The Out and About Theatre Company History

1992 - 'The Out and About Theatre Company' based in Wallasey,
Merseyside, has been in existence since 1992 and was formed by a small
group of enthusiastic actors and actresses who had previously been
members of other groups that for one reason or another had folded.
Born out of a common desire to continue acting in the belief that
'The Show Must Go On' we began as all new societies do trying to think
of a name that was catchy and appropriate. 'The Out and About Players'
was chosen, as our original intention was that we would be a touring
theatre company. It wasn't until 1996 that a typographical error in the
programme at the first 'Wirral Festival of One Act Plays',
inadvertently forced us to extend our name to 'The Out and About Theatre
Company', however there were times when we have seriously considered
calling ourselves "The Ever-Decreasing Theatre Company", due to our
frequent shortage of members!

1993 - Our first production was an evening of varied content,
two one-act plays, a light comedy 'Wife Required', the drama 'A Sense
of the Ridiculous', and a short comedy sketch, 'How Does Your Garden
Grow?' written by one of our former members David Lowe, which were
performed at what were to become our main venues, Union St and Marlowe
Road United Reformed Churches. 'Wife Required' told the story of a 'single'
man who having advertised in a newspaper for a wife has to face the
prospect of getting rid of four wholly unsuitable partners who just happen
to turn up on the same day, accompanied by his real wife. 'How Does Your
Garden Grow?', concerns a man obsessed with garden gnomes convinced that
that 'they're coming to take him away, ha-ha, hee-hee' and 'A Sense of
the Ridiculous', a macabre play in which a girl living with her mother
and uncle dreams that they have murdered over 20 people. The Devil arrives
to exact retribution, planting an idea into her head. But does she go to
hell for her crime or had she just left it?

1994 - Preparations began soon after 'Wife Required' for our
second year's production, three more one-act plays. 'Perfect Partners'
was a comedy tinged with pathos set in a dating agency run by two people
going through an acrimonious separation and divorce. Hardly a good
advertisement! 'The Space Between the Years' was a farce in which a
visitor from Jupiter mistakenly lands on earth in what he believes
is the Elizabethan era. Dressed in full Tudor regalia he encounters
the landlady of the 'Olde Spotted Cow Hotel' who soon realises that
his apparently inexhaustible supply of gold sovereigns is well worth
cultivating and 'Joining the Club', an award winning play by David
Tristram, told the story of Jenny, a successful career woman, who
found herself pregnant on the same day that her husband Tom had insulted
his boss and resigned. Catching him grovelling on the phone in an effort
to regain his job she snatches the phone from him and reiterates the
insult. They face the prospect of parenthood happily together.
Following the success of these performances we then planned to do our
first full 3 act play 'These Ghoulish Things' by Sam Bate. Parts were
handed out and rehearsals were begun with the expectation that we would
perform at Easter 1995. However we then were met with a crisis: two of our
original members decided to leave. The play had to be abandoned.

1995 - During this year we first lost Graham temporarily when he had
to work away from home for 8 months. This was followed shortly by Ian
Carmichael (remembered for some amusing performances) who moved away
from Wallasey to take up employment in Manchester.
During this time it was left to the remaining members of the team to
prepare for the year's production, 'Something Borrowed' and 'The Paying
Guest'. The first of these plays, written by Claire Booker, told the
story of a mother and daughter fighting for the attentions of their
bachelor neighbour, whilst the landlady of the 'The Paying Guest'
discovers that her tenant is a murderess and almost loses her life in
the process. Linda Terris who featured in both of these plays then
took a self-imposed two-year sabbatical to continue her studies.

1996 - Shortly after 'Something Borrowed' and 'The Paying Guest'
were both wound up and 1996 dawned, we started rehearsals for our most
ambitious project, a full three-act play 'How Now Hecate?' by Martyn Coleman.
Rehearsals were begun in earnest and we planned to perform the play late
October/early November of 1996. We also received an invitation from
The St.Alban's Players (also based in Wallasey) to take part in the first
Wirral Festival of One-Act Plays which was to be held in May of 1996 at the
largest theatre on the Wirral, the Floral Pavilion Theatre, New Brighton.
It was hoped that six societies would take part in this competition which
has since become known as 'The Friendly Festival' due to it's fairly relaxed
attitude and few stringent rules. As our Festival entry we chose to reprise
a play we had previously performed, 'Joining the Club' by David Tristram,
in which we acquitted ourselves well but unfortunately no prizes were won
but, as they say, there's always next year!
Shortly after the Festival we continued apace with our rehearsals for 'How
Now Hecate?' However, during the latter stages of our rehearsals and three
weeks from our opening night, one of our members' parents was found to be
seriously ill and sadly passed away. Obviously we had to postpone any
performance until the following year.

1997 - This year unwittingly became our busiest. Almost a whole year
after beginning rehearsals we finally performed 'How Now Hecate?' to
three very good audiences at our usual theatres, Union St and Marlowe
Road United Reformed Churches and an addition to our venues, Claremount
Methodist Church Hall, the home of the Claremount Players. This last
venue proved to be a great challenge as the Claremount Players, having
just finished their annual production, allowed us to use the same very
impressive set that they had used for their show. This may sound straight-
forward enough, but no, all the entrances and exits were mirror images of
what we had rehearsed for over a year which we found to be naturally quite
daunting. However we coped very well despite going off-stage the wrong way
on at least two occasions. We don't think the audience noticed too much
despite the fact that the kitchen would not normally be found through the
french windows! 'How Now Hecate?' was a quite complex and technically-
challenging play to perform for such a small group with limited resources.
The play was about the arrival of a mysterious visitor at the home of a
cantankerous and sceptical writer researching into the occult. Strange
things happened at every turn involving glowing cauldrons, love potions,
thunder and lightning and black cats! Finally it was over and we could
put the black cat prop to bed. It was a great relief to see the end of
'How Now Hecate?' and we could move on to Festival 1997.
We chose as our Festival entry this year one of Alan Ayckbourne's lesser
known short plays 'A Cut in the Rates'. This proved to be almost as
equally challenging as 'How Now Hecate?' in that the play was set in:
'a street, a living room and a cellar' all on the one stage. It was quite
a tricky job fitting it all on the stage at the Floral Pavilion, however
with the help of the lighting crew at the theatre we succeeded in using
lighting effects to give the impression of transition from one scene to
the next. For this play we chose to create a real sense of gloom even
choosing 'Danse Macabre' by Saint-Saens as our opening music. This all
helped to make the punchline even more effective once the denouement was
reached. The main characters Ratchet the illusionist and his ghostly wife
Rosalinda were in reality elaborate hoaxers attempting yet again to default
on their council tax payments. Again we acquitted ourselves well but
unfortunately no prizes were won but, as they say, there's always next
year! (Didn't we say that last year?) We very quickly began rehearsals
for our next production, another evening of one-act plays, which were
planned to be performed early 1998. Donna Smith then decided to continue
her education and took several months off away from acting to study.

1998 - For our first production of this year we chose to repeat our
Festival entry of 1997 'A Cut in the Rates' for the benefit of our
followers who may have missed it at it's last outing. This was accompanied
by 'Plaster' set in a hospital ward where Eric the victim of a car accident
finally gets his come-uppance from his canny wife, and 'Last Tango in
Wallasey' the tale of the only four surviving members of an amateur drama
group, struggling to perform yet another play against all odds, undaunted
by ever-decreasing audiences and ever-increasing problems. (Sounds like it
could have been written for us!) For our performance at Marlowe Road Church
we even managed to get our largest ever audience (Festivals excluded) with
64 people in attendance. This in itself may not sound many but is a far cry
from the earlier days when we had more on stage than in the audience!
Plans were then begun to take part in what was to become the largest Wirral
Festival of One-Act Plays in it's short life, with a total of 9 societies
now taking part over three nights. We chose the ambitious 'Extraordinary
Revelations of Orca the Goldfish' by David Tristram, a virtuoso piece of
comedy theatre for two actors lasting almost 50 minutes requiring Graham
to perform the equivalent of 10 characters and as equally daunting for
Sue, requiring her to take on several different personć, playing opposite
Graham, as man and wife continually stepping in and out of character in a
series of dream sequences. It was therefore all the more satisfying when
Graham was given the award for "Best Actor", our first award.
Following on from our success at the Wirral Festival we also performed
'Orca' at the 14th annual Chester Fringe Festival, a month long arts and
drama festival held within the walls of this historic city. We planned to
return again in the future as we had a surprisingly large and appreciative
audience together with an invitation to enter the Buxton Festival, a similar
eventheld each July.
For our '98 Winter Tour we presented two one-act plays: "The Cobblers'
Ball" by Jim Sperinck and "Last Panto in Wallasey" by David Tristram at
our three regular venues Union Street, Claremount and Marlowe Road churches
on the 23rd, 25th and 27th November. "The Cobblers Ball" was a mock
melodrama with a difference, which told the story of 'a young heart broken
on the wheel of avarice and lust'. The evil Sir Jasper forcing his unwanted
attentions on the daughter of the poor widow who lives on his estate' is
not only old hat, but definitely not acceptable in these days of sexual
equality. "Last Panto In Wallasey" was David Tristram's long-awaited sequel
to "Last Tango In Wallasey" which we presented in 1997, and it was well
worth the wait. Audiences were however very small with our worst audience
ever at Union Street, a paltry 6 people. Things had reached the point where
we had to agree that performing at Union Street was a waste of time, money
and effort. The audience at Claremount was larger than last time, helping
to raise a reasonable amount of money for the Scouts funds, and finally
Marlowe's audience was down from our record audience of 64 to just under
half at 31. Despite the poor audience figures, all those who attended
agreed that the show was well presented and was a good nights entertainment.

1999 - We opened this year with rehearsals for the fourth Wirral Festival
of One-Act Plays. We chose as our entry "One Down, Three Across", a comedy
by Mary Jackson, but even though the cast had doubled to four compared to
last year, there were still lots of lines to be learned as the play lasted
for nearly an hour. The setting of the play was unusual for a comedy as it
took place in the waiting room of a hospital pathology department where two
women meet, each waiting to identify the body of their loved one. Hardly the
scenario for a comedy, one would think, but this was a very funny play which
provided many laughs. The widows in question were Hilda and Alice, played
by Linda and Donna respectively, two women with contrasting personalities
who have plenty of time to get to know each other better. Graham finally
managed to get into a uniform as Police Sergeant Frank Johnson, a man with
many secrets, all waiting to be exposed, and Ethel had a wonderful cameo
role as the cleaning lady. It was not a wordy part, but one which had the
audience giggling in their seats and a rapturous applause during the
adjudicator's summing up.
The festival was held on 21st & 22nd May, and attracted entries from five
different drama groups: St. Alban's Players, New Thingwall Players, Wallasey
Drama Club, Neston Players and, of course, ourselves. Unfortunately no
prizes were won by our group, the main prize of Best Play going to Neston
Players for their challenging piece 'David's Birthday' by Gillian Plowman.
The Best Actor award was also won by Neston Players, going to Gordon Wallis,
for his portrayal of the mentally handicapped 'David'. The Best Actress award
went to Wallasey Drama Club's Liz Shone for her part as 'Mother' in Alan
Ayckbourne's 'Mother Figure'.

	ŠCopyright 2000 The Out and About Theatre Co Comments to: mailbox@grahamwarren.com