so once again chapeau (see what I did there?) to Gill Barnes and her team.

All that remains to say is take this chance to see a play most theatres and companies steer clear of. And if nothing else if you will save your self a drive to Stratford and back to see it.


Pericles is performed at the Wharf Theatre from October 21st-26thth 2024.
Tickets from https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/pericles/e-plavyr

[*] Big Six
1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
2. Hamlet
    Romeo and Juliet
4. Macbeth
5. Twelfth Night
6. Much Ado About Nothing

โ€œTalking Headsโ€ at the Wharf Theatre September 2ndโ€“7th 2024

by Ian Diddams
Images by Chris Watkins Media

Alan Bennet wrote his series of monologues in 1988 and 1998, with two more in 2019, centring on, though not confined to, stories of โ€œNorthernโ€ women, based allegedly on characters he had known in his life, particularly his formative years. The Wharf Theatre has kicked off its autumn program with three of Bennetโ€™s one woman shows performed by two new faces to the wharf, and Tina Duffin who has graced the boards there for a few years at least now.


โ€œA Lady of Lettersโ€ with Joanna Daniel as Irene starts the evening. Itโ€™s a mesmeric tale of a nosey neighbour spinster, who fills her time writing letters complaining about smoking pall bearers, neglectful parents, prostitutes and paedophiles.ย  We all know somebody like Irene. The vicar, the chemist and the police are the recipients of her missives โ€“ but her ill informed NIMBYISM comes home to roost as the truths behind her complaints are learned and she ends up in jail for harassment. Itโ€™s here however that she finds herself truly free and with a social life for the first time in her lifeโ€ฆ


โ€œA Cream Cracker under the Setteeโ€ with Liz Holliss as Doris concludes the first half. Doris is an aging and increasingly frail widow, struggling to maintain her independence while being hen pecked by an โ€“ allegedly โ€“ sloven home help care assistant. Trying to stave off being moved to โ€œStafford Houseโ€ a care home, it becomes increasingly apparent that Doris isnโ€™t actually capable of keeping herself safe and is too proud to admit it. As in โ€œlettersโ€ as the play progresses, we learn more and more about Doris and her life until now, each new revelation moving our understanding slightly from what we had so far understood. There is a โ€œBANGโ€ moment towards the end that stops the viewer in their tracks โ€“ a hitherto un-hinted at sea change in Dorisโ€™ life, if not her husbandโ€™s. This is the saddest tale of the three as we see Dorisโ€™ decline in just thirty minutes and her inevitable future.


After the interval, โ€œBed amongst the Lentilsโ€ with Tina Duffin as Susan is the lightest offering of the evening, although in true Bennett style this isnโ€™t all roses and jollity. The poignancy and inner sadness of the first two monologues is still here โ€“ its rather that the ending has no changes in Susanโ€™s life except โ€“ possibly โ€“ beneficial ones as she looks to overcome her alcoholism which becomes more evident through the story. Susan is a vicarโ€™s wife, and stalwart of the village fete โ€“ though she finds her role as Mrs. Vicar challenging not least as we learn she has no particular skills and is an agnostic surrounded by devout church goers and an ordained husband; thereโ€™s some home spun philosophy in here which I have often thought myself. Susan is clearly if not disenchanted with her life, at least bored with itโ€ฆย  her alcoholism spawns infidelity, though itโ€™s this last act that ultimately leads to her salvation from the demon drink โ€ฆย  before the object of her carnal releases gently leaves her โ€ฆย  and she is left wistful but not sadโ€ฆ

If there is one over-arching theme of these plays its one of entrapment โ€“ women stuck in their surroundings โ€“ be it a home as a prison with the irony that a prison becomes a home, a home that is now an increasingly dirty house, or a boring marriage and estranged lifestyle. With all three finding release in some not so obvious ways.


All three monologues are set in similar roomsโ€ฆย  somewhere between 1950 and 1970 in dรฉcor though as we possibly notice ourselves with older relatives โ€“ or even ourselves! โ€“ that may still be the same thirty years later of course. The Wharfโ€™s own tech crew as ever created the sets โ€“ itโ€™s been many a year since Iโ€™ve seen so many antimacassars. Gill Barnes and her wardrobe team as ever hit the spot with clothing befitting women of a certain age and the actors portray that well.


The actorsโ€ฆย  perfect for the roles in every way. They each capture their characters so well. Susan is every part the vicarโ€™s wife disjointed from her immediate life, Doris the desperate widow gas lighting herself over her independence, Irene the curtain twitching poison pen shit stirrer. Every part as excellent as Maggie Smith, Thora Hird and Patricia Routledge respectively from the original BBC series in the last century.


Abigail Newton, self-released from her national CAMRA activities, returns to direct this perfect show. She has captured the poignancy, light humour and hidden tears and fears of Bennetโ€™s slightly tortured souls in these three monologues. In the week that Oasis gig tickets were released donโ€™t miss out on seeing this particular show โ€ฆย  lest you look back in anger.

โ€œTalking Headsโ€ by Alan Bennet plays at Wharf Theatre, Devizes, from September 2nd to 7thย at 1930 every night.

Tickets are available from the Wharf website at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/talking-heads/e-dezdpm

Pantomime Audition at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes

Auditions for this year’s pantomime at The Wharf Theatre in Devizes are on Sunday 8th September at 2.30pm, at the theatre; could you make a great Hansel, Gretel, or maybe, dare I say it, a wicked witch?!

Yes, this year’s panto is all gingerbread houses in dark forests, and Officer Button and Mrs Brooke Bond hoping to find Hansel and Gretel. They’ve many varied roles available and are particularly looking for a young man who can sing and dance a little, approx 16-30 yrs, for the lead male role.

There’s no need to be a member of the theatre at this stage, just turn up on the day.

This fun adaptation of the Brothers Grimm classic Hansel & Gretel will run from November 29th till December 7th, 2024, by The Wharf Writersโ€™ Group and directed by Karen Ellis & Jessica Bone. Tickets available at their box office and Devizes Books.

Pantomime at the Wharf is always a magical experience, and usually a sellout show. I loved Jack & The Beanstalk last year, but that’s behind us nowโ€ฆoh no, it isn’t!!

The Next Season at the Wharf Theatre

Featured image byย Chris Watkins

Autumn, finish your ice lolly, as we need to to start thinking about it! Our wonderful, one and only, theatre in Devizes is currently โ€œdark,โ€ for maintenance, installation of new equipment and stage enhancement. But thereโ€™s a new season coming soon, and tickets for a variety of performances beyond panto and into 2025 are up for grabsโ€ฆ

The theatrical term โ€œgone darkโ€ indicates the venue is closed to the public. No lights mean no show. Historically, when theatres go dark one is left lit light at the centre of the stage. Itโ€™s known as the โ€œGhost Light,โ€ believed to guide spirits and ghosts around the building.

Wharf Theatre

While it may be a fire safety hazard too far for us today, candles were used in times gone by, and this may explain why many theatre’s often burned down in the Shakespearean era. Iโ€™m not a fountain of knowledge, I pinched it from the Wharf Theatreโ€™s Facebook post! But we canโ€™t have ghosts snapping up all the tickets for themselves, so hereโ€™s the lowdown on performances theyโ€™ve got lined up for us from August.

Sat 10th August: sees Rabbit Rabbit, a tribute to those cockney sparrows, Chas & Dave. Performed by the renowned trio, Triple Cream with their fantastic musicianship & witty banter, this show will have you smiling from ear to ear!

Mon 2nd – Sat 7th September: Abigail Newton directs British playwright Alan Bennettโ€™s Talking Heads. Three dramatic monologues taken from the BBC TV series from 1988.

Thur 12th September: Devizes Film Club screens joyful British comedy Scrapper.

Fri 20th September: Relive Hancock’s Half Hour with award-winning theatre company, Hambledon Productionsโ€™ recreations of three, โ€˜lostโ€™ episodes from the original television series. Missing from the BBC archives, this UK Tour will mark the very first time these hilarious scripts have been brought to life since their original broadcast.

Sat 28th September: Jazz Britannia. Britain’s best New Orleans jazz combo Baby Jools & The Jazzaholics take you on a musical journey through the birth of British Jazz.ย 

Mon 21st – Sat 26th October: Nic Proud adapts and directs Shakespeareโ€™s Pericles, Prince of Tyre. A man on an endless voyage of peril, with romance and killing.

Sat 2nd Nov: Murder: Just What The Dr Ordered. From Isosceles Theatre Company who brought us a sold-out performance of The Man Who Left The Titanic last year. Set in Edinburgh, between 1827 and 1828, science and murder cling together in a dance of death.

7th Nov: Devizes Film Club screens Aki Kaurismรคkiโ€™s Fallen Leaves, a Finnish film about a romance between a supermarket girl and a metalworker against a backdrop of economic disparity and war in Ukraine. Winner of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize.

Thu 28th Nov – Sat 7th Dec: Panto Time! This year the Wharf Theatre presents Hansel & Gretel. Karen Ellis & Jessica Bone take direction roles for the gingerbread house traditional pantomime. Alway popular, book this asap.

Mon 27th Jan – Sat 1st Feb: Veronica’s Room. John Winterton directs the first Wharf production of 2025, a chilling mystery thriller by the author of Rosemaryโ€™s Baby, exploring the thin line between fantasy and reality, madness and murder.

Tickets now on General Release HERE. Please note that Devizes Library is closed until 24 July which includes the Community Hub Box Office. Support our lovely local theatre.

“Whereโ€™s The Cat? Live!” at the Wharf Theatre June 27th 2024

by Mick Brian
Photos by the “Where’s the Cat?” team

Within the walls of Devizes very own Wharf Theatre meets an eclectic group of script writers. And having written scripts and read them to each other, they wondered what to do next. So they recorded themselves performing these short radio-style plays and unleashed them on an unsuspecting world in the form of a podcast series. Having achieved this milestone the group pondered what to do next, and a live show seemed the next obvious step.ย 

“Whereโ€™s The Cat? Live!” is a melange of short plays, written and performed as rehearsed readings by the group, with the assistance of a couple of Wharf actors and a very sound man on sound. The plays cover the main facets of life; comedy and tragedy, often both at the same time. Thereโ€™s a trilogy of plays about a trio of friends who find themselves in unusual and inconvenient situations. Thereโ€™s a play about spies, another about therapy, another in a dystopian future where the human race is reduced to two people and some pot snacks. We go to Heaven in one play, a driving test centre in another, and a funeral in another.ย  We meet an AI doctor, a fairy tale protagonist, a magician, and a mother and son having a row. Essentially all human life is here, just not necessarily as we know it.


The writers themselves have varying degrees of performance experience. Some are familiar faces upon the Wharfโ€™s boards and their stagecraft shows, whilst others seemed less at ease within the performance space. Whilst it is not necessarily a natural thing for writers to be performers also, the rehearsal process has coaxed the hidden actor out of them and it has been a privilege to watch them develop. The direction has been lead by Ali Warren, and a superb job she has done of it too, bringing these short pieces to life, and the group should be applauded for baring their souls and sharing their art with the public, which is no easy thing to do. The mixture of styles and substance is quite refreshing as one can pretty much guarantee there will be something that will stick with you from the evening.



“Where’s the Cat? Live!” plays for one night only and youโ€™ll kick yourself if you miss it.

Tickets available from https://www.wharftheatre.co.uk/show/wheres-the-cat-wharf-writers-group/

Discovering Antarctica: Heroic tales of Shackleton, Crean and Scott; at the Wharf Theatre for Devizes Arts Festival

John Winterton

For the first time in a great number of years the Wharf Theatre was host to a show in this yearโ€™s Devizes Arts Festival. Unlike a number of other shows in this yearโ€™s programme, this one was sold out, and quite early on, so did the good people of Devizes have prior knowledge of this show?

Aidan Dooleyโ€™s one-man show about discovering Antarctica from the perspective of Tom Crean are stories of adventures with both Scott and Shackleton, which if my basic recollection of history is anywhere near accurate, would be both a unique and fascinating tale.

On entering the theatre the sounds of the arctic winds were the only noise, and although initially sounding like sea, maybe both, along with the stage littered with all manner of items and clothing you may have needed for an expedition lit with a nighttime rich blue highlighted with a small warm glow, it set the scene for the upcoming tales. 

Aidan came onto the stage and with a rich Irish accent introduced us to Tom, and the apparel that any good arctic explorer would have with him at the turn of the last century. With a witty, chatty delivery you very quickly felt like Tom was talking as if either to an assembly of wide-eyed children or to a group of acquaintances in a local bar, sometimes more like one, then moving to the other.

You did, however, feel he was talking to you, telling you his story, letting you into his world of cold and wind. A world where crying with your head down is given away by the steam from your tears, a world where working with too many layers on would make you sweat only for it to freeze should you then stop working and cool down any. For those that went with him we were treated to stories about being left out of the five who would attempt to reach the South Pole because of a cough, a cough that was to prove fortuitous as those who did not go on were sent back along the supply route to the base camp, even if they did go slightly in the wrong way back resulting in a very well described ride on a sled down a hill, quite a steep hill at that. 

Aidan totally embodies Tom, so much so that you forget that they are not his stories that he is telling you. Stories that carried you through the hour and a half as if it was only a matter of minutes. I genuinely was lost in the story telling and would not have been surprised if on leaving the theatre we were feet deep in snow and surrounded by penguins.

An evening well spent and testament to the hard work obviously put into the research put into the script and the characterisation of Tom, by Aidan. 

A great find by the Devizes Arts Festival and well worthy of the full house.ย 

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โ€œThe Thrill of Loveโ€ at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes, May 13th-18th 2024

By Ian Diddams
Images by Chris Watkins

Ruth Ellis was hanged aged 28 years old, by Albert Pierrepoint the official executioner in the UK, at Holloway prison on July 13th 1955. Her trial had taken a little over just one day โ€“ the jury took only twenty-three minutes to find her guilty. She made no defence of her own actions though there is much to indicate she was at least coerced into shooting David Blakely and was likely acting under duress and was certainly easily influenced. Court investigations found her not to be insane โ€“ again there are indications that this was not as clear cut a scenario.

Her story is portrayed in โ€œThe Thrill of Loveโ€, by Amanda Whittington, showing soon at The Wharf Theatre.



This is not an easy play to watch.ย  Its subject matter is of course an indication of that, but itโ€™s the underlying stories that the plot reveals and hints at that are the disturbing aspects.ย  The sexual, physical and psychological abuse by multiple men throughout her life, from her childhood right up until her execution. Her low self-esteem, desperation for attention, acceptance, and love. Clearly self-delusional, gas lighting herself, a neurotic personality,Ruth Ellis was doomed from a young age and the play brings all of these into a stark expose of life in Britain at the time. As her character opines she was โ€œnever part of societyโ€.



Debby Wilkinson, Director of this quite superb piece of theatre, explained that it
has been a challenge to bring together, not just because of the subject matter
itself, but that as a historical record in many ways it is vital to reflect the
truth. Debby and the cast spent the first three weeks of rehearsal immersing
themselves into their characters, motivations and the social mores surrounding
that time, before starting to build the show. Their intensive preparation has clearly worked to perfection. All the characters are wholly believable, whether they be the real life characters of Ruth Ellis and Vickie Martin, or the fictional ones designed to reflect aspects of the work relationships and public thought.

Freddie Underwood plays Ruth Ellis. Hers is a staggering portrayal. From bumptious party queen, to mentally downtrodden and crushed, spurned, and beaten lover, Freddie encapsulates the vast array of emotions and reactions to perfection,sometimes just mere seconds apart as scenes develop. Words do not do justice to the depth of her skill. On top of that, she also has nine costume changes in the two hours of the show, one even onstage as she transforms from Ruth Ellis to prisoner.

Vickie Martin, Ellisโ€™ friend, is played by Jessica Whiley. Carefree party girl
with a plan, Jessโ€™s characterisation is spot on.ย  Entering cat-walk model like, to dancing with Ruth, her coquettishness shines through, lithely and gracefully. Jess also doubles up as prison warder and prosecution barrister. The relationship between Ellis and Martin is strong โ€“ catty, then supportive, then loving, then bitchy. Both actors excel at this relationship. Their scene where Ellis โ€œteachesโ€ Martin to flirt provocatively with the Gentlemenโ€™s Clubโ€™s patrons is also cleverly choreographed and performed; they are both so childlike โ€“ whilst existing on the sleazier edges of life.

Overseeing them both is Sylvia Shaw, the Court Clubโ€™s manageress.ย  The Court Club is central to the entire play โ€“its is where we are introduced to all the women characters, the club where they work. Mari Webster plays Sylvia, again to perfection. While Martin is coquettish and bright, Ellis focussed yet vulnerable, Sylvia has been there, done that, got the badge. She runs a tight ship, knows the score but is sliding into her fifties with a drink problem and failing health. She is also a mother hen to the girls in her club albeit one with a hard edge โ€ฆย  though it is revealed that this is really a trait of self-protection.

The final female part is that of Doris Judd, the char. Mitzi Baehr (who you
may even recognise from some TV appearances) is the calm, collected, caring big sister character that will have nothing to do with the real business of the
club, but delights in supporting those that work there.ย  From cups of tea to sympathy, to post abortion care and a few plainly put admonishments, Doris is, if not the power behind the throne, certainly the grease that smooths the paths of their lives. She loses her husband over her all night devotion to the club, to Sylvia and to Ruth in particular.



That leaves D.I. Jack Gale, representing in many ways, the folks that vociferously opposed Ellisโ€™ sentence and execution. He gets the conviction – but knows it isnโ€™t the full truth, and he is fighting for that truth the entire time, despite the accusedโ€™s own blocks to his attempts. He is a decent man, dedicated to his job, to finding the truth. Sean Andrews finds Galeโ€™s inner turmoil and even angst, amongst a sardonic turn of phrase. โ€œLondonโ€™s a market โ€“ and this [The Court Club] is the trading floorโ€ he almost shrugs โ€ฆย  before later spending hours going over and over notes, papers, cuttings, photographs of evidence. Sean completes this quintet of superb actors.

The set is a simple one yet effective. The โ€œCourt Clubโ€ โ€“ then later the โ€œLittle
Clubโ€ that Ruth ends up running โ€“ with tables, chairs, a record player, a bar.
Stage left and right empty for police cell, interrogation room, the street, a bedsit. Downstage for a crematorium. Costumes are a delight – aside from Ruth’s dazzling array everything is fitting for the period. Lighting is at times quite brilliant โ€“ the last we see of Ruth, hidden in shadow except for a blinding almost halo like shine of her blond hair is a stunning visual.


And surrounding all of this is Billie Holidayโ€™s voice โ€ฆย  a soundtrack of her singing washing in, over, around the scenes.


Ultimately, itโ€™s a play about loss.


Of dignity. Of husbands. Of lovers. Of hope.

Of life.

โ€œThe Thrill of Loveโ€ plays at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes, from May 13th
to 18th at 1930 every night.

Tickets are available from the Wharf website atย https://www.wharftheatre.co.uk/show/the-thrill-of-love, or from Devizes Library.


A View to a Thrill

“The Thrill of Love” at the Wharf Theatre

by Ian Diddams
images by Chris Watkins Media

Just over a year ago, the Wharf theatre performed a sell out show โ€œLadies Dayโ€ written by Amanda Whittington. In less than a monthโ€™s time they are to revisit the same playwrightโ€™s work, with her drama โ€œThe Thrill of Loveโ€ featuring the turbulent and tragic story of the nightclub hostess and later manageress Ruth Ellis.


The story revolves around five characters โ€“ Doris Judd (Mitzi Baehr) , cleaner, Detective Inspector Jack Gale (Sean Andrews),  Vickie Martin (Jess Whiley), club hostess, Sylvia Shaw (Mari Webster), club manageress and of course, Ruth Ellis (Freddie Underwood). Directed by Debby Wilkinson.

This evening I was privy to a rehearsal, watching the cast working through several key scenes. I arrived as Debby and Freddie were discussing the shooting scene โ€“ straight into the core of the plot – then to a discussion about Ruthโ€™s taking control of her own โ€œLittle Clubโ€. A request for biographies to the cast for the program, and then we were onto the stage.

The set is taking shape โ€“ the nightclub takes centre stage with tables, chairs, lamps, a bar, a record playerโ€ฆ  parquet flooring to come blurring into the extremities where prison cell, police interview rooms and the outside world are positioned. Itโ€™s a simple set but everything is pertinent, in place and neither too much not too little.

With three weeks to go until run week, it is immediately clear that the cast are not only comfortable with each other but complement each other perfectly. Characterisation is spot on, from world weary Shaw, mirroring Gale, to Martinโ€™s youthful exuberance, Ellisโ€™ glamourous and troubled personality โ€ฆ  and good girl Doris with a heart of gold. I read the superb script a few weeks ago, but these actors are already bringing the written word to life quite wonderfully, all aided and abetted by Debbyโ€™s suggestions, tweaks and developments as the evening progressed. Their use of the full depth and width of the stage kept the action flowing beautifully from nightclub to prison cell, to crematorium and back to the club.

The cast are well off book (thatโ€™s thesp-speak for โ€œdonโ€™t need the scriptโ€ !!) and while the prompt is used when needed the lines are there.  The production is in a good place.

So with a clever set, top casting, smart direction, and class acting what else does โ€œThe Thrill of Loveโ€ offer?  How about the sublime music of Billie Holliday? The show is interspersed her songs and cleverly soโ€ฆ  each song underpinning a sceneโ€™s messages and plot. Itโ€™s a wonderful symbiosis of art, and worthy of watching.

Iโ€™ve deliberately not given away too much of the plot this early hoping this piece serves as a teaser – the Wharfโ€™s last three shows were all sell-outs and this one deserves to sell-out too. Iโ€™ll be back for a full review at the start of show week but donโ€™t wait for that fuller review โ€ฆ I urge you to get tickets early while you can. You will not be disappointed.

Trust meโ€ฆ   Iโ€™m a reviewer ๐Ÿ˜‰

โ€œThe Thrill of Loveโ€, by Amanda Whittington, is performed at The Wharf Theatre between May 13th and May 18th, at 1930 each evening. Tickets are available from the Wharf website at https://www.wharftheatre.co.uk/show/the-thrill-of-love, or from Devizes Library.





โ€œAnd Then There Were Noneโ€ at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes, April 8th-13th 2024


By Mick Brian.
Images by Chris Watkins Media


Mention the name of the author โ€œAgatha Christieโ€ and most people will immediately think of her two main detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. But Christie wrote more than just crime mysteries featuring these two characters โ€ฆ  her prolific creative palmares include many stories without these protagonists. Arguably her most famous such tale was published in 1939 with a title that it is unacceptable to use in these far more enlightened times. In 1985 in the UK that title was amended to โ€œTen little Indiansโ€.


During World War II, she used that book to produce a stage play, named for the already re-named US title โ€œAnd Then There Were Noneโ€. The bookโ€™s grisly ending was amended for this stage play, in an attempt, allegedly, to provide a lighter feel-good ending during the dark days of 1943, though later an alternative ending matching the bookโ€™s was written. Directors are free to choose whichever ending they wishโ€ฆ

Having read both the book and now the play, it must be said that the book stands up to scrutiny far better than the play does. There are some rather glaring oddities in the plotline of the play that just donโ€™t withstand a very deep forensic review. One rather gets the impression Christie may have been asked by โ€œsomebodyโ€ to create the play as a matter of public levity at a sombre time in history, and do so quickly, and as such the play itself seems at times quite slapdash. Key areas of the book are omitted in the play or included in one ending and not the other.

That all said the story is a rollicking one, fast paced and leaves the audience guessing right until the very end (unless they have seen the play, or films, or read the book of course!). And I must stress that the limitations of the play itself as above do not reduce the impact or the Wharfโ€™s performances one iota. The pace is so frenetic that any possible plot oddities probably pass unnoticed as the audience is taken on the roller coaster ride of ten people on a secluded island all being murdered one by one by an unknown assassin.

Rose Fitterโ€™s direction, ably assisted by John Winterton as assistant director and the Wharfโ€™s excellent tech crew have created two and quarter hours of gut churning intrigue and suspense. Costumes by Gill Barnes and her team are totally spot on for a 1939 house party of โ€œrich folksโ€, waited on by two domestic staff. The set is a classic one room country house murder mystery replete โ€“ of course โ€“ with โ€œten little solder boysโ€ and their poem quite rightly literally taking centre stage. There are some lovely, clever stage management touches (Beth Ramsay) throughout the show but to let on here would spoil the impact of them โ€ฆ

The cast of eleven deliver Christieโ€™s lines with panache, aplomb, and tempo. And what a cast! Many familiar faces to Wharf regulars mixed with a new face or two. I shanโ€™t go into details of each cast member here because this review would become โ€œWar and Peaceโ€ length, but its is more than fair to say that each and every character is fully believable, from obstreperous boatman to deferential staff, hardened and cynical, or repentant, ex-army and ex-police officers, naรฏve secretary, puerile playboy, quasi-evangelical bigot, stressed doctor and sardonic judge.

The dress rehearsal wasnโ€™t devoid of a couple of slips but given the high pace and quick-fire interactions of the script in a community production that is maybe understandable.

What is thoroughly commendable is that three characters โ€“ Claythorne, Lombard and Blore – between them have 60% of all the lines in the play, and with Wargrave 70%.

Not that this diminishes the rest of the cast โ€“ the performance thrives as mentioned above on the superb characterisations displayed by everybody involved and the acting displayed is absolutely top notch. The wharfโ€™s own intimacy aligns itself particularly well as usual โ€“ those in the front row particularly are literally just inches from mayhem, arguments, and corpses!

Finally to that endingโ€ฆย  as the opening paragraphs mention there are two endings available for this play. So, which is it that this performance uses? Wellโ€ฆย  youโ€™ll have to come along and see it to find out! But on that note – this run of six nights is sold out, so if you have a ticket, you are in for treat. If you didnโ€™t manage to procure one there is always the chance of a return but after allโ€ฆย  with regards to ticketsโ€ฆ

And Then There Were Noneโ€ฆ

CAST
Narracottย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Frank Jones
Mrs. Rogersย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Carolyn Miles
Rogersย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Chris Smith
Vera Claythorneย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Anna Leyden
Lombardย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Paul Snook
Marstonย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Fraser Normington
Bloreย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Ian Diddams
Mackenzieย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Steve Keyes
Emily Brentย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Sian Stables
Wargraveย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Pete Wallis
Dr. Armstrongย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย  Julie Atkinson-Baker

โ€œAnd Then There Were Noneโ€ is performed at 1930 each evening Monday 8th April to Saturday 13th April 2024 at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes.

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Chatting With Burn The Midnight Oil

Itโ€™s nice to hear when our features attract attention. Salisburyโ€™s Radio Odstock ย picked up on our interview with Devizes band Burn the Midnight Oil andโ€ฆ

The Lost Trades Float on New Single

Iโ€™ve got some gorgeous vocal harmonies currently floating into my ears, as The Lost Trades release their first single since the replacement of Tamsin Quinโ€ฆ

Barrelhouse are Open for Business with New Album

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The Importance of Being Earnest at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes

The Importance of Being Earnest is rather like a newfound interest in jazz, you must โ€œunlearnโ€ the four-beat pop you’re accustomed to, to fully appreciate it. You have to rewind, temporarily forget Rick Mayall and Ade Edmondson, forgo all farcical comedy from The Goon Show to Charlie Chaplin, and leave your Tardis in late Victorian England, then, you will laugh.โ€ฆ.in a hoity-toity kinda fashion!

Opening Monday, it’s a sell-out at the Wharf Theatre in Devizes already, assuring me you know the plot and backstory; though I caught last night’s dress rehearsal, I’m not sure I need review it, only to assure ticket-holders theyโ€™re in for a good night, express, once again, why you gotta love our communal and hospitable town’s theatre, and maybe attempt to convince you Iโ€™m an intellectual!

One of the few plays Iโ€™ve read, Iโ€™m reminded how ironic and sardonic towards pomposity Oscar Wilde was, and how much trouble he got from it; surely making The Importance of Being Earnest a Victorian Men Behaving Badly, albeit written by a genius of twisting narrative the like I find unable to make a modern comparable.

I find myself wondering how, or even if itโ€™s possible, to modernise it, as they did with Brewsterโ€™s Millions, for example. For it lambasts the snobbery of Victorian social etiquette as nonsensical, ridiculing the formalities of gentry as preposterous folly, and though it suggests insincerity and fabrications should be morally neutral, our protocols to be so feigned with social interactions has drastically improved through equality since, making this feel somewhat lost in time. Such is its ex-post facto beauty, concluding some things are best left the way they are. 

This leaves the happy ending scene questionable by todayโ€™s standards. In an unfeasible  modern twist itโ€™s surely likely both Jack and Algernon wouldโ€™ve been victims of their own circumstance; akin to a double-act of Basil Fawlty and Basil Fawlty. A modernisation of the play would end (spoiler alert) with the penultimate scene, where the ladies discover Earnest was a big, fat double-whammy fib to get in their knickers, and the boys wouldโ€™ve been summoned to punishment for their deceptions, liable to sharp kicks to their respective groin-areas!

True, isnโ€™t it? Modern girls wouldn’t have given these unsuitable and practically unhinged suitors the time of day! Theyโ€™d receive only a two-finger salute, probably de-friended and condemned on Facebook, and theyโ€™d both be rung out to dry on Tinder, no matter how loaded they are! It is then, with a curiosity of Victorian ethics which makes this play so endearingly comical, classic and impossible to modernise; go tell Disney! 

Though, with a line in the play ironically defuncting happy endings I hadnโ€™t picked up on till last nightโ€™s fantastic dramatisation of it, I strongly suspect that is precisely what Wilde was getting at, only leaving me ponder what he would think of our era today. Thereโ€™s far more connotations to encrypt from this play than first meets the eye, but at least he wouldnโ€™t be threatened with a bouquet of rotten vegetables from his boyfriendโ€™s pop and in his attempt to sue the Lord, get banged up in the big house for it. More likely the Lord would get a wrap on the knuckles for a hate-crime; proving how far weโ€™ve emancipated and why this play is so intriguing and poignant, if outmoded comically.

And itโ€™s played out wonderfully, Rob Finlay plays steadfast Jack Worthing, Oliver Beech makes the perfect punster Algernon Moncrieff, and their conflicting characters ricochet off each other like they were performing this in Melkshamโ€™s Bounce House!

Sophie Kerr plays Gwendolen Fairfax, and Anna McGrail is Cecily Cardew, elegantly defining the constricted mannerisms of Victorian ladies, and Wildeโ€™s attempts to satirise it. Comic gold from Debby Wilkinson as Lady Bracknell and Jess Bone as Miss Prism, particularly when the two finally clash. Rob Gill is the bumbling reverend, Tony Luscombe and Ian Diddams make the perfect butlers.

Lewis Cowen is one dedicated director who has made this play shine beyond the rafters of the Wharf. I think youโ€™ll love it, being far more intellectual than me, and I finish with an oxymoron Oscar Wilde might be proud of me for; oh, awfully witty, what-what! Photographer Chris Watkins was there, trying to grab some images from him to illustrate this with, for now, I apologise for not taking photos, but guarantee you, itโ€™s yet another stunning performance.

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Devizes Chamber Choir Christmas Concert

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Panto Time with Jack & The Beanstalk at the Wharf Theatre

He’s behind you! Oh no, he isn’t, the director of the Wharf’s panto this year, John Winterton is right in front of me, and we’re having a cuppa in the foyer!

John makes a point, pantomime is an introduction to theatre for many. I can identify, my first experience at a show being an annual amateur panto which included my younger cousin’s dance group. Showing how slim my credentials for reviewing a pantomime are, the only other one I’ve seen was decades later when we took our kids to see Peter Pan at the Bath Royal; but I know what I like and liked what I saw.

And to question the need to write this at all, being tickets are near sold out anyway; this serves to say to those without tickets, you’re missing out, and to golden ticket holders, you’re in for a fantastic treat.

Doubting my decision to attend somewhat, prior to the show. I’m a grumpy old sausage without any need of drag queen clichรฉs, Carry-On titillation, and booing the baddie. Oh boy, did they turn my frown upside down.

Starter for ten, Jack and the Beanstalk at Devizesโ€™ gem of a theatre contains all fundamental elements of pantomime, a loose narrative to distract from, drag, subtle smut, nonsensical comedy, breaking the fourth wall, patchwork clowns and loveable animal characters, parodies of pop songs, fairytale romance, song and dance. Save perhaps the archetypal celebrity. But who needs a Keith Chegwin or Ian from Eastenders when fourteen year old Jess Self takes the lead role of Jack, for if she’s no celebrity yet, she’s a bona-fide star.

This is where I need to take care not to add spoilers, plus note some imagination was required as this was a dress rehearsal and audience participation is key to pantomime above all others. The latter is easier than it sounds, being a big kid at heart, families, I guarantee will love this in equal measure.

To the nitty-gritty, writer Oliver Phipps has created an offbeat tribute to the folkloric fairy-tale which in essence deviates whimsically for comic scope rather than rolls traditional narrative, and tends to be mindful you’re watching a play in Devizes with local references and self-deprecating gags.

There’s atypical charming and fun characters to bounce off Jack, key to this performance is the apt casting. Oliver casts himself as the drag Dame Dotty, mother of Jack, and detonates exuberance and wit. Other notable comic creations to bind this perfect synergy is the Arlecchino patchwork clown Silly Simon, a brother of Jack’s eccentricity played by Oliver Beech, a lovably simpleton cow called Pat (geddit?) who, though we shouldn’t otherwise name-call but in this instance there’s no better way of saying, Jemma Gingell perfects the cow! And the most universal comic character, the egotistical and game show host wannabe, Spirit of the Beans, played immaculately by Jax Brady.

Other than dancers, Berrie Mildenhall, Jamie Linsley, Sienna Swain, Oliva Hibbert, Belle Stalham, and Fleur Brewer, villagers, Helen Pritchard, Ben Bryan, Poppi Lamb-Hughes and youngest actor Lucas Dowling at ten years-old, Jill, the princess love interest, played delightfully by Georgina Claridge, and villainess to boo Mrs Blunderbore, played wickedly by Hayley Baxter, all characters are comically forged, which gets my approval. Even the king and queen, so often not in pantos, are funny, acted by Corrin Barbieri and, down-to-his-jimmy-jams, Adam Sturges, respectively.

If you’re looking for a profound delineation of orthodox folklore, committed to chronicle and honour an original plot, then this isnโ€™t for you, but if you’re not a bore, and seek true kooky panto, with genius wordplay, if you want to guffaw and giggle, sing and get involved, well, this is perfect, and youโ€™ll have a great time. I only mention this in remembrance of my Dad, who came over all Mr Spock after every panto, groaning logic, things like, โ€œit could’ve been coincidence the glass slipper happened to fit,โ€ or โ€œwhy didn’t Aladdin ask the genie for another three wishes as his last wish?โ€ Pantomime is fantastical and not for overthinking, forgoing continuity and logic, this one is fantastic and matches the description.

Another crucial point of the joys of the humble Wharf Theatre, which came up in chatting with John in the foyer, was that if I bit the bullet of expense and went up the Westend to see a show, sure I’d have an unforgettable evening, but I go for the show’s title, couldn’t now recall the name of the theatre. John delighted in telling me he recognised the same faces, regulars who sit in the same seats. They come for the Wharf’s reputation; I wonder if city theatres could boast the same. The simple fact is, while the Wharf is communal, local, and affordable, it may well be amateur but strides at Neil Armstrong lengths to produce quality shows. Above glitz and glamour of Broadway, what The Wharf compares with, and prioritises, is heart.

Jack & The Beanstalk at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes opens on Friday 1st December and runs up to Saturday 9th. Tickets are sold out, but you can join the waiting list online HERE, hope for a cancelation, and take this as red, not to miss out next year!

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The Wurzels To Play At FullTone 2026!

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DOCAโ€™s Young Urban Digitals

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Jol Roseโ€™s Ragged Stories

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Vince Bell in the 21st Century!

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Deadlight Dance New Single: Gloss

You go cover yourself in hormone messing phthalates, toxic formaldehyde, or even I Can’t Believe It’s Not Body Butter, if you wish, but it’s allโ€ฆ

Happy Jack at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes, October 23-28, 2023

By Mick Brian

Images by Chris Watkins Media

Take a play written in 1982, about two people born in 1914, from West Yorkshire. Written by a professional playwright with huge global stage hits to his name…โ€ฆ..

Perform it in a theatre in 2023, with two actors born in the early 1960s, in Wiltshire. Directed by a retired head teacher with much local based success in community theatre.

What do you get?

Let us take a step back from that question for nowโ€ฆ

John Godber, of โ€œBouncersโ€ (1977) fame was a schoolteacher and then professional writer, who crafted this biographical play about his own grandparents. It was his first ever play, written when he was 25 years old, as it happens, though it didnโ€™t see the light of day publicly for some while. It is written in reverse chronology. That is, the play opens with the two protagonists, Jack and Liz, in their later years and works its way backwards through their livesโ€ฆย  from death, to married life and its tribulations and joys, to being grandparents, and parents, marriage, honeymoon, courtship and that first date.

Jack is a cantankerous, bullish miner. Liz is a far from kowtowed Yorkshire lass who gives as good as she gets, and in snippets we glean from the story holds all the aces in the relationship in reality.

Jack is played by Ian Diddams, Liz by Wendy Dopheide. Both are the same age in real life, as we meet them as their characters at the start of the play. Whilst by the end of the play they are aged seventeen, so wonderful are their portrayals that it easy to see via their mannerisms and control of voice that they pass for such youthful individuals. Ian is a no stranger to the Wharf Theatre, whilst this is Wendyโ€™s first appearance there. The play is directed by Lyn Taylor, who has both directed and performed across Wiltshire.ย  Technical is headed up by Jon Lewthwaite, more than ably assisted by a multitude of talented people sliding sliders, making noises, and pressing buttons! There are also two other characters in this play, unlistedโ€ฆย  Wendy and Ian as themselves, as narrators. Godberโ€™s writing and their acting flips effortlessly between southern English 21st century actors, and an early to mid-20th century Yorkshire couple. Then there are the side characters, played by the same two actors. Here Wendy gets kudos for also playing not only herself and Liz, but also a grandson, a ticket seller, a barman and a neighbour. Ian merely has to double up once โ€“ he gets the easy ride clearly. Oh โ€“ and I nearly forgotโ€ฆย  take your time and think carefullyโ€ฆย  you may even spot the un-named John Godber in the playโ€ฆ

So โ€“ back to that questionโ€ฆย  What do you get?ย  You get something quite excellent.


Now โ€“ lets be fair โ€ฆย  great shows start with a great playwright, so take a bow John Godber. It is a play that is fifty-five pages long of quite small font. Both characters have over four hundred and seventy lines of dialogue each. Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play. In its entirety it is over FOUR HOURS LONG to perform. Its titular character has three hundred and fifty-eight lines. Horatio has the next largest number of lines โ€ฆย  at a hundred and nine.

Let that sink in a moment.

So โ€“ how does it stack up? Itโ€™s a simple, even stark, set that sets the tone nonetheless perfectly.ย  A hatstand, a bookshelf, a coal scuttle and a gramophone represent Jack and Lizโ€™s home. Two chairs centre stage complete the set. But these are no ordinary chairs. They not only represent easy chairs and dining chairs but also a bath, a birthing table, a washstand, railings, and a bench. Less is more they say and here director Lynโ€™s vision really comes to the fore. Allied to this is a wonderfully choreographed lighting set โ€“ want a fireplace with flickering flames? No problem.ย  A northern nightclub with glittering lights?ย  A doddle. How about a cinema?ย  Easy-peasy.ย  Not to forget some wonderfully evocative sound effectsโ€ฆย  seaside, cinema again, and of course and obviously (!) the Tower Ballroom at Blackpool.

Costumes are simple but effective with minimal fuss. Working class garb with outer garments garnered from the aforementioned hatstand.

And then thereโ€™s the music. Mario Lanza, John Hanson, Kitty Kallen, Reginald Dixonโ€ฆย  amongst others. Their doleful tones โ€“ and tunes โ€“ haunt the first act in particular. And a memorable rendition of a duet by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold.

And thatโ€™s it. Just under two hours including an interval gives you an insight into a 20th century Yorkshire minerโ€™s family. Two wonderful performances by Wendy and Ian, great directing by Lyn, and top technical input by โ€œthe crewโ€.

Do yourself a favour and get to see this, this week at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes.

And returning to that question at the very start of this piece once againโ€ฆ

What do you get?
You get community theatre at its finest.


Tickets available from the box Office on 0333 666 3366 or online at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/happy-jack/

Things to Do During Halloween Half Term

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CrownFest is Back!

Yay! You read it right. After a two year break, CrownFest is back at the Crown in Bishop’s Cannings. So put a big tick ontoโ€ฆ

Six Reasons to Rock in Market Lavington

Alright yeah, itโ€™s a play on band names and thereโ€™s only really two reasons to rock on Friday 17th October at Market Lavington Community Hall;โ€ฆ

World War One play The Last Post heads to Devizesโ€™ The Wharf Theatre this November

A new World War One play will be coming to Devizesโ€™ Wharf Theatre this November, ahead of Remembrance Day……

The Last Post brings to life a series of letters between a boy in Folkestone and his father who is fighting on the Western Front in Belgium.  The span of the play is 70 years but begins in 1914.  William Downing is desperate for his father Joseph to come home in time for Christmas. That this sentiment was so rooted in the reality of all the soldiers and their families of the time makes this play so poignant.

The show is suitable for the whole family, and the eighteen-show run across England is the first time that the moving adaptation of Keith Campionโ€™s book will be in theatres, following a hugely successful run in schools last year.

The theatrical adaptation of The Last Post is performed by just three actors, taking on a multitude of characters from ten-year-old boys to, in one memorable scene, Lord Kitchener himself.  The skill of the actors mean that the show is always entertaining but grounded in reality.

The play is produced by Hobgoblin Theatre Company, a leading Theatre-In-Education company, which gives thousands of children their first taste of theatre every year.

Dan Foley, the showโ€™s director, said, โ€œWhen Keith approached us to adapt his book we leapt at the chance. The book has been a fantastic resource for teaching World War One in the classroom and we felt a stage version could reach even more people.โ€

โ€œAfter the reaction from schools last year, we knew this was a special piece and deserved to be in theatres. Keithโ€™s story offers an insight into the reality of life at home and on the war front ahead of Armistice Day, 105 years on from the end of World War One.โ€

The challenge of turning written letters into an engaging piece of theatre has been dealt with by using a split stage and multimedia projections.ย  The books author, Keith Campion agrees. โ€œI am delighted with this incredible adaptation of The Last Post.ย  Powerful and poignant, it brings the book alive in an accessible and moving way for young children and families.โ€

โ€œThe danger when teaching events from over 100 years ago is that they can end up becoming a dry list of battles and political changes that lose children. By putting them through the eyes of a person their own age, then children become engaged,โ€ continues Dan.

โ€œWe feel strongly that the story of the Great War is just as powerful now. We hope the people of Devizes will agree.โ€

The show will be on at The Wharf Theatre on 11th November at 1:30pm. Tickets are available HERE.

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A Quick Shuffle to Swindon

Milkman hours with grandkids visiting it was inevitable a five hour day shift was all I was physically able to put into this year’s Swindonโ€ฆ

Swindon Branch of Your Party is Growing

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Di, Viv & Rose โ€“ Wharf Theatre, September 11th to 16th

By Ian Diddams

Three women meet at university in 1983. Mixed backgrounds, sexual preferences, dreams. From early reticence, to friendship, to love. Sharing despair, hope, loss. Love conquers all.…..

The play opens with a simple set, three cleverly used telephones โ€“ pre mobile days as an era. Early scenes are short, sharp, frenetic, reflecting youth and urgency, energy and the simplicity of student life. As the play progresses the scenes become longer, less frenetic (though losing no natural pace and rhythm) again reflecting the increased complexities of life. We share with the three their aspirations, of career, promiscuity, love. These provide clashes, arguments, disagreements as each character struggles to comprehend anotherโ€™s chosen path. There are surprises on the way โ€“ some happy, some โ€ฆ life changing, some tragic. This is a gently poignant, bitter-sweet comedy .. a few genuine laugh out loud moments, many internal amusementsโ€ฆ  and several gut wrenching, even tear inducing scenes.


The audience on Tuesday night was healthy โ€“ fairly full, but just four men. Whilst this play deals with female friendships and where men are peripheral unseen but discussed characters, some bad, some good, sometimes amusing, this is far from being โ€œchick lit on stageโ€ or especially not an anti-men piece.ย  Itโ€™s a cracking portrayal of human interaction and of lifeโ€™s rich pattern. It deserves a more mixed audience.

Three mesmeric performances โ€“ Di (Georgia Watson), Viv (Claire Warren) and Rose (Tempeste Day), woven together by superb direction (Alison Warren), based around a simple set (Wharf Technical crew ๐Ÿ˜Š ). Another example of excellent community theatre. On our doorstep here in Devizes. If you are still picturing local theatre as wooden performances and lumpen ensemble with stilted line delivery โ€“ come and change your perception. Grab one of the few tickets left, get to the wharf this week, and catch one of the remaining performances.

โ€œDi, Viv & Roseโ€ is playing until September 16th, at 19:30 each night.
Tickets from the Devizes Hub, online at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/di-viv-rose/e-bdxezq  or call ; 0333 666 3366 .

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DOCA’s Early Lantern Workshops

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I See Orangeโ€ฆ.And Doll Guts!

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Talk in Code Down The Gate!

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Girls Like That at Devizesโ€™ Wharf Theatre Opens Tomorrowย 

What if I told you the forthcoming production at the Wharf Theatre in Devizes was staged by the Wharf’s own Youth Theatre Group? Would you preconceive it to be akin to a school production? Would you assume it amateurish, or immature? Girls Like That is none of the above, I was invited to a sneaky preview dress rehearsal type thingy, and it’s complex, multi-layered and poignantly provocativeโ€ฆ.

I left the Wharf contemplating the model protagonist versus antagonists is ambiguously played out here, as the centre of attention, due to a lewd photograph of her going viral, Scarlet, played wonderfully by Chloe Lagden, is silent throughout the majority of the play, and until the closing scene where she lays it thick on the line; the layers of blame, of victim of circumstance, and the harassing group banter leaves a bitter taste of irony, of who is right and who are wrong.

Even the title remains questionable once the play has concluded; does the โ€œgirls like thatโ€ refer to the Scarlets of this world, and their terrible mistakes, or her peers who seem determined to gossip and spread hearsay through their outrage at what she did? I remain undecided, but an open-ended play is favourable if you wish to leave with deliberations about your own social engagements, which it certainly does. Face it, we never truly grow out of our malicious adolescent craving to better ourselves by putting others down, and I only said that because my dad is a black belt in karate!

Of course, it focuses on contemporary methods of harassing, online, but there’s interesting monologues dividing the present day, of twenty year gapped reminiscences, examples of masculine abuse and inequality, which though you assume are only there for an insight to past techniques of humiliation and how they differ or are similar to today’s, there’s a twist at the conclusion to roll them nicely into the narrative…. not forgoing, elders in the audience will love the cultural reverences I’d suspect the actresses would need to Google!

The nine other young actresses, Scarletโ€™s frenemies, each play their parts of equal substance, as if they were made for them. I pondered if they each took reflection from this on their own actions, or this is the superb direction from renowned director Lou Cox, or more likely a bit of both. But one thing I am sure of, the cast; Samantha Scott, Bea Yates, Eloise Bromley, Darcey Oswin, Megan Hughes, Pip Aldridge, Jess Harding, Jess Worrow, and Lisa Grimes, together with Chloe, play utterly convincing parts with gusto and actuality.

There’s subtly placed humour too, satirical and black, and it’s easy to see now how Girls Like That was named best play for young audiences at the Writersโ€™ Guild of Great Britain Awards in 2015, though I would argue with strong language and passionately delivered prose, here is a story to leave an impression on the most hardened adult mind equally.

Clogs and stilettos this play, for me, because being an honest reviewer, anyone who requests a nudie photo of me must either be criminally insane or a director filming a whole new level of twisted horror-comedy; walking in someone else’s shoes is most effective when they’re an entirely different style of shoe. Even if you cannot relate to the circumstance presented in Girls Like That, I believe there’s a moral there for us all, as the naivety of the characters mature, the nature of gossip and backbiting never really fades through age, it just gets more complex and crafty. Ergo, anyone, a victim, perpetrator or both will identify with this gritty, reality-driven play, but all will relish in its gorgeous portrayal.

The popularity of recognisable shows at theatres in general, means previous performances at our wonderful Wharf Theatre, such as The Railway Children, can be taken as red, whereas something lesser-known like this you have to take a chance. Iโ€™m only here to express my thoughts, and would humbly suggest Girls Like That displays the diversity of performances the Wharf are willing to put on, and you will leave breath-taken.

Well done to Lou and her team of aspiring, and indeed, inspiring actors at the Wharf Theatre Youth Group, itโ€™s marvellous!

Girls Like That starts tomorrow, Thursday 20th July, and runs until Saturday 22nd. Shows at 7:30pm, tickets are from ยฃ10, from the Wharf website HERE, or from the Box Office on; 0333 666 3366.

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A Sneak Peak at the Wharf Theatreโ€™s Upcoming Season

Delighted by winning the Best Theatre/Arts Venue category of the Wiltshireโ€ฏMuddyโ€ฏStilettos Award 2023, Devizes Wharf Theatre wanted to thank everyone who voted for them. โ€œWe are so proud of our little theatre and all our incredible volunteers,โ€ they told Devizine, โ€œthe theatre literally would not run without their time and effort. Thank you also to everyone who supports us whether that be by coming to shows, volunteering, or, indeed, nominating us for this award in the first place!โ€

Muddyโ€ฏStilettos is all about celebrating and supporting local businesses and this year saw over 800,000 people voting on various categories around the country, and we congratulate the Wharf, for it really is a wonderful little theatre on our doorstep; but we all knew that already, didnโ€™t we?!

There is only one more show left of the summer season at the Wharf, one Iโ€™m personally looking forward to. Girls Like That is a gritty reality-driven drama directed by Lou Cox, and performed by the Wharf Youth Theatre Group. It explores the pressures on young people today in the wake of advancing technology, and was named Best Play for Young Audiences at the Writersโ€™ Guild of Great Britain Awards 2015. It runs from 20th-22nd July.

Thereโ€™s an audition notice for 9th July, a currently untitled new play by the amazing Freddie Underwood.

And itโ€™s on with the new program. Saturday 19th of August sees The Jake Leg Jug Band at the Wharf. An authentic sound of 1920’s and 30’s America, from jazz, blues, gospel and ragtime, this trio put their own twist on songs of murder, betrayal, gambling, liquor and redemption.

From Monday 11th September to Saturday 16th, find Amelia Bullmore’s comedy, Di and Viv and Rose, dealing with friendships among a group of three cohabiting female students in 1983, displaying how their solidarity precariously survives physical separation, career paths and even mortality.

On Thursday 28th September thereโ€™s a Devizes Film Club screening of Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom. A 2019 Bhutanese drama film directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji. The first film from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to be nominated for an Oscar, it follows a young teacher with a dream of moving to Australia but finds himself teaching a classroom of eager children, and a yak!

October 23rd to 28th sees Lyn Taylorโ€™s Happy Jack, a 1989 play by John Godber, about a couple who live in a mining village in West Yorkshire.

Steaming into November, and the 4th has an uplifting story of heroism and love by Ali Smith, Cadbury’s Angels. Set in wartime when a group of women working on the production line at the Cadbury factory in Birmingham decided to secretly send letters and cards inside the tins of chocolates that were dispatched to the soldiers fighting on the front lines. To the men fighting miles from home, and away from their loved ones, these women became known as The Cadbury Angels.

Sunday the 5th November, remember, thereโ€™s Water Rats Charity Variety Spectacular, some top stars all raising money for the Water Rats Charity.ย 

Saturday 11th November thereโ€™s two showings of The Last Post, a poignant, moving and thought-provoking stage show for children and families. The story revolves around the correspondence between Joseph, who is at war, and his son William at home.ย The split stage, multi-rolling and use of projections allows for fast-paced transitions from England to Belgium so the audience remains immersed in this simple but moving story that entertains in an appropriate and engaging manner.ย 

With November behind us, oh no it isnโ€™t, December now, and where would be without panto time? This year will be Jack and the Beanstalk, and itโ€™s running from Friday 1st to Saturday 9th.ย 

Bounding into 2024, we can expect to find Oscar Wildeโ€™s farcical comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest, from 29th January to 3rd February. Auditions for this will be on 18th September, see here.

All tickets for the above performances will be at the box office as of Saturday 1st July. Anything we publish hereafter is top secret speculation taken from leaked documents from the very top of the Wharf Theatre, and I will likely be shot for merely whispering them to you …..in some over dramatic theatrical way too!

Stagecoach Performing Arts School are visiting with a production of Frozen Jnr, followed by a Lonnie Donnigan tribute show on February 24th.

2nd March sees the Music of Simon & Garfunkel show come to Devizes and in April you can look forward to something very Agatha Christie. From 13th May until the 18th, Amanda Whittingtonโ€™s The Thrill of Love is the performance. Set in a smoggy 1953 gentlemanโ€™s club in Londonโ€™s West End, where young manager, Ruth Ellis, had it all, the money and lifestyle that she had always dreamed of. However, by 1955 she had lost it all and was the last woman to be hanged in Great Britain.

And on the 1st of June, expect Top Secretโ€™s explosive family show, The Magic of Science.ย  An opportunity to surround yourself with the mystery of magic, cleverly fused with wondrous and miraculous feats of science. It is promised the venue will be transformed into a real-life science laboratory and lots of unbelievable “how did they do that!” moments.ย 

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Little Big Sax Appeal! Watson and Brown Little Big Band, at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes

By Ian Diddams. Images by Gail Foster

Devizonians (if that ainโ€™t a word it is now) will undoubtedly be aware of โ€œThe Fulltone Orchestraโ€ and its festival. They may also be aware of the โ€œFulltone Big Bandโ€, especially if they attended last years August bank holiday festival. They may even be aware very recently of โ€œThe Four Sopranosโ€. All of these entities are separate in their own right, but share much in common, and not just personnel. Thereโ€™s a general air of fun, excitement, and passion about them all. And so its no surprise at all to find that exactly the same magical recipe is rife in another associated gathering โ€“ the โ€œWatson and Brown Little Big Bandโ€.

The brainchild of Vicki Watson and Jemma Brown, hatched we are told over a coffee, the latest sound to hit the mean streets โ€“ or at least the arts spaces โ€“ of Devizes the โ€œLittle Big Bandโ€ broke its duck this evening at the Wharf Theatre.
Comprising of nine musicians and three singers the ensemble took us through a whirlwind two hours of jazz numbers ranging from twenties swing by Gerschwin, to seventiesโ€™ Van Morrison, to noughties modern jazz and even some Cole Porter musical theatre โ€“ and so much more. With arrangements by Vicki Watson and Simon Ridge, Jemma Brown and Sean Andrews, aided by an Moeen Ali like Ashes callup for Ed Kerr who replaced the sadly cold ridden Anthony Brown this evening, sung their way through โ€œRoute 66โ€, โ€œMoondanceโ€, โ€œSay a Little Prayerโ€, โ€œEvery Time We Say Goodbyeโ€ and a male duet with โ€œWell Did You Evahโ€ until half time and a coffee. All interspersed with instrumentals such as โ€œFascinating Rhythmโ€, that 2008 number mentioned above โ€œIโ€™m digโ€, โ€œShiny Stockingsโ€, โ€œSolarโ€ and โ€œDat Dereโ€.

Vicki Watson and the Watson & Brown – Little Big Band

The second half continued in the same frenzied vein with more well known swing numbers โ€“ โ€œAinโ€™t that a kick in the headโ€, โ€œMe and my Shadowโ€ (Ed in for his second spell!) , โ€œOne for my babyโ€, โ€œThingsโ€ and โ€œStraighten up and fly rightโ€. The instrumental pieces forged on also โ€“ and we learn that maybe Miles Davies didnโ€™t pen quite as many songs as we may think he did โ€ฆ and that he played piano at times under a pseudonym. โ€œChili Peppersโ€, โ€œUndecidedโ€ and a funked-up version of โ€œBillieโ€™s Bounceโ€, gave the singers some breaks as well โ€“ but the โ€œLittle Big Bandโ€ were by no means gap fillers. This second half in particular gave the musicians longer chances for solos for our appreciation. Two trumpets (Andy Urquhart and Gethin Liddington), a trombone (Simon Ridge), three saxophones (Vicki Watson, Joe Davies, Mike Wilkins) with Vicki doubling up on flute, bass guitar and electric double bass (Ollie Watson โ€“ itโ€™s that surname again!), with Archie Combe on keyboards (I played rugby with his dad you know!) formed this tight combo for our delectation and joy.

The overall effect was foot tappingly mesmeric. There were some hiccoughs, but its an opening night of a brand-new venture โ€“ but most and more importantly that air of fun, excitement, and passion I mentioned at the start of this review shone through above and beyond everything โ€ฆ and created an evening of BIG smiles, BIG sounds – and a Little BIG Band.

The โ€œWatson and Brown Little Big Band play at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes on Friday 9th June and Saturday 10th June still, 7.30pm start.

Tickets from https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/wbbigband

Jemma Brown and Sean Andrews with Watson & Brown – Little Big Band

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FullTone Festival 2026: A New Home

It’s been a wonderful summer’s weekend, in which I endeavoured to at least poke my nose into the fabulous FullTone Festival, despite being invited toโ€ฆ

HAVING A BABY AND THE S**T THEY DONโ€™T TELL YOU

26th and 27th May 2023
Wharf Theatre, Devizes
Performed and written by Lou Cox

Review by Helen Edwards

I will start this review with a trigger warning. The proceeds from this, Lou Coxโ€™s hilarious and devastating show, are being donated to The Grand Appeal, the official Bristol Childrenโ€™s Hospital charity. Whilst the audience laughed loudly at the very funny and clever one liners we also cried our sincerest tears for Lou, for her and partner Jasonโ€™s baby girl, Hattie, and for the mistakes that were made during her delivery….

When I sat down a kind person to my right, noting that I was on my own started chatting to me. She explained that Lou is her daughterโ€™s teacher at Stagecoach Performing Arts and that she is brilliant. My seat neighbour then told me the ending of the play. She did this to protect me. I spent moments during the show, in between laughs, wondering if knowing was a good thing. My conclusion has been that thank goodness I did; I had made a huge assumption from the title of the play that it would be a chuckle-a-minute nodding in recognition kind of thing. But it was so much more.

With knowledge of what was to come, my laughter was a notch quieter but it still erupted unchecked. It just had a different dimension; one of pure admiration that the woman in front of me had found the strength and courage to write, devise and perform this show within a year of her babyโ€™s death.

The stage was simple, a sofa to the left, chair in the middle and a screen behind. It opened with Lou sat in the chair, black leggings on and a pair of pants around her ankles. She proceeded to talk us through top-tips of sanitary protection placement, ensuring that the multi-padded creation would be enough to catch her first period post birth. Her wit was evident from the start; recognition-fuelled laughter came from every woman who had ever had a baby with chuckles from all else. The pace and punchiness of the jokes picked up with Lou, pants discarded now, sharing her experience of the advice that she received whilst pregnant. Judging by the raucous roars in the auditorium there were many identifying with her journey from pregnancy to birth.

Lou described the uncomfortable telling of people that โ€˜Iโ€™m pregnantโ€™ as akin to shouting, โ€˜Iโ€™VE HAD SEXโ€™, the first of many embarrassing personal disclosures that can accompany being an expectant mother. She then ripped through well-intentioned but unsolicited nuggets of advice that she had been given with a sharp, shrewd humour. We were taken on a tour of Lou and Jasonโ€™s comical antics at antenatal hypnotherapy classes, given a blow-by-blow account of morning sickness, told of her migration from โ€˜sexyโ€™ to โ€˜bigโ€™ pants and the work involved in getting her private area ready for public (midwife) viewing. It was packed with funny anecdotes.

A few lines that stood out in the first half:

โ€˜My biological clock is ticking. Itโ€™s not ticking itโ€™s Big Ben bongingโ€™

โ€˜Perhaps some of us have wizards sleeves down there and the baby will fly out?โ€™

Whilst teaching a class of year 9โ€™s: โ€˜I would simply turn my back on the studentโ€™s mid-sentence to yak my guts up and turn around after like nothing had happened to complete my sentenceโ€™

And then came the reality of what happened next. The posts that Lou shared on Facebook after giving birth were shown on the screen. We saw hope turn to despair as Hattieโ€™s life support was turned off. Hattie breathed unaided for 36 hours and Lou allowed us to be with her and Jason as they took their baby girl for a walk in the sunshine through a park off St Michaelโ€™s Hill in Bristol. This was where Hattie took her last breaths, five days after her birth, on the 19th May 2022.

The courage that Lou displayed whilst reliving this personal trauma was like nothing Iโ€™d seen on stage before. It was raw, generous and insightful. The entire audience was in tears with many, like me, crying to the point of back racking sobs. If the play was transferred to other theatres I think it could very easily become a catalyst for change. To see the people behind the labouring women in delivery suites and to view the emotional impact of avoidable newborn deaths is an eye opening and heart crushing experience.

Lou explained that the hospital where Hattie was born (not Bristol Childrenโ€™s Hospital) sent a letter that included the line: โ€œThe trust would like to send their sincere apologies for the mistakes that were madeโ€. She went on to tell us that an investigation report clarified that Hattie would still be alive if it wasnโ€™t for these mistakes. Lou believes that accountability has been lacking and her anger towards this is evident throughout the latter part of the play. She talked of her post-birth and trauma care; which included receiving a call from a health visitor four days after Hattieโ€™s death to ask how they were getting on with the baby and being told that she didnโ€™t qualify for NHS-funded counselling because she was not suicidal.

Lou told me afterwards that the objective of the show was to raise money to support Bristol Childrenโ€™s hospital. So far sheโ€™s raised over ยฃ21,000 for The Grand Appeal. She was recently asked by the hospital if they could buy 29 new nebulisers, out of the donations. Her face lit up as she told me this with the knowledge that other newborns will benefit from the money raised in Hattieโ€™s memory.

Lou – the final words in your performance were โ€˜Hattie McConnell you are beyond specialโ€™. Iโ€™d like to add to that. Iโ€™m sure I speak for all those in the audiences over the weekend when I say: Lou Cox, you are very talented and very special. Thank you for the laughter with your brilliant comic timing and delivery, and thank you for courageously sharing your story.

Please follow this link if you can help support The Grand Appeal in memory of Hattie McConnell.

Editor’s Note: Lou Cox directs Girls Like That at The Wharf Theatre in July, preview HERE.

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Devizes Dilemma: FullTone or Scooter Rally?!

Contemplated headlining this โ€œClash of the Titans,โ€ but that evokes the idea of a dramatic power struggle with fierce consequences rather than proof Devizes canโ€ฆ

Goodbye to The Beanery but Hollychocs Lives On

Popular award-winning artisan chocolate business Hollychocs has announced that its Beanery Cafรฉ will close on Saturday 23rd August, marking exactly two years since its openingโ€ฆ

Park Farm; Mantonfest Came to Devizes!

The first Park Farm Festival happened Saturday, it was fabulouso, and in some way Mantonfest came to Devizes; conveniently for me as I had toโ€ฆ

Ann Liu Cannon’s Clever Rabbits

Ann Liu Cannon is the Marlborough success story I hadn’t heard of until yesterday; thanks to local promoter and frontman of the Vooz, Lee Mathewsโ€ฆ

The 9:15 from Oakworth calling at Devizes Wharf Theatre; The Railway Children Reviewed

Images: Chris Watkins Media

Director Freddie Underwood and the cast of The Railway Children absolutely smashed it last night at Devizes’ Wharf Theatre, and that’s coming from someone who doubted it would be their cuppaโ€ฆ..

Said doubt derived from the social expectations and restrictions of my own childhood; aware of the Railway Children film, it just wouldn’t have done to have watched something I’d deem “girly,” and outdated (the film from 1970;) imagine the teasing from my elder brother, and I’d dread to think what would’ve transpired if my school friends found out! Though, at a younger age I relished in children’s period drama, of Enid Blyton, The Velveteen Rabbit, and archaic representations in The Beano comic where teachers still wore mortarboards. But by the grand age of ten plus, there were expectations of me to rather indulge in “boy’s stuff;” The A-Team, Monkey Magic, and a series with a talking car!

Coincidentally, much of the context of the Railway Children deals with social expectations and reputation, yet in a far stricter Edwardian era in which the book was written and set. A fairly affluent London family is uprooted to Yorkshire when the father is unexpectedly taken away by his employers at the Foreign Office. While the mother deals alone with the grief, the social etiquette of keeping the reasons secret from the children only shrouds the affair in mystery. Dealing with newfound poverty and cultural differences between London and the North, the mother and particularly the three children take a few hard-knocked lessons in the mannerisms of the working class.

Yet it is in the misadventures the children engage in, willfully upstanding by all modern reasoning, which the emotional roller coaster evokes the most prevalence and where lessons are sorely learned, yet in turn, sees their father acquitted from the accusations of spying. Not only dealing with the social ethics of the rich/poor and north/south divides, the two eldest children also contend with the issues of coming of age without a father figure.

But its beauty lies not from the genius plot, rather its point of view taken from a children’s innocence perspective. In this, the three children are the only ones allowed to break the fourth wall, as their excitable narration is so cleverly blended with the happenings. It all makes for a highly emotional ambience and thought-provoking mood. With minimal props or effects, the flow feels as imaginative as in the mind of a child. Of course, this couldnโ€™t be carried off with such precision without the need of some top class acting, and herein is the icing on the cake.

The side characters are played enchantingly, Mari Webster as the emotional mother, the kind hearted well-to-do nature of Wharf boss John Winterton as the old gentleman, and the bubbling pomposity of Jon Lewthwaite as the doctor are all played superbly, but it’s within the comical hard-knock mannerisms of station master Perks and the amusing bumbling of the Russian exile Mr Szezcpansky which this play really shines, played with certain skill by Debby Wilkinson and Ellie Mayes respectively.

The play hinges rather on the three protagonists, the children, and, for me, this made it the breathtaking experience it was, plentiful to revert any preconceived doubts on their head and go for broke that this is the best performance I’ve seen at our wonderful Wharf Theatre so far.

Both the eldest child, Bobbie, and middle boy Peter, played immaculately by fifteen year old Katy Pattinson and twelve year old Poppi Lamb-Hughes, just oozes delight and believability by their dedication to the parts and the divine proficiency in which they carry this off. It is with such utter conviction I had to duck back into my car straight afterwards, because as such talented actors it would be impossible to imagine these two as anything but the Edwardian children they were portraying. Ergo, the chance to meet and witness them chatting as usual twenty-first century kids I feared would’ve broken their perfected illusion!

If Bobbie and Peter deal with the conflict of expectations versus growing up and their confusions between what’s right and wrong while everything they expect praise for seems to be returned with reprimand, and equally, anything they seem to do right is hastily turned on its head by the misunderstanding of working class etiquette, the absolute icing on this performance’s cake is without doubt the comical element of the far more carefree youngest child, Phyllis. Influenced by both older brother and sister, she plays the two against each other, and charms all with gusto, wit, and risk taking, just as the typical youngest sibling tends to do!

The mechanics of the part of Phyllis is where this play could have taken a nose-dive, for this surely needs a certain something, a sheer sparkle. And that star is fourteen year old Jessica Self. Simply put, Jessica’s acting ability is sublime, of West-End/Broadway level already. She cam charm when charm is needed, evoke emotion and amuse at the drop of a cue.

Since returning last night I’ve been pondering two possibilities, the first being this part was made for her, but I’m tendering towards the latter possibility, that Jess has the natural skill to become whatever character she is given. I gave thought to the best movie actors, of Dustin Hoffman, of Tom Hanks; how you cannot imagine the persona of the real Tom Hanks through the character he’s playing in each and every film he becomes. I similarly cannot imagine Jessica as being anything like the cheeky girl of Phyllis, rather an imminent actress of boundless talent.

This combination of genius plot, perfect direction and the wonderful acting of particularly Katy, Poppi and Jessica, makes this a delightful, thought-provoking marvel. But you need to hurry as this is near sold out, as expected and deserved.

Another landmark performance at our wonderfully welcoming and devoted little theatre, the pride of arts in Devizes. And if it’s the family oriented ethos you love about it, note it is director Freddie Underwood’s eighth production here, the first time she’s directing her husband Chris, who plays the Father, and of whom she fell in love with during a performance together at the Wharf, and their nine year old daughter Gigi, who is named after said play, and appears in the Railway Children as the child of the station master, Perks; I mean, unless you’ve a grandad you could find a walk-on for to make it a hattrick, you cannot get much more family-felt than that!

Virtual bouquets thrown, then, to all involved with this fantastic show from someone who, if they had Steven Crowder’s “Change My Mind” Campus Sign meme template in the eighties may’ve added “The Railway Children is soppy girly mush!” As you did change my mind, with bells on!

In strict contrast to the synopsis and setting of the Railway Children, the upcoming Girls Like That is the next production I’m advising is unmissable, my preview here. Find all forthcoming events at the Wharf Theatre on our event guide and at their website.

The Railway Children Calls at Devizes’ Wharf Theatre

Pride of the arts in Devizes, The Wharf Theatre say, “if you love the story of The Railway Children, first serialised in The London Magazine in 1905 and published as a book in 1906, before being made into the classic 1970 film; then we can assure you that the stage play will not disappoint.“

Being honest, it’s a story I’m unfamiliar with, believing, if memory serves me well, there was also a popular TV series of it in the early eighties, but at the time I was cosumed rather by Monkey Magic and The A-Team! I think today, though, I can look upon this with matured eyes and be equally as intrigued by its genius synopsis as those the Wharf deem “lovers” of the story.

Therefore, I’m pleased to highlight that they’re proud to present this renowned story of a prosperous Edwardian family from London, forced into near-penury in the rural north of England, after their Father is falsely imprisoned. Come and meet โ€˜Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis as they adapt to their new life in the cottage by the railway and join them as they meet someone who might just be able to help them get their happy ending.

Under Freddie Underwoodโ€™s direction, this stage adaptation perfectly captures the anxieties and exhilarations of childhood with great tenderness and insight. Adults and children will be enthralled by the heart-warming story and the clever use of imaginative theatricality. This is definitely one โ€˜not to be missedโ€™โ€ฆ

Running from May 8th to May 13th 2023 @ 7.30pm. As you might predict, tickets are selling well on this already, so I encourage your urgency to snap up a seat.

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street. For group bookings, please contact hire@wharftheatre.co.uk

REVIEW โ€“ Measure For Measure @ Wharf Theatre, Devizes โ€“ Monday 27th March 2023

First Night Triumph

by Andy Fawthrop

Images used with kind permission of Chris Watkins Media

Again it was a real pleasure to bowl along to our townโ€™s little theatre and to enjoy a wonderful opening night.ย  The fare on offer was that Mr. Shakespeareโ€™s tragi-comic offering Measure For Measure……

To be honest, it was (many) years since Iโ€™d last read or seen a performance of this often neglected play.  It just doesnโ€™t get wheeled out as often as those wonderful chaps Othello, Hamlet and Lear.  I wonder why that is?  Perhaps itโ€™s because it doesnโ€™t quite plumb the emotional and tragic depths in the same way as those giant figures?  Or perhaps because itโ€™s not as funny as the classic comedy capers we see in Midsummer Nightโ€™s Dream?  Or maybe tragedy and comedy donโ€™t mix together too well in the same play?

Notwithstanding these difficulties, Liz Sharmanโ€™s production made light of such concerns, and a competent and well-drilled cast delivered an excellent opening night performance to a near-full theatre.  The themes of corrupt power, of vice vying with virtue, of hypocrisy and double dealing remain as a relevant commentary on the political events of today, to say nothing of the resonance of the #MeToo movement.  In this case, of course, The Bard of Avon ensures that all is wrapped up well at the end, where deception is uncovered, virtue is rewarded and the criminals are punished.  If only that happened so neatly in real life.

Using a sparse black set, a simple staircase and a gallery, and little in the way of props or scenery, the focus was very much on the words and the actions.  The only real exception was the frequent use of cloaks and hoods, a necessary device given that the plot hinges on disguise and deception.  Pete Wallis as Vincentio, Simon Carter as Angelo, Paul Snook as Lucio and Eleanor Smith as Isabella all delivered their leading roles with great aplomb, but they were just as ably supported by stalwarts of the Wharf Lewis Cowan. Oli Beech and Tor Burt.  And it would be churlish not to mention the old โ€œrude mechanicalsโ€, Ian Diddams as the bawd Pompey and Lesley Scholes as the prostitute Mistress Overdone, whose exaggerated comic performances gave the show that comic lift that it occasionally needed.  It was worth the entrance money alone to witness the bizarre shirts worn by Ian.

All in all, a great ensemble performance from faces both new and familiar.  Well played!

The show runs until Saturday, so I urge you to go and see it.ย  There are still just a few tickets left, available via The Wharfโ€™s website.

Future productions at The Wharf Theatre:

Sat 1st April Open Day at the Wharf

Sat 15th April                                      Walk On Back To Happiness

Mon 8th โ€“ Sat 13th May                   The Railway Children

Sat 20th May                                       Jack & Jordan Sketch Show

Fri 26th/ Sat 27th May                      Having A Baby

Thu 8th โ€“ Sat 10th June                    Watson & Brown Little Big Band

Sat 24th June                                      California Dreams

Thu 20th โ€“ Sat 22nd July                   Girls Like That

For all information about The Wharf Theatre and its productions go to www.wharftheatre.co.uk

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Live in Pewsey, at the First Oak-Fest

Amidst another packed summer weekend’s schedule laid that lovable large village Pewseyโ€™s turn to shine; always a law unto itself, things went off; if itโ€™sโ€ฆ

See Behind the Scenes: Open Day at The Wharf Theatre

Saturday April 1st, between 10am and 2pm The Wharf Theatre in Devizes are holding their second ever open day, itโ€™s free and open to all. Whether youโ€™ve been in the theatre before, or not, everyone is welcome to come and see what goes on at the Theatre and what goes into putting on a show…..

There will be a collection of costumes, and guided theatre tours – even to darkest depths of the Wharf visitors donโ€™t usually see, like the tech box and green room.

An entirely free event which will be offering refreshments. If youโ€™re interested in joining the theatre groups, either on the stage or behind the scenes, people will be on hand to chat about the various roles, but even if you fancy popping in for a cuppa and a look around, theyโ€™re welcome.

Publicity director Karen said, โ€œfollowing the lockdowns, when it looked for a while that we might not survive, we were saved with the help of the lovely local people who donated to our Just Giving Page, we would like to think that we are the little theatre who the town took to its heart and helped to save.โ€

Next show at The Wharf is hidden Shakespearean gem, Measure for Measure, running from March 27th to the open day on April 1st. See our preview here.

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IDLES’ at Block Party

With their only UK shows of the year quickly approaching, the 1st and 2nd August will see IDLESโ€™ and music festival Block Party take overโ€ฆ

Shakespeareโ€™s Problem Play Comes to The Wharf Theatre

Following her recent successful production of As You Like It, at Devizesโ€™ Wharf Theatre, Liz Sharman returns with another Shakespeare masterpiece, Measure for Measure.

Often cited as one of Shakeyโ€™s Problem Plays, characterised by complex and ambiguous tones, pugnaciously shifting between straightforward comic material and dark, psychological drama, Measure for Measure is a predecessor to tragicomedy.

Written between 1603-4 Measure for Measure is set in a Vienna which has seen vice run riot. Beset with brothels and loose morals the city has also lost its respected leader. Angelo, left temporarily in power, attempts to restore order by reinstating long-neglected laws against immorality. However, when a novice nun, Isabella, comes to plead for her brotherโ€™s life, he proves himself to be both hypocritical and corrupt when he attempts to strike an intolerable bargain.

Measure For Measure is a hidden Shakespearean gem that has enjoyed a popular revival in recent years thanks to its fresh relevance to the social movement against sexual abuse and harassment, #MeToo. Themes of justice and hypocrisy are woven in typically Shakespearean fashion with comedy and a fast-moving, constantly twisting plot.

Wharf Theatre

The play runs from March 27th to April 1st 2023. Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website Wharftheatre.co.uk and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street.

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Ladiesโ€™ Day Opens a New Year at The Wharf Theatre

The Wharf Theatre in Devizes begin their 2023 program with Amanda Whittington’s Ladiesโ€™ Day, running from January 30th to February 4thโ€ฆโ€ฆ

This play, which premiered in 2005, is the first of a trilogy which follows the adventures of Pearl, Jane, Shelley, and Linda. It’s written by Amanda Whittington with arrangements with Nick Hern Books, and directed by John Winterton.

The ladies are a fish-filleting foursome for whom work, love and life are just one long hard slog until their fortunes look set to change when Linda ๏ฌnds tickets to Ladiesโ€™ Day at Royal Ascot, the year it is relocated to York.

Out go the hair nets, overalls, and wellies as the four of them ditch work, do themselves up to the nines and head off to the races for a drink, a ๏ฌ‚irt and a ๏ฌ‚utter. Secrets are spilled with the champagne but if their luck holds, they could just hit the jackpot and more besides!

Described by The Stage as, โ€œas much fun as a day at the races and, arguably, better value for money,โ€ Ladiesโ€™ Day will be the first production at Devizes Wharf Theatre, with more to follow. So, while we await the Wharfโ€™s homegrown program, outsourced productions include a fresh and inventive improvised comedy called Instant Wit, on 18th February, and on February 25th, when the Apollo Theatre Company presents The Songs & Monologues of Joyce Grenfell.

Though word on the grapevine is youโ€™ll be treated to some Shakespeare and The Railway Children, this coming year, and The Wharf also plans a theatre open day one Saturday in April, when they hope people will join them for refreshments and a tour of the theatre, offering the chance to see what goes on behind the scenes.

Tickets for Ladiesโ€™ Day can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website; wharftheatre.co.uk and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street.

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Clock Radio Turf Out The Maniacs

The first full album by Wiltshireโ€™s finest purveyors of psychedelic indie shenanigans, Clock Radio, was knocked out to an unsuspecting world last week. Itโ€™s calledโ€ฆ

Thieves Debut EP

Adam Woodhouse, Rory Coleman-Smith, Jo Deacon and Matt Hughes, aka Thieves, the wonderful local folk vocal harmony quartet of uplifting bluegrass into country-blues has aโ€ฆ

The Dinner Party – TITCO @ The Wharf Theatre, Devizes

An Open Love Letter โ€“ To TITCO

by Ian Diddams

Most reviews are quite sombre, written in the third person with a degree of distance.  Not this one. It’s time to throw that book away and speak from the heart. This โ€œreviewโ€ is openly praiseworthy and could even appear sycophantic. Meh. Whatever. It probably is somewhat cringeworthily first person centric โ€“ always a no-no. Though I would hasten to add that while I mention โ€œmeโ€ and โ€œIโ€ quite a lot the real recipient of attention is most definitelyโ€ฆ  โ€œThe Invitation Theatre Companyโ€ a.k.a TITCO.…

Some history.  TITCO was started by Jim and Mary Roberts, in Devizes, back in the 70s, based on a bunch of friends coming together to put on shows others didnโ€™t. They both passed on in time and TITCO โ€œwent to sleepโ€ for a while โ€“ until resurrected with a passion by Jim and Maryโ€™s daughter Jemma in 2009. Since then, Jemma and her husband Anthony have driven TITCO on in a similar vein to her parents โ€“ a bunch of friends putting in shows nobody else does.

Thereโ€™s one very important word in the above paragraph.  The F-word.

Fast forward to 2022, November. And โ€œThe Dinner Partyโ€. Itโ€™s been mentioned that this will be the last TITCO show for a while โ€“ and the setting of โ€œThe Dinner Partyโ€ (TDP for future reference!) is a beautifully framed homage of that situation. Set as if in Jemma and Anthonyโ€™s home (complete with genuine pictures and wall art from their real home I can testify โ€“ plus their lovely dog, Wilson!)  the setting is that of a get together for โ€œTittersโ€ โ€“ the members of TITCO.

This is where my review gets personal, and breaks the traditions as explained above. I was invited into the TITCO fold in 2015 for โ€œPirates of Penzanceโ€, was made a Titter in 2015 and have shared a stage on multiple occasions since then. The rollcall is amazingโ€ฆ  including โ€œJeff Wayneโ€™s Musical Version of the War of the Worldโ€™sโ€ (WOTW)โ€“ twice. Driven by Anthonyโ€™s pride and joy โ€œThe Full Tone Orchestraโ€ (FTO) of course.

So you see, I am part of this amazing company.

โ€œWe few, we happy few, we band of brothersโ€ โ€ฆ  As some bloke once saidโ€ฆ
And of course, Sisters (Sister Act 2016!).

Friends.  Friends that come together and create amazing shows.

Which brings us back to TDP. Naturally.

So, the bunch of friends meeting for a dinner party naturally โ€“ this being TITCO โ€“ leads to spontaneous singing and performing as everybody takes it in turns to entertain the table or sing together in shared beauty. The eveningโ€™s menu is a mix of old and new, well-loved songs. From a starter of a few run-a-dub, London based favourites (โ€œLast Night at the Conductors Armsโ€) onto a main course where some pretty serious singing came out. Promoted from his youthful renditions of Frederick, Sean Andrews gallantly moved into Major General mode โ€“ followed shortly after by โ€œLuck Be A Lady Tonightโ€ (A FTO Big Band speciality of his). South Pacific made its appearance (Brief History of Musicals 2015) with a heart rendition from the chaps of โ€œNothing like a dameโ€ but not until after a spirited, marigolds glove tassel twirling (*cough*) performance of โ€œWash That Manโ€ !

The revamped TITCOโ€™s first musical โ€“ JCS โ€“ was paid tribute to with Herodโ€™s song โ€“ led by the joyous Tim Hobbs โ€“ and the ladiesโ€™ exquisite โ€œCould we Start Again Pleaseโ€? Blood Brothers came to the party also with โ€œMarilyn Monroeโ€ by Ally Moore and an ensemble โ€œTell Me Itโ€™s Not Trueโ€. The โ€œbig showโ€ additions continued with Chris Worthy singing โ€œForever Autumnโ€ from WOTW โ€ฆย  but we were also shown little TITCO in-jokes throughout the show. Let’s just say that one Titter is NOT a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan โ€“ but succumbed to the (Hot) Mikadoโ€™s โ€œThe Hour of Gladnessโ€ โ€ฆย  good on ya Jemma! The main course came to its end with a couple of light-hearted pieces โ€“ โ€œMe and My Shadowโ€ by Chris and Anthony โ€“ somewhat a party piece of theirs, truth be told โ€“ and a fantastically hilarious version of โ€œPamโ€ by Tina Duffin.

That wasnโ€™t quite all of the main course though. As an almost surprise and wonderful lets-slip-this-in, one of TITCOโ€™s stalwart accompanists Dominic Irving dueted with Mari Webster on โ€œCity of Starsโ€. Dom is one of those people that can play about a million instruments brilliantly โ€“ but Iโ€™ve never had the pleasure of hearing him sing โ€“ until tonight. Wow. Just โ€“ wowโ€ฆ.

The night was hurtling towards its conclusion now. Five ensemble pieces completed our pudding course โ€“ with tear jerking numbers โ€œSeasons of Loveโ€ and โ€œHallelujahโ€, and the uplifting and vibrant โ€œCircle of Lifeโ€, โ€œFrom Now Onโ€ and โ€œRhythm of Lifeโ€.

Then the dinner party was over, and so the guests wended their way into the night, Jemma said good night to Anthonyโ€ฆย  who called Wilson into the garden.

Lights Out.

I started this review saying this was an open love letter to TITCO.ย  And it is. From your invitation in 2015 until today as a company TITCO has shown me friendship, inclusion, and provided me with every opportunity I could want in TITCO shows โ€“ and allowed me to run the show bars!.ย  From a somewhat fay pirate (Pirates of Penzance), to a mobster (Sister Act), The Voice of Humanity (WOTW โ€“ twice), to cow & narrator (the โ€œcowratorโ€ in โ€œInto the Woodsโ€), Albert the publican (Last night at the Conductorโ€™s Arms ), then a hectic seven characters and twelve costume changes plus ladder climbing in two hours (Spamalot). And of course ensemble singing and solos in concerts and the FullTone Music Festival. You built me. Iโ€™ve done amazing shows with other companies, but TITCO built me. And I thank you.

I wasnโ€™t involved in tonightโ€™s Dinner Party โ€“ a medical procedure (a good one I hasten to add!) precluded my involvement. But I sat in the audience, watching my friends deliver another polished smooth performance. Under my breath I sang with them. I laughed at the little in-jokes. I wanted to be there with them โ€“ but then I couldnโ€™t have enjoyed their joie-de-vivre, seen the love, the friendship oozing from their every pore. As a sign said on stage โ€œFriends are the greatest gift in lifeโ€.

Chapeau TITCO. I raise my walking stick to you all tonight.

A final word (or tenโ€ฆ).ย  This is โ€œthe last TITCO show for a whileโ€.ย  So I just want to say as I sign off my open love letter isโ€ฆ

From Now On โ€ฆย  Could we Start Again Please.

Love you all

Didds
xxxx

Trending….

Devizes Girl Wins Vernon Kay’s Talent Nation

A huge congratulations to Jess Self, 13, from Devizes, who has won Vernon Kay’s Talent Nation…..

Presented by Park Dean Resorts, Talent Nation had over 2,500 applications and  ran at 52 holiday parks across the UK.

Jess travelled to Skegness where she made the final twelve, and was then crowned the overall winner by judges, including Alison Hammond and Strictly star AJ Pritchard. She performed a medley from Hairspray The Musical.

Jess said, “it’s like a dream come true. It was such an amazing experience and was a great opportunity.”

You can see Jess, performing as Red Riding Hood at the Wharf Theatre’s pantomime, Little Red Riding Hood, running from 9th to 17th December. Tickets HERE.

Jess, who loves performing, and is currently at Stagecoach performing arts school in Trowbridge, added she “can’t wait” to perform in the Wharf Pantomime and is excited to see everyone’s hard work come together. She says she’s extremely grateful for every opportunity that comes her way.

Well done, Jess; keep up the amazing work, fingers crossed, next stop, Broadway!

REVIEW โ€“ Picnic At Hanging Rock @ Wharf Theatre, Devizes โ€“ Monday 31st October 2022

Strange Happenings

Andy Fawthrop

A wet and windy Halloween night was quite an odd elemental preparation for going to see this atmospheric play.ย  Set in the wide-open spaces and searing heat of 1900 Southern Australia, the tight confines of our lovely little Wharf Theatre seemed as if it would present a stretch of the imagination just a step too far.ย  But not a bit of it, and Director Debby Wilkinson had done a marvellous job in transforming the obvious physical limitations of a small stage into a much bigger canvas.

The plot of this mystery tale, rumoured to be loosely based on real events, is initially quite straightforward.  On St Valentine’s Day in 1900, a group of schoolgirls from Appleyard College set out for a picnic at Hanging Rock, a volcanic beauty spot in rural Victoria.  After their picnic, a group of the girls climb into the blaze of the afternoon sun.  But their idyllic day turns to tragedy as three of their number inexplicably vanish, never to be seen again.  The complexities then arise.  Despite extensive searching, no bodies are found.  Questions begin to be asked, and the answers are rarely forthcoming.  Back-stories and under-currents are discovered.  Memories differ.  Uncertainly prevails.  We begin to understand that, in fact, there are many things that we do not understand.

Using just five female actors to both narrate and to act out the story, there is little room for manoeuvre.  We are compelled to use our own imaginations to fill in many of the blanks.  The bare, stripped-back set, and the use of virtually no props, only serves to reinforce the bleakness and emptiness of the rough landscape.  We are taken through the disappearance and its aftermath, its many layers of uncertainty and a whole range of contrasts โ€“ truth and lies, light and dark, dreams and nightmares, the real and the imaginary, and the unsettling way in which facts seem to simply dissolve into nothingness. The open-ness of the great outdoors is set against the stifling atmosphere of the school, and the claustrophobia of the rules of genteel society.

This was a wonderful cast.  There were five very strong, word-perfect performances from Helen Langford, Imogen Riley, Louise Peak, Lucy Upward and Cassidy Hill.  Their pace and movement around the stage, as one role melted into another, was confident and assured.  Their ability to switch genders, voices, tones and attitudes was excellent.  Without apparent effort, they immersed you in both the story itself and into the motives and feelings of the different characters.  Totally convincing and professional throughout.  Top work.

The adaptation of Joan Lindsayโ€™s original 1967 novel by Tom Wright is a tautly pared-back affair, yet there is no loss of poetic and lyrical language.  Previous film and TV adaptations have had the luxury of using the great Australian landscape as their background, but here it all had to be in the language and the acting.  And the five actors absolutely nailed it.  The sense of mystery was never lost, and the audience were bound in.

This is exactly the sort of production that the Wharf excels at.ย  The stage and the arena are, by many standards, very small.ย  Thereโ€™s always going to be a skill in selecting the right productions and using the best directors to make the best of these limitations.ย  Picnic At Hanging Rock is absolutely one of those productions. Please go and see it.ย ย  This production is excellent and fully deserves your support โ€“ you wonโ€™t be disappointed! ย ย The production runs from tonight (Tuesday) through to Saturday 5th November at 7.30pm each evening.ย  Book your tickets HERE

Future productions at The Wharf Theatre:

Mon 14th โ€“ Sat 19th Sept                                TITCo Evening of Musical Theatre

Fri 8th โ€“ Sat 17th Dec                                        Little Red Riding Hood

Mon 30th Jan โ€“ Sat 4th Feb                            Ladies Day

For all information about The Wharf Theatre and its productions go to www.wharftheatre.co.uk

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You; Lucas Hardy Teams With Rosie Jay

One of Salisburyโ€™s most celebrated acoustic folk-rock singer-songwriters Lucas Hardy teams up with the Wiltshire cityโ€™s upcoming talent who’s name is on everyoneโ€™s lips, Rosieโ€ฆ

Bands At The Bridge

Organised by Kingston Media – to raise money for Dorothy House and Wiltshire Air Ambulance – the 3rd of May saw Bands At The Bridgeโ€ฆ

Phil Cooper is Playing Solitaire

Trowbridge singer-songwriter and one third of The Lost Trades, Phil Cooper has actually been doing more than playing solitaire, heโ€™s released a new solo albumโ€ฆ

No Alarms No Devizes, Aptly in Devizes!

If I’ve been galavanting recently, gorging on other local townโ€™s live music scenes, what better way to return to Devizes than a visit to theโ€ฆ

Picnic at Hanging Rock, Via The Wharf Theatre

Opening on Halloween and ending on Guy Fawkes Night, the next production at Devizes Wharf Theatre promises to be a mysteriously eerie….

Written by Joan Lindsay adapted by Tom Wright and directed by Debby Wilkinson, Picnic at Hanging Rock takes place on St Valentineโ€™s Day in 1900, when a group of schoolgirls from Appleyard College set out for a picnic at Hanging Rock, a volcanic beauty spot in rural Victoria, Australia.

After lunch some of them climb into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of the rock.ย  However, their idyllic day turns into a nightmare when three of their number inexplicably vanish, never to be seen again.

The question remains and intrigues audiences to this day โ€“ is the plot an eerie re-telling of a real event?ย  ‘Hanging Rock’ exists, as do the surrounding towns mentioned; the boarding school is loosely based on Clyde Girls’ Grammar School in Melbourne, which the author attended and there was reportedly a case of two girls who went missing in the 1800โ€™s.ย  Or could it be that the author simply dreamt the plot, as she once said? Shrouded in mystery Picnic at Hanging Rock remains a firm favourite with film and theatre audiences alike.

In this Wharf production five female narrators perform all parts and recount the mystery of the disappearance and looming hysteria as the illusion of genteel society is torn apart. Tom Wrightโ€™s adaptation pares down the events and uses evocative and poetic language to create an edgy and mysterious play and Debby Wilkinsonโ€™s incredibly strong cast bring a wealth of experience and talent.

Get your tickets here, before they mysterious disappear!

Hedda Gabler at the Wharf is Seriously Thought-provoking

Featured Image: Chris Watkins Media

Home after previewing a dress rehearsal at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes last night, I kissed my wife goodnight. She didn’t understand the relevance, but Henrik Ibsen’s magnum opus, Hedda Gabler is one seriously thought-provoking playโ€ฆ…

They didn’t have Billy Joel’s doo-wop fad in nineteenth century Norway, see, otherwise the protagonist’s husband, George Tesman could’ve benefitted by taking heed of the lyrics of Tell Her About It, such as the line “let her know how much she means.”

Image: Chris Watkins Media
ย 

Whereas it’s typical for a fellow to be wilfully pig ignorant in taking their partner for granted, George, played impeccably by Chris Smith, is seemingly oblivious of his psychological man-shed. In modern terminology one might suggest he’s on the autistic spectrum, but definitely, this academic lacks common sense over a work obsession. This is expressed rather amusingly in the opening scene with the assertive “Aunt Ju-Ju,” grandly represented by Jessica Bone.

She interrogates him in pompous nineteenth century mannerisms, in the hope of gaining some pregnancy gossip, but poor old George just doesn’t take the hint any more than Frank Spencer.

Seems he proudly spent his lengthy honeymoon researching for his new book, much to the dismay and rancour of his rather stubborn wife, Hedda, who, longing for a spirit of adventure and drama, finds herself feeling trapped, lonesome and unloved; it’d be an epic fail for Match.com!

Together, her frustrations and his nescient glee, combined with four other exceptionally well-defined characters, twists the kind narrative Ricky Gervais needs to be taking notes from. Character-driven, elements might feel comical at first, but subtle black humour is gradually collapsing into tragedy; such the reason you’ll come away from it realising its stroke of genius.

Image: Chris Watkins Media
ย 

A feminine Hamlet, perhaps, as the plot thickens to a dramatic climax, but I’ll relax my waffling for fear of spoilers. Though if the plot relies on conflicting characters, this wasn’t the case behind the scenes. Director, Lewis Cowen delighted to tell me the casting immediately fell into place effectively, and indeed this convincing team bounce of each other so well it’d be impossible to extract their real personalities. There’s no way I’m going to attempt to obtain trigger-happy lead role Ange Davis’s phone number, for instance, not after witnessing her sublime expressions of bitterness and contempt for her fellow characters! Her second stint at the Wharf Theatre after appearing in Revlon Girl in March; in layman’s terms, Ange takes on the protagonist roll like a boss.

Pete Wallis wonderfully plays the woeful Eilert Lรถvborg expressively, personifying the bleeding heart of the artist. With his heart on his sleeve and love for the bottle, he’s easily convinced, but the kingpin to George’s jealousy.

The weak and diffident Thea Elvsted is played to perfection by Anna McGrail, her despair at her broken marriage is paramount to yield Hedda’s vengeance and bullying nature.

Undoubtedly housemaid Bertha, acted subtly but professionally clownish by Merrily Powell, retains the comedy noir while it spirals into tragedy, via her shocked expressions, omniscience but knowing her place to remain silent.

The unscrupulous and advantageous persona of Judge Brack, played sternly by Rob Gill, pitches him as the dark horse, the archetypal baddie, if there has to be one. Rather the depth of all the characters, needy or lusting after Hedda in their own way, here shows far more layers to them then the typically flatness of the Hollywood template.

Image: Chris Watkins Media

For if said template is becoming tiresome for you, you know the sort; a couple or amount of people with conflicting personalities come together with an abhorrence of each other but thrust unwillingly into a set of circumstances find mutual ground and befriend with a happy ending, perhaps you should grab up a ticket for Hedda Gabler, running at the Wharf Theatre from the 19th to the 24th September. Because if the cliche template is a reversible jumper, akin to classics such as Easy Rider or Quadrophenia, this intelligently crafted dark play turns it inside out.

I mean, I’m no theatrical critic, just know what I like, but if the hospitable and non-pretentious Wharf Theatre welcome me to assess such quality productions as this, on our doorstep, I’m game!

If opposites attract, love is calmly discussing and accepting your differences, but the escape clause wasn’t so simple in days of yore, and in the confines of the era’s strict conducts, a terrible entrapment can twist a person; that’s the contemplation I took away with me after this engaging and quality production; go see for yourself.

Trending….

Wiltshire Music Awards Website Goes Live

Last month we were pleased to announce our involvement with the new Wiltshire Music Awards in conjunction with Wiltshire Events UK, details of which areโ€ฆ

Soupchick in the Park

And there was me thinking nothing good comes out of a Monday! Today local bistro Soupchick, popular in the Devizesโ€™ Shambles opened their second branch,โ€ฆ

Family Easter Holiday Events

Devizine isn’t only about music and gigs for grownups, y’know? It’s about events for everyone. This Easter we’ve lots of things to do over theโ€ฆ

Wharf Theatre Opens For Autumn/Winter Season with Hedda Gabler

The wonderful Wharf Theatre in Devizes is reopening this month for a new autumn-winter season; I know, don’t say “winter,” not yet!

Hedda Gabler is the first production, running from 19th to 24th September. It’s written byย Henrik Ibsen with a translation byย Michael Meyer. The Wharf’s chief director, Lewis Cowen is on this one, and it’s the second work of Henrik Ibsen to be performed at our trusty theatre.

In 2007 The Wharf Theatre staged an adaptation of the highly successful โ€˜A Dollโ€™s Houseโ€™ by acclaimed Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.ย  They are now delighted to introduce, perhaps, his greatest work, Hedda Gabler.

Having its world premiere, in Germany 1891, the play initially opened to mixed reviews however, a more sympathetic, naturalistic London production three months later was a triumph. Now considered a masterpiece within the genres of literary realism and 19th century drama it is rarely out of the repertoire of the great theatre companies of the world.

The title character herself remains one of the greatest female dramatic roles and has been portrayed by some of the biggest names in theatre and film, including Ingrid Bergman, Peggy Ashcroft, Dianna Rigg, Geraldine James and, more recently, Sheridan Smith.

Sometimes described as a female version of Hamlet, Hedda is a character firmly set against the backdrop of the Victorian era when women could only achieve success vicariously through the men in their lives. The daughter of a General and national hero, Hedda idolises her Father but harbours her own political ambitions. She attempts to achieve these by influencing firstly her husband and later an admirer

A drama which starts quietly and humorously gradually builds to a riveting and terrifying climax.

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website Wharftheatre.co.uk and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Streetโ€ฆโ€ฆand donโ€™t forget to follow them on Instagram and Twitter

The World Under the Wood Will Put a Smile on Your Face

A dollop of Lewis Carroll, shards of C. S. Lewis and Roald Dahl, and perhaps even nicer elements of Tolkien, The World Under the Wood will put a smile on your face and bring out the inner child in you.…..

Being honest, it doesn’t take too much to bring out the inner child out in this grumpy old man, but more to cheer me up, and this did both, delightfully!

Running until Sunday, with matinees and evening performances at Devizes’ Wharf Theatre, this simply charming hour-long play, written and directed by Helen Langford is so whimsical, such a delight, you will be captivated by its magical cross-realms. Ideally you need a child aged six plus, but anyone into fairytales you can drag along, I suggest you do. Break out some glitter!

Yet while citing the obvious influences of classic children’s literature combines the settings and themes, it overlooks the subject, a contemporary feel of industry versus nature, the environmental angle on everyone’s lips, especially children. And it presents it in such an easy, fantastical way, without complication or ‘rubbing your face in it’ any age will be absorbed by the moral. Anymore synopsis and I’m verging on spoliers!

All homegrown talent, The World Under the Wood is an unmissable Wharf exclusive. The protagonist, Jodie, a kind of Dorothy-Dora hybrid is played confidently and spectacularly by Georgina Claridge, and her interactions with archetypal characters manage to retain the charm of those they pastiche, a talking tree, played gracefully by Chris Smith, pet dog by Carolynn Coomer, and Louise Peak as the queen-like Great Leader of an industrial underworld of robotic oompa loompa-like humans adds pantomime humour to the show.

Yet, it is not pantomime, in so much its zany or sing-along element is slight above the morals, but it is partially musical, with simple but effective original songs. If I’m honest, I huffed at the thought of going to see a “family” show, but I came out the other end chuffed, sprinkled with psychological fairy dust and mused with an emotion of sustainability on equal terms.

Your kids will love it, you might love it more! The World Under the Wood is running now, ending Sunday 26th June at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes. Tickets HERE.

REVIEW โ€“ Lovesong @ Wharf Theatre, Devizes โ€“ Thursday 26th May 2022

Fabulous Stagecraft!

by Andy Fawthrop

Images used with kind permission of Chris Watkins Media

Been a while since Iโ€™d been to our townโ€™s lovely little theatre, and it was a joy to go back again.…..

The occasion was the staging of Abi Morganโ€™s โ€œLovesongโ€. Now I happen to be a fan of Abi Morganโ€™s writing, and anyone who watched the recent BBC1 three-series drama โ€œThe Splitโ€ will know exactly what Iโ€™m on about. Her catalogue of work in TV, film and live theatre has won plenty of much-deserved critical acclaim. Accordingly, I was very much looking forward to this production, about which Iโ€™d heard many positive comments (and which we briefly previewed here at Devizine recently).

Image: Chris Watkins

The play, directed by the talented Freddie Underwood, no stranger to Wharf productions for a few years now, is a tight emotional drama. Starring only four actors โ€“ Imogen Riley, Adam Ball, John Winterton and Tor Burt โ€“ โ€œLovesongโ€ tells the story of one couple from two different points in their lives, both as young lovers in their 20s, and as older companions looking back on their lives. Their relationship is reviewed by their past and present selves, blending youthful yearning and optimism with more worldly experience. The start of a youthful relationship blends with an impending death.

I found the production quite mesmerising, captured by the verbal and physical choreography of the piece. The tactile interactions of the two couples (being really the same couple) was offset by their inability to talk to their future or past selves, only their contemporaneous partner. It made for some interesting debates, particularly in the second half, about whether time (and space) is linear, or whether the past, present and future are somehow all fused together. Life events happen, they come and go, but emotions and feelings are far more complex than that.

Image: Chris Watkins

The two younger members of the cast โ€“ Imogen Riley and Adam Ball โ€“ gave confident and assured performances, looking quite at home on the stage as the younger version of the couple. But it was the elder version of the couple โ€“ played by John Winterton (in a rare appearance in front of the audience), and the talented and evergreen Tor Burt โ€“ that edged it for me. It may be an age thing, but I found the way that they inhabited their roles quite fascinating. Their concerns, their issues and their undoubted love for each other were conveyed in an utterly convincing performance.

I wonโ€™t spoil the ending (and you can see it coming a mile off) but it was pretty heart-wrenching, and there were plenty of weepy eyes in the auditorium to prove it.

For me, this was an ideal type of production to run at the Wharf, given its tight space restrictions on stage. A cast of only four had enough room on a sparsely-dressed stage to actually move and to breathe, and therefore you could concentrate on the words and the action, without your eye being distracted any purely physical/ practical stage constraints in productions with a larger cast.

Image: Chris Watkins

I found the music in the first half slightly distracting, but the balance felt much better in the second half. That minor quibble aside, this was overall a superb production. Starting with Abi Morganโ€™s tautly-scripted prose, Freddie Underwoodโ€™s assured direction, working with four very good actors on stage, and we had the recipe for success. Very highly recommended.

There are still a few tickets left for tonight (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday), so get along to see it if you possibly can. You wonโ€™t regret it. Box Office โ€“ 03336 663366 or www.wharftheatre.co.uk

Future productions at The Wharf Theatre:

23rd โ€“ 26th June The World Under The Wood
19th โ€“ 24th September Hedda Garbler
1st October The Lesson (Icarus Theatre Company) โ€“ one night only
7th October London Philharmonic Skiffle Orchestra โ€“ one night only

ยฉ 2017-2022 Devizine (Darren Worrow)

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Situationships With Chloe Hepburn

A second single from Swindon Diva Chloe Hepburn, Situationships was released this week. With a deep rolling bassline, finger-click rhythm and silky soulful vocals, thisโ€ฆ

The World Under the Wood; New Family Theatre at The Wharf

The World under the Wood is a new musical-play for children & family audiences written by Helen Langford, who brought โ€˜Adam & The Gurglewinkโ€™ to the Wharf in 2020…..

Jodie meets a magical talking Tree who asks for her help. The wood seems to be dying and Tree thinks the incredible World under the Wood may hold the answerโ€ฆJodie is whisked away to a super-world where life moves super-fast. But she discovers that this world is failing too; the super-humans have been collapsing and productivity is down. Jodie and Harley the dog must now journey between worlds to find an answer. Can the mega-multiplier plants restore the wood? And what is the mysterious Source?

The play highlights the need to stop taking the natural-world and its resources for granted. The world under the wood is an awe-inspiring land of invention and productivity, but Jodie discovers that the resources which underpin it are, to everyoneโ€™s surprise, finite. The โ€˜super-humansโ€™ parody the rat-race of contemporary life, where achievement is king and the constant cycle of doing is reassuringly exhausting. Any long-term consequences of living this way have been ignoredโ€ฆuntil now. We learn through Jodieโ€™s adventure, that it is through perseverance and working together that environmental problems can be tackled.

Though the message is timely and serious, the show is full of fun. With larger-than-life characters, catchy songs, and magical happenings, youโ€™re sure to love your adventure to the world under the wood!

The World Under the Wood runs from Thursday 23rd June till the Sunday, 26th June.

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website https://www.wharftheatre.co.uk/ and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Streetโ€ฆโ€ฆand donโ€™t forget to follow on Instagram and Twitter.

Ticket Prices:
ยฃ6.00 โ€“ ยฃ8.00* Family 4 โ€“ ยฃ22.00* Family 5 โ€“ ยฃ28.00* *booking fee applies For Group Bookings please contact hire@wharftheatre.co.uk directly to ensure that you only pay one booking fee.

Lovesong at The Wharf

Director Freddie Underwood, who brought the highly successful Things I Know To Be True to the Wharf Theatre, Devizes in 2019 once again puts her personal stamp on this production with the use of movement and music partnering textโ€ฆ..

Written by Abi Morgan Lovesong comes to the Wharf on Monday 23rd and runs until Saturday 28th May. Inspired by T.S. Eliotโ€™s poem, the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock – the story of a middle-aged man who, although in love, feels his love song has never been sung – Abi Morganโ€™s play revolves around one couple at two very different stages of their lives.  First produced in 2011, the story introduces us to young lovers displaying all the optimism of youth alongside their older selves who have the wisdom and experience of age, but now face growing old with the ensuing frailties of the human body. Past and present literally intertwine as the older and younger couples move around each other on the stage and this poignant piece will take the audience on a journey which ultimately leads back to the belief thatโ€ฆlove is a leap of faith…

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website Wharftheatre.co.uk and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street.

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Devizes to Host New County-Wide Music Awards

I’m delighted to announce Devizine will be actively assisting to organise a new county-wide music awards administration, in conjunction with Wiltshire Music Events UK. Theโ€ฆ

Ruby, Sunday at the Gate

It’s a rarity that I should drag myself off the sofa on a Sunday these days, one usually reserved for the monthly Jon Amor Trioโ€ฆ

๐€ ๐๐ข๐ ๐ก๐ญ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐Œ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ข๐œ ๐š๐ง๐ ๐Œ๐ž๐š๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ : ๐…๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ญ๐จ๐ง๐ž ๐Ž๐ซ๐œ๐ก๐ž๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐š ๐š๐ญ ๐“๐ž๐ฐ๐ค๐ž๐ฌ๐›๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฒ ๐€๐›๐›๐ž๐ฒ

Review by Pip Aldridge Last week, I had the privilege of seeing the Fulltone Orchestra perform at the beautiful Tewkesbury Abbey beneath the Peace Dovesโ€ฆ

Hells Bells! AC/DC tribute in Devizes

With our roads being the state theyโ€™re in, is it any wonder on the 5th April Hells Bells, rated as the UKโ€™s top AC/DC tribute,โ€ฆ

Cracked Machine at The Southgate

If many space-rock acts have more band member changes than most other musicians change their socks, Hawkwind are the exemplar of the tendency. There mightโ€ฆ

Wharf Theatre Goes from Comedy to Tragedy

To those living in Devizes it should come as no surprise Jemma Brown can pull off a performance. Directing a stage version of the eightyโ€™s sitcom classic Allo Allo at the Wharf Theatre has been hailed a massive success, Devizesโ€™ sole theatre Tweeted this morning โ€œCafรฉ Rene may have returned to the workshop, but the echoes of laughter will mark its place in Wharf history.โ€

But looking forward today at forthcoming performances, after the rescheduled feel-good musical comedy Sister Act JR, (25th & 26th February,) and the jocularity of award-winning theatre company White Cobraโ€™s Betty & Joan, on the 5th March, the next in-house production takes rather a melancholic turn.

From the 28th March to 2nd April, The Revlon Girl is set eight months after the Aberfan disaster, the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip in 1966, in the Welsh village of Aberfan. The devastating slurry took the lives of 116 children and 28 adults as it submerged the villageโ€™s junior school.

The Revlon Girl tells the real-life story of a group of bereaved mothers who met every week to talk, cry and even laugh without feeling guilt. At one of their meetings, they secretly arrange for a representative from American multinational cosmetics, and fragrance company Revlon, to come and give them a talk on beauty tips.

Directed by Lyn Taylor, this is a play packed with character and heartache, entwining the restraints, gossip and sometime irrationality of a small-town community, with the poignancy of a motherโ€™s loss. There are many humorous, uplifting and hopeful moments, allowing this piece to bring much emotion and entertainment to its audience.

Book office is open on this one now, tickets are ยฃ10-ยฃ14, with the success of the recently closed Allo Allo, the Wharf goes from strength-to-strength, yet while a show like the last one will sell itself based on its background in popular culture, it is the poignant and ground-breaking dramas such as this which really deserves the push. Personally, Iโ€™m impartial to putting on some slap, bit of lippy at the weekend p’haps, but please support your local arts anyway!

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Geckoโ€™s Big Picture

In 1998 a pair of pigs escaped while being unloaded off a lorry at an abattoir in Malmesbury and were on the run for aโ€ฆ

Park Farm; New Music Festival in Devizes

A new music festival is coming to Devizes this July. Organisers of the long-running Marlborough based festival MantonFest are shifting west across the downs andโ€ฆ

Results of Salisbury Music Awards

All images: ยฉ๏ธ JS Terry Photography An awards ceremony to celebrate the outstanding musical talent within the city, aptly titled The 2024 Salisbury Music Awards,โ€ฆ

REVIEW โ€“ TITCOโ€™s Switch The Lights Back On! @ The Wharf Theatre, Devizes โ€“ Tuesday 9th November 2021

TITCO Hit the Ground Running

Andy Fawthrop

Thatโ€™s it โ€“ the set is now complete!ย  Back in August we had the Fulltone Orchestra striking up once again after a long enforced lay-off.ย  In September Devizes Musical Theatre shyly peeked out from behind the showbiz curtain.ย  October saw White Horse Opera step out onto the stage, and now, in November, TITCO have finally switched on the lights back on!ย  And what a delight it was to have them back, completing the fantastic range of local music offerings based in D-Town.

Switched from the earlier venue of St Maryโ€™s to the, perhaps more suitable, surroundings of the Wharf Theatre, TITCO hit the stage with their presentation โ€œSwitch The Lights Back Onโ€.ย  From Chris Worthyโ€™s opening number of โ€œWilkommenโ€ from Cabaret, right through to the closing ensemble rendition of The Proclaimersโ€™ โ€œOver And Done Withโ€ we had a fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable evening.

The two-hour programme included songs from Cabaret, Cats, Jesus Chris Superstar, Sunset Boulevard, School of Rock, Joseph, Spamalot, Billy Elliot, Les Miserables, Hamilton, Once, Everybodyโ€™s Talking About Jamie, and Sunshine on Leith.ย  The numbers chosen were not always the usual ones from those shows, not always the obvious biggest โ€œhitsโ€ that one would normally think of, but great songs nevertheless.ย  The items chosen, and the sequence of those songs, nicely showcased the individual talents of the cast members, giving most of them at least one solo, with duets and ensemble numbers.ย  It certainly worked for me.

The staging was simple and sparse, allowing the music to do all the talking.ย  Dressed all in black, with little in the way of colour or props to distract the eye, the songs were completely to the front.ย  Musical accompaniment was understated, but absolutely spot-on, provided by Dominic Irving on keyboard, Lou Hewitt on bass, and Becky Nottingham on percussion.ย  And in front of them, although itโ€™s always a little unfair to single out particular individuals, the stars of the night (for me at least) were Chris Worthy, Mari Webster, Matt Dauncey and Jemma Brown.ย  But there were strong performances all round.ย  And I also have to give a special mention to our local Fulltone Orchestra musical arranger and baton-wielder, Anthony Brown.ย  Iโ€™m so used to seeing him from the back conducting his orchestra, that Iโ€™d almost forgotten what he looked like, and that he has a wonderful voice!ย  Respect!

The showโ€™s finale consisted of three songs from โ€œSunshine On Leithโ€, the musical by Stephen Greenhorn, based on the music of The Proclaimers, a fitting trailer for the full-length production which will take place at St Maryโ€™s, Devizes next June 2022.

Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable show.ย  Full disclosure โ€“ Iโ€™m not the greatest fan of musicals โ€“ but even I couldnโ€™t help but warmly applaud this splendid show.ย  And I was in good company โ€“ the audience throughout was loud and enthusiastic in their well-deserved rounds of applause.

The show runs through to Saturday 13th November, and I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending that you get along and see it.ย  There are still a few tickets left (but not many!) โ€“ I guarantee that you wonโ€™t be disappointed, and that youโ€™ll have a great night out.ย  Trust me!

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Static Moves at The Three Crowns Devizes

Bussing into Devizes Saturday evening, a gaggle (I believe is the appropriate collective noun) of twenty-something girls from Bath already on-board, disembark at The Marketโ€ฆ

The Emporium in Devizes to Close

If Devizes boasts an abundance of independent gift shops of unique and exquisite or often novelty items in the face of a national pandemic ofโ€ฆ

Mental Rot; New I See Orange Single

Hold on tight, the new single from I See Orange, Mental Rot embodies everything I love about this Swindon grunge trio, and takes no prisonersโ€ฆ..โ€ฆ

Spoiled Rotten in Devizes this November with Devizes Arts Festival, The Wharf Theatre, Long Street, TITCO, DOCA and more!

Spoiled Rotten in Devizes this November you are. In what is usually a quiet month leading up to yule, the easing of lockdown has detonated the month, opening it up as anyoneโ€™s game. Itโ€™s just so good to see a chockful event calendar for the whole county, and so many event organisers making a Rocky Balboa style comeback.

Dave and Deborah at the Southgate

Aside our dependable Southgate, whoโ€™ve led the way for events in Devizes, and continue to provide top notch live music every weekend, free I might add, itโ€™s exciting to see the Cavalier, The Muck & Dundar, and even the Condado Lounge in the running.

There are some big guns coming out too, as we welcome back the Wharf Theatre, who hosted The Paul Simon Story last weekend, and the return of the Invitation Theatre Company from Tuesday (9th) to Saturday (13th) this coming week. The Long Street Blues Club are back in force with three gigs this month, the Gerry Jablonski Band Saturday 13th, Force on the 20th, which is such a whopper itโ€™s coming out of The Corn Exchange rather than usual Cons Club, and the Antonio Forcione Quartet on the 27th.

If itโ€™s sounding good so far, weโ€™ve not even touched on Devizes Eisteddfod from Thursday 18th to Saturday 20th, The Lawrence Art Societyโ€™s exhibition at the Town Hall from 25th to the 27th, and of course DOCA bring the Winter Festival and lantern parade on the 26th.

With all that Iโ€™ve mentioned it would be understandable to have overlooked the icing on the cake; Devizes Arts Festival surprisingly pops up to host some awesome events this month, when itโ€™s usually confined to more summery months. Despite weโ€™ve outlined the individual gigs lined up at the Arts Festival, back when it was announced in August, such has lockdown caused much jiggery-pokery with the dates of such things, and not forgoing Iโ€™d suspect the Arts Festival got itchy fingers and simply couldnโ€™t wait until summertime to present us with some amazing performances, these things need reminders, so here I am!

Though the opening gig, Thursdayโ€™s Ronnie Scottโ€™s All Stars Jazz Club Tour has sold out, tickets for the others are on the table awaiting your attention, plus, of course thereโ€™s free fringe events across town too. Letโ€™s have another look at whatโ€™s on offer here, to wet your appetite shall we?

Under the banner, โ€œthe show must go on,โ€ the Arts Festival are delighted to welcome Sally Barker to Devizes, on the 13th. In this new show โ€˜Sandy, Joni & Meโ€™ she will bring some of the songs of both Joni Mitchell and Sandy Denny to the stage, exploring the singer/songwriter legacy that was forged in the early โ€™70s.

Veteran folk-blues singer/songwriter Sally Barker became Tom Jonesโ€™ finalist on The Voice UK 2014 after reducing her mentor, and many watching the TV, to tears with her performances. Sally has toured with Sir Tom, Bob Dylan and Robert Plant amongst others. Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans said, โ€œSally changes the atmosphere in a room when she sings.โ€

And Friday 19th is Motown Gold time at the Corn Exchange. Dust off your dancing shoes for a fabulous evening from a fantastic band. Motown Gold celebrate the finest songs from the timeless Motown and Classic Soul era, which kind of speaks for itself.

As for free Fringe events, The Muck & Dundar have loop pedal guru Arif Najak bringing laid-back reggae sounds on Friday 12th. Sunday 14th is at New Society, where youโ€™ll find Bristolโ€™s dynamic jazz vocalist Lucy Moon, performing energetic swing and classic swing-era tunes to liven up your Sunday lunchtime. Booking is essential for this one, contact New Society to reserve your table.

Thereโ€™s a couple more fringe events before the Arts Festivalโ€™s grand Motown finale; South Walesโ€™s Big Sky are at The Crown on Wednesday 17th, with roots rock infused with touches of blues, country and psychedelia, they are known for being one of the few bands containing brothers who have not yet had an on-stage altercation! And Thursday 18th sees Mark Harrison at the Three Crowns. An original and interesting songwriter, a stunning guitarist, and a master storyteller.

It is, in all my years of running Devizine, the biggest November Iโ€™ve ever seen! But the Devizes Arts Festival doesnโ€™t stop there, this is just filling a gap. I asked artistic director Margaret Bryant if there will be something in the pipeline for a summer arts festival too, and she replied โ€œyes, weโ€™re already planning 2022!โ€

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, just look forward to November; get your Devizes Arts Festival tickets here, for all other gigs and events, see our event calendar for links and info; see you out and about, folks!

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RowdeFest 2025!

Okay, I canโ€™t keep the secret any longer or Iโ€™ll pop! While all the hard work is being organised by a lovely committee, because theyโ€ฆ

Events This Weekend; January Into February!

If weโ€™re nearly out of the prolonged gloom of January, note itโ€™s still winter but weโ€™ve climatised and are ready to party. February this yearโ€ฆ

The Next Wharf Theatre Production Will Be Glorious!

How will the Wharf Theatre follow the huge success of Jesus Christ Superstar? I can tell you this much; it will be Glorious!

How do I know? Press release, see, the production is called Glorious, and itโ€™s the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, dubbed โ€œThe Worst Singer in the World!โ€ A play by Peter Quilter, directed by Liz Sharman, neither of whom have obviously heard me singing in the shower!

It enjoyed a West End run, starring Maureen Lipman, and takes a more humorous approach to its subject matter than the recent Meryl Streep film. Our wonderful Wharf Theatre in Devizes are running it from Monday 25th โ€“ Saturday 30th October, shows at 7.30pm.

Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944) was an American soprano, socialite and philanthropist.ย  Her love of music and performing became evident at a young age when she played the piano and performed at various functions under the name of โ€˜Little Miss Fosterโ€™; on one occasion even performing at the White House.

After graduating high school, she nursed dreams of going to Europe to study music but her father staunchly refused.  When an accident then left her unable to play the piano to the level she had previously, she reluctantly pursued a career as a piano teacher.

In 1909, after one failed marriage, she met British actor, St Clair Bayfield, who remained her partner for the rest of her life.  That same year her father died and, having been left a considerable fortune, she seized the opportunity to pursue her singing dreams despite having little obvious talent.

The poet William Meredith wrote that a Jenkins recital, โ€œwas never exactly an aesthetic experience, or only to the degree that an early Christian among the lions provided aesthetic experience; it was chiefly immolatory, and Madame Jenkins was always eaten, in the end.โ€

In the 1920โ€™s she began financing her own shows and with her charm and shining costumes she did, in many ways, find success. In reality she was both adored and mocked by her audiences but although now considered possibly the worst opera singer in the world, who sang out of tune and had no discernible rhythm people still remember her.

One especially amusing anecdote tells of Florenceโ€™s high-pitched scream when in a taxi once, which collided with another car. Arriving home, she made haste for her piano, confirming, least to herself, that the note she had shrieked was the mythical F above high C, a pitch she had never before been able to reach. Ecstatic, she refused to press charges against either involved party, and even sent the taxi driver a box of expensive cigars.

But the most perplexing question surrounding her life was whether she was in on the joke, or honestly believed she had vocal talent, this remains a matter of debate. This hilarious farce picks up her story in 1940โ€™s New York, and sounds a blast!

This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd on behalf of Samuel French Ltd http://www.concordtheatricals.co.uk

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website Wharftheatre.co.uk and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street.

WIN 2 Tickets HERE

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Some Reasons Why I Enjoyed Jesus Christ Superstar at The Wharf

One reason why I enjoyed Jesus Christ Superstar at Devizes Wharf Theatre yesterday evening, is similar to why I like sci-fi and fantasy genres.

No, hear me out, long winded it maybe, but thereโ€™s a point! With sci-fi you can take an earth-bound concept, and moving it from its usual perimeters, see it for what it truly is, without being predetermined via propaganda or personal opinion. Example; racism. Take a green coloured race of aliens fighting with a blue race, and from outside looking in you can see how completely meaningless and rash it is.

Jesus Christ Superstar throws out preconceptions of this renowned Easter story, bought about by biblical re-enactments and more commonly accepted adaptions. In essence, itโ€™s a rock opera, opera is tragedy, and rock music is modernised, least it was when Tim Rice and Andrew Llyod Webber created it.

I often wonder what it was like for Michael Jackson, in the limo to the show, mobbed by obsessive devotees throwing themselves unashamedly at him. In a way, the tragic desolation and isolation of fame is more the subject in question, rather than the biblical Easter story. Just like our sci-fi scenario, it never suggests a religious connection, never states definitively that Jesus is the son of God. It takes the story out of the usual context and reconnects the dots.

The set is deliberately void, mostly of black backdrop, and props are minimal. Rather than a school playโ€™s amateurishly painted scene, the darkness leaves the setting to your imagination. While Nazareth and Rome are mentioned, thereโ€™s no depiction of it. The concentration is flowed into the characters and music. For Jesus here is unlike another representation; in fact, Iโ€™d argue Brian from Monty Pythonโ€™s โ€œLife ofโ€ is closer! Played convincingly by Jordan Overton, if this was intentional, I found Jesus actually quite irritating. Far from blasphemous given the circumstances, for here heโ€™s unforgiving, frustrated at the mounting iconic hysteria surrounding him. Probably more likely how it would be, especially in the modern era.

If Jordan made a grand job of it, more so did the surrounding characters, for Judas is Jerry if Jesus is Tom, the tension between the two the narrative. Arguably Peter Assiratiโ€™s performance is passionately executed greater, the focus on his despair is equal pegging, as Judas feels overexposure will be Jesusโ€™s ruin. Like washed up rock stars or actors in the modern era, we know from tragedies like Marylin Monroe, to Whitney and Kurt Cobain, the feeling is real. In a way then, the lines between protagonist and antagonist are blurred, another reason why I liked this piece of musical theatre.

More general is the third reason; the Wharf is such a splendid asset to Devizes. This historic shoebox theatre central to town is so welcoming, if the doormat was curled at the edge staff would lie over it so you donโ€™t trip. Chat in the auditorium is not of condescending theatre-goers and thespians, rather an almost family ambience with an age demographic to match. As with most venues, lockdown flogged this theatre, kicking it while it was down. Those who can, bearing in mind ticket stubs here are far more reasonably priced than city playhouses, are dutybound to help it to its feet. I witnessed said devotion firmly in place already, as Jesus Christ Superstar plays to a full house.

The fourth reason I enjoyed it is simply the surprise element. I went in critical, didnโ€™t expect to actually like it, given the theme tuneโ€™s school playground variant of yore, set to ridicule it with Yamahas and dustbin lids, was wedged in my mind. Anyone younger will have to ask Alexa about this; Iโ€™ve exposed my age enough already!

I tip my hat to the performances of additional characters, Pete Winterton casted perfectly for the seventies-fashioned game show host version of Herod, breathing one humorous element to the tragedy, at least! Francis Holmes as Caiaphas made for the textbook managerial role and convincingly bellowed his solo with professionalism.

Emma Holmes and Chris Smithโ€™s recitals of Simon and Peter, respectively, being especially poignant. None so much though as Mary Magdalene, played by Cassy Swann, who, with her astute expressions of woe and loyalty, her superior voice commanded the stage above all else. In this, full credit has also to be awarded to Victoria Warren, music director, and the band, Jennifer Cardno, Bob Ball, Claire Borovac and John Joy, for limited to a four-piece, amalgamated the show to epic and euphoric proportions.

You should note, if you go see this, at the time, amidst the hullabaloo surrounding its controversial subject, it took the best part of decade to alter from rock opera album to the stage in London, and only because of its success in the USA. True music fans will recognise this more as an album of music than a play, ergo the dynamics of elaborate stage effects are deliberately stripped back, the opening of Jesus Christ Superstar rightfully displays the band playing the overture prior to actors taking their stance. But go see it you should; decide quick and seize a ticket post haste. Itโ€™s only running at the Wharf Theatre until this Saturday, the 18th September, and last time I checked, tickets are up for grabs weekdays, Saturday is sold out.

Please buy our compilation album of local music, all proceeds go to Julia’s House, thank you!
WIN 2 tickets to Gary in Punderland @ Devizes Corn Exchange by clicking on the poster!

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Discovering Swindon Story Shed

With Dad’s taxi on call in Swindon and a few hours to kill whilst her majesty is at the flicks, it was fortunate local authorโ€ฆ

The Rise of Winter Festivals

Once upon a time it seemed to me, that folk would grin and bear the winter weather for the sake of a Christmas lights switchingโ€ฆ

Jesus Christ Superstar at The Wharf

With Jesus Christ Superstar coming to Devizesโ€™ Wharf Theatre, Iโ€™m pondering, just how outrageous was it at the time, and how has adaptations and satires of biblical stories become more acceptable? ย 

So yeah, from what I remember, knee-high to a puppy at the time, he came down from heaven on a Yamaha, pulled a skid, killed a kid, trapped his balls in a dustbin lid.

Other rhymes circulated school playgrounds nationwide, but all the variations of the Jesus Christ Superstar theme were considered on the topper-most level of naughtiness, most likely because we figured it lampooned Jesus. When in all actual fact, above the tittering of school children, had the damage not already been done by the very thing we were parodying?

In a competitive era when the concept album had come of age, so rock musicals and rock opera were becoming fashionable, one had to raise the controversy bar in order to get noticed. With Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat already under their belts and bugging religious zealots, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice knew blasphemy long before Madge frolicked with an ethnic Jesus in Like a Prayer.

Cover story was, by twisting the Easter story into modern terminology and themes, it reached out to a new generation, but many didnโ€™t see it that way. Banned briefly by the BBC for being sacrilegious, Christian and Jewish orders despised the album alike, and the musical was banned in South Africa and Hungary.

Such was the narrative, focussing on Judas rather than Jesus, his fears the compassionate movement had become a cult, Jesusโ€™s declarations being besmirched by his followers, and this was a dangerous game which would attract the attention of the Romans, not forgoing it was condoning the common assumption Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, it might seem an unusual choice for the Wharf Theatre in Devizes. Yet, if anything, the degrading in offensiveness of Jesus Christ Superstar, is symbolic of how far weโ€™ve progressed and become more accepting towards biblical adaptations and ret-cons.

After all Monty Pythonโ€™s Life of Brian was only eight short years away, and today we live in a world where Homer Simpson prays for doughnuts, Trey Parker and Matt Stone depict Jesus in a boxing match with Satan or else hosting a call-in chat show called โ€œJesus and Pals,โ€ and even locally where The Boot Hill All Stars sing a song about a โ€œtiny Jesusโ€ crucified on a hot cross bun!

For extreme retroactive continuity of the character of Judas, though, Iโ€™d highly recommend the self-published series by author Roy Bright, whereby, punished by God with immortality and banished to Earth, Judas rights his wrong by becoming a super-heroic, Hollywood-fashioned action hero!

Still, the revival of the controversial musical is trending, which through the aforementioned hullabaloo, took best part of decade to alter from rock opera album to the stage in London, and only because of its success in the USA. A new production was staged at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, in Ontario, in 2011, and by the 45th anniversary of its run, on Broadway, it returned to London at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.

Whether you were intrigued or outraged at the time, or if like me, too young to form an opinion further than the amusing notion of Jesusโ€™s nad-sack caught in a dustbin lid, to see it now might cast a different perspective on the synopsis than how it was perceived at the time, and you can do exactly that, a stone throw away.

A rescheduled performance from last year, The Really Useful Group Ltd presents Jesus Christ Superstar at Devizes Wharf Theatre from Friday 10th to Saturday 18th September. The strapline runs, Jesus must be stoppedโ€ฆ.  which is tricky to say the least, I mean, on a Yamaha and all!

It will, at last, be open to a full house, after restrictions have reduced capacity of our lovely theatre, and Devizine wishes it well. โ€œIt has been a long hard wait,โ€ expresses publicity manager Karen, โ€œas we were due to stage this just days after the first lockdown was announced.โ€ And further to this, plans are ahead for the Christmas panto, Dick Whittington, with auditions on Wednesday next week, 18th August.

The box office is also open for the adaption of The Navy Lark, a classic radio comedy which originally featured Leslie Phillips, Dennis Price, Ronnie Barker and Jon Pertwee, on 2nd October, and Just Like That! The Tommy Cooper Show on the 16th.

The end of October sees an hilarious farce play, based on the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, dubbed โ€˜the worst singer in the worldโ€™ in 1940s New York, running from 25th to the 30th of October, and a one-off on the 16th November, Dan Clews portrays Paul Simon in The Paul Simon Story.

Wharf Theatre

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website Wharftheatre.co.uk and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street.

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In Retrospect With Gary Martian

So yeah, not only has Cracked Machine and Clock Radio drummer Gary Martin added a letter A to his name to make it sound moreโ€ฆ

Christmas Greetings From Devizine!

Here’s our Christmas video Greeting, ho-ho-ho! Filmed on location at DOCA Winter Festival, Devizes, 2024 by Jess Worrow. Merry Christmas everyone!

Full Steam Ahead for The Collected Grimm Tales at The Wharf Theatre

Despite the gloomy pushback to the 19th July for step four of the roadmap to reopen venues, government announced plans to pilot test live theatrical performances with increased capacities, as it has already done for music festivals and sports events.

While this will delight larger city venues, our Wharf Theatre in Devizes must continue with a limited socially distanced capacity for its reopening performance of The Brothers Grimm. All the more reason to book early for this delightful sounding family-orientated presentation!

Collected Grimm Tales runs from Tuesday 13th to Saturday 17th July, with doors opening at 7.30pm. ย Itโ€™s adapted by Carol Ann Duffy of the Young Vic Company, dramatized by Tim Supple and directed by Debby Wilkinson.

In this acclaimed adaptation of Hansel and Gretel, Ashputtel, Rumpelstiltskin and more are bought to life by a small adult cast using a physical and non-natural style of performance.  It will take you on a journey into the world of imagination, as you discover the elusive paths that wind through the dark woods of fairy tales and invite you to experience again the living power of theatre.

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website Wharftheatre.co.uk and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street.

The fitting with the prince onlooking, illustration in Les Contes de Perrault by Gustave Dorรฉ, 1862

Devizes Wharf Theatre Launch Youth Theatre

Have you any young budding actors in your family? Drama kings and queens?! You might like to know Devizes Wharf Theatre have just launched a Youth Theatre. See I could have done with this when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, as I liked to act. Okay, you got me, that was act the fool. Iโ€™d think myself lucky if I got the rear-end role of the pantomime horse!

In the past, The Wharf Theatre has produced some amazing youth productions, if you remember the hugely successful Legally Blonde Junior in the summer of 2019, for example.

Wharf Theatre

โ€œWe have long felt and recognised that to safeguard the future of the world of theatre it is vital to inspire and encourage the next generation and have been working, behind the scenes, to create a group especially dedicated to them,โ€ they say, announcing two youth theatre directors now in a position to officially launch The Wharf Youth Theatre, ready for September. Here are the details:

Senior Actors Company

Friday 6-8pm. Sept 24th โ€“ Oct 22nd/Nov 5th โ€“ Dec 3rd

For school years 10-13 (as of September โ€˜21)

This group will be led by Lou Cox.  Louโ€™s career highlights include theatre tours, The Edinburgh Festival, singing professionally at Glastonbury festival and stand-up comedy. Lou is now a freelance drama teacher at various schools in the area and is a LAMDA examiner. She also directs and has recently started exciting projects with Barnardoโ€™s adoption agency, using drama as a training tool for adoptive parents and a refugee charity in Swindon.

This Company bridges the gap between school drama offering you further practitioner knowledge, a chance to develop your performance skills and many opportunities to perform in our very own theatre. It is a chance to work with like-minded people once a week who share the same passion for drama. You will explore theatre through the ages, engage in practitioner acting theories, work with text and devise your own work. There will be opportunities for students to compete in performance festivals, perform a live play to a paid audience and most importantly have fun!

10-week term ยฃ90. (Concessionary places available โ€“ please contact; artisticdirector@wharftheatre.co.uk)

If you have any questions, please feel free to email Lou at: senioryouthdirector@wharftheatre.co.uk

Junior Actors Company

Thursdays 4.30-6pm Sept 23rd โ€“ Oct 21st/Nov 4th โ€“ Dec 2nd

This group is for school years 6-9 (as of September โ€˜21)

This group will be led by Lucia Pupilli.  Lucia studied at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and has worked professionally in various theatre and film productions including โ€˜White collar hooligansโ€™ directed by Paul Tanter in Rio de Janeiro and โ€˜His and Hersโ€™ directed by Lisa Spirling at The Egg theatre in Bath. Lucia has performed in clubs and restaurants as a cabaret singer and has also worked as a Primary School teacher for five years in Wiltshire. She founded โ€˜Music with Luciaโ€™ teaching instrumental lessons on Piano, Flute and Voice and, in addition, enjoys performing with โ€˜The Invitation Theatre Companyโ€™ and The Fulltone Orchestra.

10-week term ยฃ75. (Concessionary places available โ€“ please contact:artisticdirector@wharftheatre.co.uk)

If you have any questions, please feel free to email Lucia at:

 junioryouthdirector@wharftheatre.co.uk

Bookings for Autumn Term Opening Soon

In order to book please find details of the membership system on their website: wharftheatre.co.uk

Look under โ€˜get involvedโ€™ and click on โ€˜wharf youth theatreโ€™

Wharf Theatre

The concentration will be on fun at the junior actorโ€™s school workshops, building confidence and gaining skills through drama, games and improvisations. Theyโ€™ll be rehearsing and performing scenes from plays and devising their own. The aim is to put on an annual show as they progress.

The workshops are not only an opportunity to develop acting and drama skills but also to make friends and become confident young adults. The Wharf encourage all children to reach their full potential in a safe and inclusive environment.

In addition to the fuller workshops of these new youth companies, the Wharf are also offering two Summer Workshops this year. These will offer an opportunity to have fun and participate in various drama activities.  Whilst they will give you a flavour of the work you could be exploring over the forthcoming terms these are stand-alone sessions and are open to all.

Senior Actors with Lou

Wednesday July 28th 10am-1pm

Wednesday August 11th 10am-1pm

Junior Actors with Lucia

Wednesday August 4th 2-5pm

Wednesday August 11th 2-5pm.

Each 3-hour workshop costs ยฃ15.

Bookings can be made on Ticketsource via their website wharftheatre.co.uk .ย  Look under โ€˜get involvedโ€™ and click on โ€˜wharf youth theatre.โ€™ Places are limited but they will be operating a wait list system if groups are full.

Me? I’m passed it now, I’m afraid, but I’ll always have my moment in the spotlight, my Shakin’ Stevens impression on my cub scout pack-holiday. You had to have been there…..or not!

Trending….

Chapters, New Single From Kirsty Clinch

Okay, so, Iโ€™m aย  little behind, recently opting to perfect my couch potato posture and consider hibernation, meaning Iโ€™ve not yet mentioned Kirsty Clinchโ€™s newโ€ฆ

Wharf Theatre Has Some Positive News

The struggle is real; the theatre world in general is facing many issues and they lit their exteriors and foyers up in a red alert tone. Devizes beloved The Wharf Theatre joined forces again with fellow venues and took part in the Light It in Red campaign. They say, โ€œthe message this year is one of hope and support and we are using the universal symbol of the heart with the message; Weโ€™re still beating.โ€

Anyone passing The Wharf next week will note a series of posters created specially to celebrate this campaign, but they also have some exciting news. Subject to government guidelines eight shows are in pre-production and the scheduled dates are:

JULY: Collected Grimm Tales

SEPTEMBER: Jesus Christ Superstar

OCTOBER: The Navy Lark; The Tommy Cooper Story; Glorious (subject to rights)

NOVEMBER: The Paul Simon Story

DECEMBER: Dick Whittington

JANUARY: My Mother Said I Never Should

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website or, when open, at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm. Whilst restrictions remain in place please continue to refer to their website for the latest details or and donโ€™t follow on Instagram and Twitter.

In the meantime, thereโ€™s still a few places left for the on-line masterclass with West End star Luke Bayer on Thursday 25th March 7pm โ€“ 8pm. ย Would you like to be able to spend an hour with the Star of Jamie the Musical, learn a routine from the show and take part in a Q&A afterwards?ย  Tickets can be purchased from TicketSource โ€“ see website for further details.

Devizes Writers Group Win Silver Award

Congratulations to Rosalind Ambler and Paul Snook from Devizes Writers Group… At the National Community Radio Awards held in Cardiff on 16th November Together!, theโ€ฆ

Hansel & Gretel: Panto at the Wharf!

Images: Chris Watkins Media It was lovely to spend Sunday afternoon at Devizesโ€™ Wharf Theatre, to see how this yearโ€™s pantomime Hansel & Gretel, isโ€ฆ

No Worries; Worried Men at The Pump

Long overdue a visit to the Pump in Trowbridge, Jamie Thyer, frontman of the Worried Men twisted my arm Friday night and there I was,โ€ฆ

Ian Siegal at Long Street Blues Club

Devizes is often spoiled for choice when it comes to live music. Swindon folk ensemble SGO at the Gate would’ve been an excellent decision forโ€ฆ

Important Update From Wharf Theatre

Following the Prime Ministerโ€™s announcement Devizes’ Wharf Theatre has been forced to postpone their production of Adam and the Gurglewinkย which was due to open later this month. They have now rescheduled the show for the 18th and 19th December.

Suitable for adults and children this delightful and original pre-Christmas show tells the story of Adam, played by Karl Montgomery-Williams, who is planning to run away when he stumbles across The Gurglewink, a childhood toy who has come to life in the attic.  Reality blurs as Adam is whisked away to meet Rainbow girl who challenges him to a dangerous quest to travel to the end of the rainbow for a cup of magical golden dust..  Rainbow Towns survival depends on Adams ability to keep goingโ€ฆ..

In addition theย December production ofย The Grimm Talesย has been postponed to the New Year and they will be contacting customers to arrange transfer of tickets.ย  Please continue to monitor the website for the latest details.

The Wharf were delighted to have been awarded the COVID-19 industry standard โ€˜Good to Goโ€™ certification by Visit England and they are therefore hugely disappointed to have to re-schedule shows. ย 

However they remain determined to re-open as soon as possible and send strength and solidarity to everyone across the industry who is working tirelessly to bring theatre back.ย  Finally they want to thank the amazing community for your continued support.

30 tickets are available for each performance, in line with current guidelines.ย  They can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website Wharftheatre.co.uk or at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm

ย Whilst social distancing restrictions remain in place please continue to refer to the website for the latest details.

The Return of the Wharf Theatre

Word on the towpath is our wonderful theatre, the only theatre in Devizes, The Wharf Theatre is preparing for curtains up in October, starting with an amateur production of My Mother Said I Never Should.

Since being forced to close in March the team have been working tirelessly to keep East Wiltshireโ€™s best loved and only theatre afloat. There was a time, in June, when the future looked rather bleak for the little theatre. After the renovation three years ago, surplus funds were already low, then lockdown happened. The Gazette reported it may have to close due to a ยฃ30,000 shortfall in income. Celebrity patron Christopher Biggins praised and promoted a campaign, at the time they hoped to reopen for 2021. So good news is, weโ€™re some months earlier you can enjoy the Wharf productions once again.

While itโ€™s great news for entertainment in town, be aware and be quick to book. Only thirty tickets are available for each performance, in line with current guidelines. They can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website Wharftheatre.co.uk or at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm

Last yearsโ€™ Chair, Oli Beech says: โ€œBreak out the bottles, the phoenix of theatre does rise from the ashes and soars high above Devizes! Our dear little theatre is back in the black after a close encounter with disaster! The call went out and boy, was it answered. Weโ€™ve had donations pouring in, generous members and locals passing the hats around, bake sale proceeds, even an overwhelming donation of ยฃ10,000. We are so thankful to everyone who has helped us either financially or with their many words of support and encouragementโ€ฆ.โ€

During their enforced closure the team hosted three costume sales to raise further funds; completely updated their website and launched a YouTube channel to keep people entertained with specially filmed monologues and some short behind the scene films.

The Wharf also welcome a new Artistic Director, Debby Wilkinson. โ€œRestrictions are beginning to lift but with social distancing still very much in place,โ€ Debby said, โ€œanything we do in the theatre itself will be limited. However, we are very proud to launch the first three plays of our Autumn/Winter season.โ€

Whilst social distancing restrictions remain in place please continue to refer to their website for the latest details. But Iโ€™m happy to announce the new performances will be:

My Mother Said I Never Should

Friday 16th and Saturday 17th October 2020ย 7.30pm each evening

Written by Charlotte Keatley and Directed by Debby Wilkinson       

This rehearsed reading is scheduled to run on October 16th and 17th.   First performed in 1987, this play breaks with convention in that it doesnโ€™t follow a linear timeline.  The text is now studied for both GCSE and A level and tells the stories of four women throughout several periods of their lives. It explores the relationships between mothers and daughters along the themes of independence and secrets. It is a poignant bittersweet story of love, jealousy and the price of freedom through the immense social changes of the 20th century.                   Copyright: this amateur production is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd on behalf of Samuel French Ltd concordtheatricals.co.uk

 Tickets: ยฃ10/ยฃ8 concessions.

Adam and the Gurglewink

Friday 13th and Saturday 14th November

7.30pm each evening with a 2.30pm Saturday Matinee

Written and Directed by Helen Langford

Three rehearsed readings of an original play by the Wharfโ€™s own Helen Langford.   Adam is planning to run away when he stumbles across The Gurglewink, a childhood toy who has come to life in the attic.  They form a reluctant friendship where reality blurs and magic happen. They meet Rainbowgirl who challenges Adam to a dangerous quest which will depend on his ability to keep going when things are not always what they seem.

Suitable for children 6-12 years and their parents. Tickets:/ ยฃ8/ยฃ6 concessions

Collected Grimm Tales

Monday 14th to Saturday 19th December       7.30pm each evening with a 2.30pm Saturday Matinee

By: The Brothers Grimm     Directed by: Debby Wilkinson

Familiar and lesser known stories are brought to the stage using a physical and non-natural style of performance.  These stories journey into the warped world of imagination.  We will meet Hansel and Gretel, Ashputtel, Rumpelstiltskin and others, performed by a small adult cast, on a simple set.  The audience will need to use their imagination and fully embrace the living power of theatre. Suitable for children and adults.

Copyright: this amateur production is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. On behalf of Samuel French Ltd concordtheatricals.co.ukย  Adaptor Carol Ann Duffy Dramatised by Tim Supple and the Young Vic Co.ย ย Tickets: ยฃ14/ยฃ12 concessions

March On: Things to Do. Part 2

Everyone having a nice March so far, been alright, innit? I promised, when I featured the first fortnight of events, here, that I would return to complete the last two weeks. Iโ€™ve promised this before and totally spaced on it, for which I apologise; not enough hours in the day. Nothing to do with my goldfish memory. Here though, this month, Iโ€™ve actually only gone and done it, before the 31st March too! See below if you donโ€™t believe itโ€™s true, the last fortnight in March, stuff to do while waiting for the supermarkets to restock on bog roll, and all that. I know, it scares me sometimes too.

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Click on the hare here to see the first fortnight of March

Bear in mind, mind, our calendar is constantly updating, so do check in as more events and gigs are bound to magically appear like the shopkeeper in Mr Ben.

Week 3

Sunday 15th is where we were up to, and I got two fantablous gigs, Burbank are the White Bear in Devizes, while Jon Amor is at the Three Horseshoes in Bradford on Avon; nice.

Monday, I never know if the Devizes Folk Club is on down the Lamb or not, to be frank, but itโ€™s a place for a beer if Iโ€™m wrong and itโ€™s not!!

Tuesday 17th The Stonehenge lecture at the Wiltshire Museum is now sold out. Celebrated cartoonist and artist, Norman Thelwell is at The Merchantโ€™s House in Marlborough, for a fascinating hour illustrated talk, tracing his life, passions and artistic development. Thelwell produced 1,500 cartoons and 60 front covers for the famed Punch magazine alone and some 32 books translated into a dozen different languages. His works were full of beautifully observed detail and mainly of rural subjects, including country and leisure pursuits, sport, house sales and renovation, stately homes, gardening and sailing. Failing that, Cracknakeel provides live music at The Sun in Frome for their St Patrickโ€™s Day celebration.

Wednesday 18th is jam-packed, for a Wednesday! Acoustic jam down the Southgate, Devizes. Bromhamโ€™s Farm Cookery School has a Taste of Morocco class, where you could be learning how to make a Briouat which is like a Moroccan Samosa, make your own Khobz and Kefta Mkaouara. ยฃ40.00 per person. Over in Marlborough David Evans gives the second of three lectures in The Merchant’s House Study Series, focussing on Reformation in England and the Arts. The Roots Sessions continues at Fromeโ€™s Cheese & Grain with the fantastic Ruzz Guitarโ€™s Blues Revue.

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Thursday 19th and you could be back down The Farm Cookery School in Bromham for a Mozzarella & Halloumi Masterclass with Josie. She will teach how to make both cheese which is technical but fun! ยฃ35.00 per person. The fantastic Ed Byrne is at the Bath Forum and Moles has a punky/metal night with the Anarchistโ€™s Bookfair, Butter The Pavement and Out Of Reach.

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If itโ€™s a slow start to the week, Friday 20th March makes up for it. If, like me, all you know about Jesus Christ Superstar is that he came down from heaven on a Yamaha, and you have doubts with your conviction of that, itโ€™s the opening night for this amateur production by arrangement with The Really Useful Group Ltd at Devizesโ€™ Wharf Theatre. Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webberโ€™s classic musical portrayal of the last seven days of the life of Christ as seen through the eyes of Judas Iscariot runs until Sat 28th March and while tickets are still available as I write this, do be as quick, as if you were on a Yamaha yourself; take care not to skid though!

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Meanwhile Devizes Town Hall is the place to head for opera fans, as The White Horse Opera presents their Spring Concert. Including Donizettiโ€™s L’Elisir d’amore, Ruddigore by Gilbert and Sullivan and Hadynโ€™s Creation, this would be the perfect introduction to opera for those, like me, who thought Donizetti was a type of pasta sauce!

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If you fancy music more pop, the local supergroup Iโ€™m always raving about, the Female Of The Species play Melkshamโ€™s Assembly Hall. Fusing all their respective bandโ€™s influences, expect the best of rock, soul and ska as the girlโ€™s combine forces for a fun-filled gig; Iโ€™ve been to see one of these shows and Iโ€™m not hyping it up because theyโ€™re all awesome chicks, I highly recommend it!

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Day one of two, at the inspiring Shoebox Theatre in Swindon of their FUSE Festival where six emerging artists test a new performance idea over three days. Fuse is about supporting the beginnings of new work before it’s fully developed. Watch, discuss, and be part of the creation of something brilliant. Two performances Kat Lyonsโ€™ Dry Season, interweaving music and movement with original spoken word poetry and extracts from medical literature. And the debut one-woman-show from Mighty Mammal Theatre, Swine of the Times, where you can meet the piggies at the troff; they sing songs, say prayers and even mime. Alice Wolff-Whitehouse employs her skills in physical comedy, dance and song to bring to life a series of flawed and quintessentially British characters, looking at the grotesque nature of privilege in the UK through a warped and colourful lens.

Staying in Swindon, Baila Coffee & Vinyl have some Disco Voodoo with DJ Amir, or try indie rock covers with Joli & the Souls at the Vic. Elsewhere, the Leathers play The Three Horseshoes in Bradford on Avon, Clannad are at Bath Forum, and Jack Deeโ€™s Off The Telly tour is at Salisbury City Hall.

Saturday 21st then. After the hugely successful free concert in the Market Place last summer, The Full Tone Orchestra have taken their show to Marlborough, and return to town to rave the night away at the Corn Exchange. Taking the most popular section of their show, the club anthems, expect this to be something innovative and all glowsticks, as conductor Anthony Brownโ€™s beloved orchestra reproduce the club classics which defined an era.

The Cavalier go country with the Stone Mountain Sinners, caught these guys before, theyโ€™ve a refreshing approach to country-rock which is a cut above the rest. And breezy, original songwriter Ed Witcomb makes a welcome return to The Southgate. For surf beats, odd time signatures, eccentric tunes and irony-fuelled free jazz, try The Barge at Honeystreet, where bonkers surf surrealists Mustard Allegro do their stuff.

Super Trooper Abba tribute, Sensations grace the Seend Community Centre, while Swindonโ€™s Meca has a Whitney Houston tribute. Donโ€™t forget though, itโ€™s day two of the Shoeboxโ€™s Fuse Festival too.

Mercy Lounge at The Three Horseshoes, Bradford on Avon. Recommended ska night at Warminsterโ€™s Prestbury Sports Bar with the Train To Skaville, and Paul Carrick is at Bath Forum.

Train to Skaville

Week 4

Head to the Southgate for an afternoon pint or three, on Sunday 22nd, and our fantastic singer-songwriter Vince Bell will entertain you. Meanwhile, Groovelator play The Three Horseshoes in Bradford.

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Vince

Tuesday, Devizes Film Club at the Town Hall have the latest Ken Loach film, Sorry We Missed You, which you will be if you miss this one film fans. Full of drama, tension and heartbreak. Ricky and Debbie are the parents of teenage children. Ricky joins the โ€˜gigโ€™ economy with a franchise for a parcel delivery firm. The job is sold to him as one where he will become master of his own destiny. Providing, that is, he complies with the labyrinth of deadlines, rules and conditions imposed by the company, a near impossible task. Debbie is a care worker who wants to care for the old people as though they are her Mam. But her working conditions thwart her in doing the job as she thinks fit. This modern Dickensian story dramatises the conflict between work and family life in contemporary Britain.

Donโ€™t forget Wednesdayโ€™s acoustic Jam down the Southgate, and blues-folk singer Elles Bailey is with Phil King at the Chapel Arts, Bath. Thursday you can witness epic human-powered feats, life-affirming challenges and mind-blowing cinematography on the big screen at The Banff Mountain Film Festival world tour, coming to the Salisbury City Hall. Staying in Devizes on the last Thursday of every month though is no bore, as the regular and celebrated open mic night at the Cellar Bar is something to behold.

Seventies punk bands never had such a great name as Brightonโ€™s Peter & The Test Tube Babies. Still going strong forty years on, they play the Vic in Swindon on Friday 27th. Tenner on the door. Swindon also has an Improv Jam at The Shoebox, and homemade function band Locomotion at the Swiss Chalet.

Locomotion

While itโ€™ll sadly never be possible for the boys to be back in town, Prestonโ€™s tribute Twin Lizzy will. They make a welcomed return to the Cavalier, Devizes on Friday. Meanwhile, the Devizes & District Twinning Association take over the town hall to bring us some French Cafรฉ Music with Jac & Co, tickets are also a tenner for both these diverse evenings.

How much more diverse do you want? A dedicated club night for adults with Learning Disabilities? This Is Me at the wonderful charity youth centre, Young Melksham is precisely that, a night of great music and friendship. Thereโ€™s a series of these events, first one is Friday.

Another welcomed return to Marlborough Folk-Roots at the Town Hall on Friday, when Steve Knightley explores the themes and stories that inspire him and shows how music and words can become lyrics and chords and notes can meld to create songs that acquire a life of their own.

For want of an authentic tribute band, From The Jam play The Cheese & Grain in Frome, and Iโ€™ve heard all good stories about them. If originals are what you want though, The Queenโ€™s Head in Box has a double-booking Friday. Katy Hurt stretches the country music genre in exciting new directions; haunting blues vocals, towering country rock guitars, even a reggae vibe, and she is followed by psychedelic alternative rock band, The Bohemian Embassy.

Saturday night of the 28th March is alright, but no fighting, please. Time for the Devizes Lionsโ€™ Spring Concert at St Andrewโ€™s Church, where Ian Diddams comperes Bath Coleman, Bangers & Nash, and the Trowbridge & District Youth Band. Tickets are ยฃ10, proceeds to Wiltshire Young Carers.

The Corn Exchange has a Gin Festival. Tribute act, Motley Crude are The Cavalier and local heroes Rockhoppaz play The Black Swan. For high octane original and classic rock mixed with some tasteful Bluesy tracks, check the Mark Smallman Band at the Southgate.

Devizine is the unofficial Tamsin Quin fan club, if you wanna hear why, head to Bromhamโ€™s Owl on Saturday. Another Abba Tribute, Swede Dreams play Market Lavington Community Hall.

Tamsin Quin

Highly recommended for the mods, The Roughcut Rebels are at The Pheasant in Chippenham. Also, Blondie & Ska are great fun, theyโ€™re at the Wiltshire Yeoman in Trowbridge, checking ahead, they play in Devizes, at the Pelican in May. The Blue Rose Band at The Westbury Conservative Club and an Amy Winehouse tribute at Bathโ€™s Odd Down AFC & Social Club. Level III have a โ€œOne Step Beyond-ska and punk club-night.

Elsewhere in Swindon, homemade Damm at Coleview Community Centre and P!nk tribute, Beautiful Trauma play Brookhouse Farm, and a Pearl Jam tribute, Earl Jam at the Vic.

Sophie Matthews explores the links between the visual and the aural in a one-hour presentation at the Merchantโ€™s House, Marlborough. Drawing on the works of great painters including Brueghel, Hogarth and Rigaud, Sophie presents a feast of images featuring historical woodwind instruments in their original social context interspersed with live performances of historical music using authentic instruments.

Sunday 29th – Nearly there, and breathโ€ฆ. Yin Yoga & Gong Bath at Devizes Corn Exchange, The Sunday Sessions continue at The White Bear with Matt Cook and Gary Hall at The Southgate. Thereโ€™s a Comic-Con at Bath Pavilion, to be frank, itโ€™s a commercial affair rather than a genuine โ€œcomicโ€ con, with cosplay, gaming and meeting vague TV actors and ex-Gladiators, but might be fun for the kids.

Thatโ€™s it, folks, March done, save Bradford on Avon Folk Club have Geoff Lakeman on Tuesday 31st. Letโ€™s regroup in April, but feedback on these articles are needed. Do they work for you? Long-winded I know, but in order to fit it in. Devizine is a work in progress, I enjoy and need to know whatโ€™s working and whatโ€™s not. So, if youโ€™ve read this far, I salute you! Tell me about it!

ยฉ 2017-2020 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden

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Living Together at The Wharf

Monday 21st – Saturday 26th October sees the next Wharf Theatre production, Living Together, by Alan Ayckbourn and directed by Mervyn Harrowven.

 

When the Norman Conquests (named after the plays leading character, assistant librarian Norman, as opposed to the Kings William and Harold!) burst onto the theatre-going public in the early 1970s, they were a revelation. Here was domestic comedy that spoke to everyone; intelligent, well-observed and extremely funny. Today they are regarded as possibly Ayckbournโ€™s most ingeniously constructed set of plays.

 
The second in the trilogy, which features the same characters in the same house during the same weekend, Living Together takes place in the living room. Here we are introduced to incorrigible womaniser, Norman, his wifeโ€™s family and a vet.

 
Certain liaisons have been arranged but when plans change, and Norman drowns his sorrows in a bottle, the scene is set for the testing of married relationships and the comic dissection of middle-class morality.

 
Tickets (ยฃ12/under 16s ยฃ10) can be purchased from Ticketsource at: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/events or at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm or by ringing 03336 663 366. To find out what else is on at the Wharf pick up a new Autumn/Winter brochure which is available from the Community Hub and Library and many other outlets around Devizes. Tickets for this year’s panto, Cinderella are being snapped up, so get in quick!

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Forty Years of The Wharf Theatre, we look forward as well as backwards.

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Now a trail of leisurely pursuits, remnants of an industrial thoroughfare are still visible on The Kennet and Avon Canal. While some lay dormant and dilapidated since its decline in the 1850s, many have been put to good use. Enhancing the tourist attraction, cafes and inns make use of warehouses and wharfs, but none perhaps as much as the small, 18th century warehouse, adjacent to the Kennet & Avon Canal Museum at the Devizes Wharf.

Itโ€™s been home for The Wharf Theatre for the past forty years, officially opening on the 16th May 1980 with a production of J B Priestley’s When We Are Married. Prior to purpose-built arts centres, Devizes was the only local town with its own theatre, and it remains the only dedicated theatre in East Wiltshire.

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Formed in 1947, The Devizes and District Amateur Dramatic Society, were never happy using the Palace Cinema or Corn Exchange, and though it gave them the name Wharf Theatre in โ€˜73, even the first premises in Couch Lane was unsuitable. Itโ€™d take another six years before Kennet District Council redeveloped the Wharf, and the site as we know it today was reserved.

Handy, perhaps that the then treasurer, John Hurley, was former assistant chief executive at Kennet District Council, but the fact we have our own theatre is largely due to him and wife Beryl. However, if you think the theatre is all a bit hoity-toity for you, consider it was renovated with labour provided by youth, under a Job Creation Scheme, and part-funded by the Manpower Services Commission, a quango addressing unemployment. Itโ€™s said all members chipped in to help, working alongside offenders on community service!

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If youโ€™re still not convinced, thinking this is all before my time, (me too, honest!) stick around as Devizine wishes the Wharf a happy 40th birthday, and with their autumn-winter season brochure out, highlight whatโ€™s happening over the coming season. With an incorrigible womaniser, ghostly horror, an amateur boxer and a pimp, skiffle and comedy songs, flap-tastic family comedy and pantomime, oh, and Boycie, there may be something for you.

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It starts 23rd -28th September with a ghost story, and everyone loves a ghost story. The Turn of the Screw, which we previewed here.

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On Friday 4th October they trace back a plethora of comedy songs. Probably The best Comedy Songs in the World Everโ€ฆ. Maybe! covers a history of comedy songs, from Noel Coward and Lonnie Donegan to Monty Python and The Goons. Bernie Cribbins is in there, and of course, if they need any props for the customary Benny Hill song, Iโ€™ve a milk bottle or twenty.

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Also note I can do a cracking impression of both Boycie and Marlene, but not to order. John Challis has an audience with on 12th October, revealing on-set secrets from Only Fools and Horses and the actors Sir David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst. You know this one makes sense, Rodders.

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Comedy a running theme for the early autumn, Alan Ayckbournโ€™s Living Together runs from 21st to 26th October, introducing us to the incorrigible womaniser, Norman, and his family of recognisable middle-class types whose personalities are never quite as predictable as they seem.

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One of the UK’s beloved comedians and impressionists, Duncan Norvelle and award-winning singer and entertainer, Maggie Regan visit the Wharf Theatre on November 1st. Combing eccentric humour with high energy roots music, itโ€™s all funny songs, crazy costumes and virtuoso music with The London Philharmonic Skiffle Orchestra on Friday 8th November.

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In residence at Pound Arts, Corsham, but taking their show internationally, expect flap-tastic family comedy, when The Last Baguette Theatre Company presents The Bird Show on the 9th. Suitable for the โ€œwhole brood,โ€ including fledglings from three plus, this madcap and touching show about birds facing changes to their habitat uses live music, puppetry and lots of silly bird jokes.

TheBirdShow

Now, I donโ€™t wanna think about it just yet, sure you donโ€™t either, not while the sun is still shining, but the big C wouldnโ€™t be the big C without pantomime, and the Wharf has Cinderella running from Friday 6th to Saturday 14th December.

Cinderella

New decade, 2020 then, and nobel laureate Harold Pinterโ€™s Tony Award-winning 1964 two-act play, The Homecoming runs from Monday 27th January to Saturday 1st February. Directed by Lewis Cowen, this is vintage Pinter, but its twists are worthy of Alfred Hitchcock.

TheHomecoming

When Teddy, an expatriate American philosophy professor, brings his wife Ruth to visit his old home in London, he finds his eccentric family still living in the house; his father, a retired butcher, his uncle, a chauffeur and his brothers, an amateur boxer and a pimp. In the conflict that follows, it is Ruth who becomes the focus of the familyโ€™s struggle for supremacy.

With a rich history, notable past performances and maintening an eminent yet pragmatic, hospitable atmosphere, The Wharf Theatre is something for Devizes to be proud of. Check the website for more details of performances and tickets.

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ยฉ 2017-2019 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.

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The Turn of the Screw at The Wharf

The forthcoming new season of productions at our Wharf Theatre, Devizes, kicks off with a haunting Henry James adaption they claim is not for the nervy.ย  The Turn of the Screw, a 1898 horror novella by Henry James, first published as a serial in Collier’s Weekly magazine,ย has been adapted for stage by Ken Whitmore and is directed by Lewis Cowen.

 

Running from Monday 23rd September to Saturday 28th at 7.30pm, The Turn of the Screw is set in a sprawling manor house in Bly, in the first half of the 19th Century. Henry Jamesโ€™ classic is one of the most famous ghost stories in the English language, and is a foundation for academics pledged to New Criticism. With contradictory understandings, critics attempt to regulate the precise nature of the evil implied. Others claim its brilliance grades its skill in creating an intimate sense of misperception and insecurity.

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By Collier’s Weekly, illustration by Eric Pape – Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, Public Domain

Miss Grey is hired as governess to two orphaned siblings, Miles, 10 and 8 year old Flora. However, she soon discovers a dark secret and becomes embroiled in a supernatural struggle with the ghosts of the former valet and governess. She is forced to fight for the children despite fearing for her life and questioning her sanity.

Tickets (ยฃ12/under 16s ยฃ10) can be purchased from Ticketsource at: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/eventsย or at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm or by ringing 03336 663 366. To find out what else is on at the Wharf pick up a new Autumn/Winter brochure which is available from the Community Hub and Library and many other outlets around Devizes.

ยฉ 2017-2019 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.

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Legally Blonde Jnr Comes to Devizes

You got into Harvard Law?

What? Like, it’s hard?

Hey, get your flaxen Barnett around this; Legally Blonde, rom-com, chick-flick adaptation of Amanda Brownโ€™s novel of the same name is eighteen years old. Yeah, like, I know right. Two years later they made the sequel; although a smash at the box office, it never raised a reviewerโ€™s eyebrow, banally crashing the blonde versus brunette joke which Archie Comics carried for over seventy years.

Yet the initial movie stands the test of time, I like it and chick-flick generally isnโ€™t my thing; lack of spaceships blowing things up, see?! The foreseeable gags enhanced by Reese Witherspoonโ€™s amusing characteristics, at a time when The Spice Girlsโ€™ run of โ€œgirl powerโ€ was fading. Challenging the blonde stereotype with comical narrative was a peg in female equality and certainly the break for Reese; ummm, Reese Witherspoonโ€ฆโ€ฆ where was I? Oh yes, female equality.

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Like many trailblazing films, it received a theatrical reworking by 2007. Premiered on Broadway, Legally Blonde had an efficacious three-year-run at London’s Savoy and picked up many awards. Now, directed by Oliver Phipps and Hayley Baxter with musical direction from Naomi Ibbetson, it has found its way, least a โ€œJnrโ€ version, to our own Wharf Theatre.

Legally Blonde Jr. The Musical opens at the Wharf Wednesday 24th July, runs until Saturday 27th (7.30pm each evening with a 2.30pm Saturday Matinee) and promises to be pink: โ€œThe Musical is a fun and sassy journey of self-empowerment and expanding horizons, with instantly recognizable songs, this show will leave cast members and audiences alike seeing pink!โ€

Plot being, if the film passed you by: The Delta Nu sorority president, Elle Woods, seems to have it all; good looks, a relationship with the campus catch and a great taste in clothes. However, her life is turned upside down when her boyfriend, Warner, dumps her to attend Harvard Law School. Determined not to lose him Elle uses hard work and a fair degree of charm to get a place there herself so that she can prove she is serious and win him back. Whilst there she tackles stereotypes, snobbery and scandal but she also makes some great new friends along the way and gradually discovers how her new found knowledge of the law can really help others.

With music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, again itโ€™s a rousing and prevalent choice for the delightfully quaint Wharf Theatre. Tickets, ยฃ12 with under 16s ยฃ10, can be purchased from Ticketsource, at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, or by ringing 03336 663 366. To find out what else is on at the Wharf pick up a Spring/Summer brochure which is available from the Community Hub and Library and many other outlets around Devizes.

 

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Jemmaโ€™s Thoughts (well, some of them) on Things I Know to be True @ The Wharf Theatre

As big chief of the Invitation Theatre Company and partner of Anthony, conductor of The Full Tone Orchestra, you cannot deny, Jemma Brown knows a thing or two about performing arts, so Iโ€™ve pinched her words of praise after watching Things I Know to be True at the Wharf Theatreโ€ฆโ€ฆ.

Jemma Brown โ€“ 26.4.19

I donโ€™t think I have ever heard so many people, prior to me going to see something, telling me how incredible it is. So, it was with a gently raised eyebrow, that I went to see Andrew Bovellโ€™s Things I Know to be True โ€“ directed by a friend, with good friends in it, on a stage that has an awful lot of personal connection, I girded my loins. Now before I launch into what I thought of it all, one must know that I am horribly critical, an awful theatre goer, and the fact that I know the performers and director, my thoughts must not be deemed as bias. Because I would tell you how it is.

It was totally and utterly beautiful. Beautiful.

It made me think about every single possible aspect of life. The love, the pain, the happiness, the sadness, the euphoria, the devastation. And, whatโ€™s important.

The set – simple, sensual, unfussy โ€“ was the perfect setting for what lay ahead. Six breathtakingly superb performers, performing a piece that is so brilliantly written meant I was hooked from the second it started. The lighting, and the setting was sublime. I loved the fact simple accents were used, because it meant each cast member could grasp the text and tell the story and it made them all the more relatable.

ThingsIKnowToBeTrue

The use of film, laying out a relationship of a family, was an inspired and delicate way to set everything out. We knew from it, that we were going to be meeting a family who loved each other. It drew me in, and it made me gently weep. And how it made me feel at the endโ€ฆ. not everything you see is how it is. The things you know, they change, and they grow.

Interspersed throughout was the most wonderful physical theatre, to the most brilliantly chosen music that enveloped you. The dance elements fell into place like a comfortable shoe, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. And they made me brim with tears. The interconnections between the family was brought to life by this touch and made all the more powerful by the tenderness as it was steered by the cast. A glass of wine that passed from one to another at one point, like it floated. The brother and sister connection that playfully danced.

The coming together of all of them to support and move and just be there, in gentle, significant movements was just stunning. The scene at the end was quite simply one of the most powerful and beautifully executed pieces of theatre I have ever seen. I couldnโ€™t get out of the theatre quick enough at the end so I could get to my car and howl. And I sobbed. I sobbed because of the story, but I sobbed because those six people, the director and the technical team had created something so beautiful, it was all I could do. When I got home, I couldnโ€™t explain what I had just seen, I sobbed and I jumbled a sobbing garble to my husband about what I had just seen. I held my daughter so tight and just could not tell her deeply enough how much I loved her. The effect the whole production had on me was profound. And I really am not the only one. This play has deeply touched everyone who has seen it.

The four children were played by four exceptional actors, each of whom played their roles with such excellence, I found myself wondering why they arenโ€™t all on the professional stage. I forgot I was at The Wharf and that they all have normal lives. They handled their characters with such care and maturity โ€“ real kudos to Freddie Underwood and her exemplary direction. I just knew that rehearsal process had been special, that what they had undertaken was a passion for the text and for their director. Because it showed.

Jessica Whiley as Rosie was enchanting. Her storytelling and perfect diction had me feeling and believing and imagining every single thing she was telling us. I felt the love she felt, I felt the passion she had had and I wanted to go home and share a bowl of cereal with the love of MY life. She captured the sense of travelling but wanting to be at home just perfectly. Her performance throughout was captivating. She broke my heart at the end of the play, her gentle voice and the beautiful but devastating words that came tumbling out of her mouth made me want to bawl. Her performance was outstanding.

Lou Cox, a stalwart of theatre, surpassed my expectations as Pip. Her characterisation of the role drew you in and you felt every feeling that she had. Her brilliant usage of inflections and the light and shade of her expertly executed use of the stage and the script meant that you knew who she was, her relationship with her mother and her siblings. Her relationship with every other character on stage was real and unmistakable. Louโ€™s handling of the character meant you knew exactly who Pip was, it was a striking and beautiful performance. I felt the pull she felt and that earth-shattering realisation that you need to follow your heart.

Fraser Normington as Ben – I loved him. His flexibility within the character was excellent. He caught the busyness of his life perfectly. He looked good, he sounded good and when he royally messed up, his manic panic was caught so brilliantly, I thought I was going to have a panic attack.

Karl Montgomery-Williams played the role of Mark magnificently. We knew something was wrong, he brought something to the stage when we first met him that we could just feel there wasnโ€™t something right. As it unfolded, his storytelling was exquisite. His sensitivity to the subject, his relationship with Rosie and the response to his parents, was heartbreakingly brilliant. Again, you just felt every emotion, every word. His performance was remarkable.

Debby Wilkinson and Paul Butler as Fran and Bob. Well what can I say. I have seen these two perform and have been lucky enough to be on stage with both of them. They blew me away. Paul was bimbling and kind, and his parenting was just what every child needs; calm, gentle, principled. You yet again, felt who he was and felt every inch of his loyalty to his wife and the life they had made together and that he had always done what he thought was right. His aversion to swearing and how he reacted to it made you never want to swear again โ€“ yet his โ€˜F*CK YOUโ€™ was one of the highlights for me. Because it came from Paul as Bob in such a way at the direction towards his son, the disappointment and pure and innate despair, was palpable. It hung in the air, it bounced around the theatre, we felt it. But his relationship with his wife was beautiful was what I loved the most โ€“ he broke my heart, his performance when he broke was simply heartbreakingly beautiful โ€“ his collapsing on his beloved roses made me want to howl, holding that in was near on impossible, but he captured absolute, all-encompassing pain, gut wrenchingly perfectly.

In response to his portrayal of Bob, Debby played the part of Fran with extraordinary professionalism and realism. She was quite truly excellent. Her connections with the words, the emotion, her relationship with each of her children was breathtakingly intense. She made me feel like I didnโ€™t know who she was โ€“ I thought I had her, then she changed. A friend of mine hated her character, describing her as a bitch โ€“ I didnโ€™t see her as a bitch, I just saw her and felt her as someone who just didnโ€™t quite know how to โ€˜beโ€™, her children were all different and the one who was the most like her was the one who she loathed.

So, was she self-loathing? Was that what the problem was? I just did not know, and that was down to how to she was directed, but also how she interpreted such a great and complex piece of writing that captured so many issues and feeling and life experiences. Her handling of the character, the script, the stunning, stunning movement that was incorporated and then her explosion at one of her sons that simply took my breath away, made me weep โ€“ her brilliance made me weep.

The production was better than clever. There is just so much in it to talk about. The characterisations of each character left me totally unable to explain what I had just seen. The lighting and music made me want to tap on the lighting box door and tell them how excellently they had handled it all (a real rarity), but the whole vision from the director that had spilled out onto the stage and in her performers, was exemplary. The pure emotion that had been poured into every single aspect was truly on a professional level. It did, quite frankly, blow me away. Even when I sensed there might have been a few line struggles, it just didnโ€™t matter. It was slick, it was calm, and you felt them all working together to make the whole thing โ€˜happenโ€™.

One thing I know to be true, was that it was, quite frankly, one of the best pieces of live theatre I have ever seen.
And not just because it is an incredible script, but because of who directed it, her tech team and who she had cast to be in it.

 

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Things I Know to Be True at The Wharf Theatre

 

Ever since Little Shop of Horrors, the things I know to be true about The Wharf Theatre are that, itโ€™s a lovely, unpretentious theatre Devizes should be proud of, and itโ€™s dedicated to bringing quality shows to our town.

Written by Andrew Bovell and directed by Freddie Underwood then, The Things I Know to Be True is their latest offering. It runs from Monday 22nd to Saturday 27 April, curtain at 7:30pm, and despite being a relatively new piece, its first UK production in 2016, it is already on the GCSE syllabus.

Claiming to be an inspirational compliment of text and movement, Things I Know to be True is as beautifully touching as it is funny, a portrait of marriage and family as seen through the eyes of four siblings, Pip, Mark, Ben and Rosie, all of whom have their own struggles and secrets.

Bob and Fran Price have worked hard to give their family all of the opportunities they never had and now, with their children ready to fly the nest, it should be their time, a time to sit back and smell the roses. But a change of season brings some shattering truths as reality is tested and lives are redefined.

Tickets (ยฃ12/under 16s ยฃ10) can be purchased from Ticketsource at:
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/events or at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm or by ringing 03336 663 366.

To find out what else is on at the Wharf pick up a new Spring/Summer brochure which is now available from the Community Hub and Library and many other outlets around Devizes.

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Shakespeare Back at the Wharf Theatre

Aye, heareth this, mine own cater-cousins, Shakey is backeth at the Wharf Theatre in Marcheth; timeth to beest did enlighten and amus’d.

 
Liz Sharman, who directed the incredibly successful, โ€œA Funny Thing Happened on The Way to The Forumโ€ last year, is taking the helm again for William Shakespeareโ€™s โ€œAs You Like It;โ€ it promises to be a strong show.

 
Showing from Monday 11th to Saturday 16th March at 7.30pm, this 1599 pastoral comedy has remained an audience favourite for over four hundred years.

 
Duke Senior has been usurped by his younger brother Duke Frederick and is now exiled from the controlling confines of court. His daughter Rosalind and her cousin Celia have also run away and arrive in the forest with Rosalind now dressed as a young man in order to avoid detection. Others taking refuge amongst the country folk of the Forest of Arden include Rosalindโ€™s admirer Orlando, the court fool, Touchstone and melancholy traveller, Jaques, who gives many of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches including “All the world’s a stage”, “Too much of a good thing” and “A fool! A fool! I met a fool in the forest!”

 
As with all good comedies much confusion ensues amongst the wooing as societyโ€™s rules are overthrown. As You Like It remains an exuberant theatrical journey featuring several songs, a wrestling match, a joyful quadruple wedding and no funeral!

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Tickets (ยฃ12/under 16s ยฃ10) can be purchased from Ticketsource at: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/events or at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm or by ringing 03336 663 366.

 
To find out what else is on at the Wharf pick up a new Spring/Summer brochure which is now available from the Community Hub and Library and many other outlets around Devizes.

 
For further information contact Karen Ellis: http://www.publicity@wharftheatre.co.uk

 

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There’s a Kidnap… In Pantoland!

No, not some kid’s pap in Poundland, there’s been a kidnap in Pantoland, or at least there will be if the Wharf Theatre have anything to do with it. Me, I’m trying to imagine: “he’s behind you!…..Oh, he was behind you, now he’s bartering for your ransom demand.”

Still,ย  The Wharf Theatre Group ask, “what better way to start the Christmas Season and get into the festive spirit than by taking the family to the Wharf Theatre to discover all the songs, jokes and slapstick fun you would expect from the magical world of panto?”

“Come and cheer, boo and generally join in as you help discover โ€˜who-done-itโ€™ in this pantomime adventure featuring all of your favourite fairy-tale characters,” my money is on Buttons, never trusted that guy, always the quiet ones.

“Together you can catch the culprit and rescue Snow White, Sleeping Beauty & Cinderella who have all been taken hostage by someone in Pantoland. Help Detectives Maverick and Chirpy investigate the case with a little help from the goodies, including wacky washer woman Widow Twanky and silly servant Buttons. And remember to keep a look out for the baddies – Captain Hook, the Evil Queen, the Wicked Stepmother & the Wicked Fairy are hiding out at their club house, working on their alibis!”

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I confess, I’ve a little crush on the Wharf Theatre since the fantastic Little Shop of Horrors performance and it sounds to me like The Wharf’s spin on pantomime will be highly entertaining family fun!ย Tickets ยฃ12/under 16s ยฃ10, can be purchased from Ticketsource at:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-wharf-theatre/events

or at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm or by ringing 03336 663 366. To find out what else is on at the Wharf pick up a new Autumn/Winter brochure which is now available from the Community Hub and Library and many other outlets around Devizes.

Wharf Theatre, Wharfside, Devizes, SN10 1EB

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Wharf Theatre Brings Local Playwriterโ€™s โ€œBroken Wingโ€ to Life

Zara is therapist to a sixteen year old refugee, trying to come to terms with the brutal horrors of war. Her own adopted daughter of the same age is dealing with her โ€˜innerโ€™ conflict. As the characters of the two girls, Layee and Thea, emerge, they tell not only their own stories but each otherโ€™s, to a world which they often feel doesnโ€™t listen or understand.

 
Showing the deep anguish, feelings of loss of identity and abandonment which can link both adoption and asylum, itโ€™s the intriguing plot of Broken Wing, the world premier play of Devizes author Annie L Cooper. Annie was prompted to write it after her personal experiences as a therapist working in Bosnia with the victims of concentration camps, and having witnessed the complex issues involved in adoption. Itโ€™s being staged by director Lewis Cowen at The Wharf Theatre in Devizes for Tuesday 19th to Saturday 23rd June.

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Not set in any specific time or place, because sadly these issues still occur in all corners of the world, itโ€™s a powerful production with strong language and disturbing themes, hence its over sixteen guideline.

 
What an inspiring move for our local theatre, adapting a local authorโ€™s work and staging an exclusive play which hopefully will be taken up elsewhere.

 
Catch Broken Wing at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes: Tuesday 19th โ€“ Saturday 23rd June 2018 @ 7.30pm Tickets ยฃ12/ยฃ10; concessions can be purchased from the website: wharftheatre.co.uk or at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm or by ringing 03336 663 366 For further information contact Karen Ellis www.publicity@wharftheatre.co.uk ย 

Ticket Source here

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Goodnight Mr Tom at the Wharf

Michelle Magorianโ€™s delightful novel about the experiences of young evacuee has been through a number of incarnations, most notably the TV film starring John Thaw. However David Woodโ€™s stage version is enjoying great success, and directed by Kim Pearce, it’s the latest performance at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes.

 

Running from Friday 9th to Saturday 17th March 2018, 7.30pm each evening with a 2.30pm matinee on Saturday 10th March, this sounds like a heart-warming prose (please note: there are no performances on Sunday11th and Monday 12th March.)

 

Willie Beech is a boy from the slums of south east London who finds himself unloved and unwanted when he is evacuated to the countryside as Britain finds itself on the brink of World War II. Widower Tom Oakley takes the shy young lad under his wing. The aging reclusesโ€™ stony heart is gradually softened and the experience poignantly changes both, in this heart-warming tale.

 
Tickets ยฃ12/ยฃ10 concessions can be purchased from: The Devizes Community Hub and Library, Sheep Street, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm. The website Wharftheatre.co.uk. Or by ringing 03336 663 366.

 
To find out what else is on at the Wharf pick up the new Spring Summer brochure which is now available from the Community Hub and Library and many other outlets around Devizes.