Frinton Summer Theatre 2010

Details provided by Edward Max:

THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEPP (13th - 17th July 2010)
By Charles Ludlum
From the team that brought you Elsie and Norm’s Macbeth comes this marvellous pastiche of the Victorian and Edwardian melodrama. Thrill to the wicked machinations of Nicodemus and Alcazar! Shudder as the terrible fate of Irma Vepp is uncovered! Gasp as you are magically whisked from Dorset to Egypt and back! Cower as the Hideous Werewolf and Mouldering Mummy terrorise your heroes. Triumph as honour, love and courage triumph over evil, fear and skullduggery! Oh yes, and you might laugh a bit as well. Opens 13th July.

A COUPLE OF WHITE CHICKS SITTING AROUND TALKING (20th - 24th July 2010)
By John Ford Noonan
Maude Mix, Queen of the Housewife’s Circuit in Westchester County, New York, has a new neighbour! Brash and sassy, Hannah Mae Bindler from deepest Texas is not prepared to do things the Westchester way, and will not take no for an answer. She is determined to forge a friendship with her new neighbour, drink her coffee and steal her much-prized recipe for muffins. Despite Maude’s dogged determination to hang on to her privacy,  Hannah Mae succeeds – with unforeseen consequences for the both of them.

COME BLOW YOUR HORN (27th - 31st July 2010)
By Neil Simon
Harry Baker, owner of the largest artificial fruit business on the East Coast, has two sons. One, Alan, is a 33 year old playboy, the other, Buddy, a 21 year old with the urge to assert himself. Whilst Alan only works two days a week (going on skiing and golfing breaks with attractive females for the other five), Buddy moves into Alan’s bachelor apartment, and seemingly, his bachelor lifestyle. As his aghast father looks on with mounting disbelief, his mother worries herself insane about whether he is getting enough appetisers! Not to mention the constant stream of attractive young women that seem to arrive at Alan’s apartment at exactly the wrong moment. Richly comic complications ensue as parents learn to let go of their children, and young men look at their lives in a new light..

THE BOX (3rd - 7th August 2010)
By Patrick Marlowe
Another tense thriller from our own Mr Marlowe. Nick and Esther have just married, and have retired to the country on the proceeds of his successful career in the City. However, things take a sinister turn when he has to leave suddenly, and a polite and plausible old man arrives at the door with a young assistant, a series of strange requests and a lot of inside information. Soon both Nick and Esther are faced with horrifying choices, upon which will depend the future of their marriage, and indeed, their lives!

CHANGING ROOMS (10th - 14th August 2010)
By Marc Camolletti, adapted by Jonathan Holloway
Bernard, recently appointed as a high flying government official, is desperately trying to get some time alone with his mistress, Brigitte. Jacqueline, his wife, is desperately trying (in between crashing the car and buying antiques) to get some time alone with her lover Robert. Nana, their housekeeper, is desperately trying to get a quiet weekend in her employers’ apartment – without her employers! When each of them think they have managed to get rid of the others, they all set about fulfilling their heart’s desire – with predictably hilarious results. Set in the stylish world of 70’s Parisian society, this fast-moving farce will leave audiences breathlessly delighted!

LIVING TOGETHER (17th - 21st August 2010)
By Alan Ayckbourn
A return to our favourite playwright’s triumphant trilogy, and the complicated love life of Norman, the world’s most amorous  assistant librarian. After the disasters of life in the dining room, this play examines the fallout from Norman and Annie’s failed attempt at a dirty weekend in East Grinstead in the living room. Needless to say, they do not escape from the watchful eyes of Annie’s censorious sister-in-law, Sarah. Instead we watch the family get drunk, quarrel over the washing up, play the guitar (badly) and board games (interminably), whilst complaining about the quality of the home-made wine and the prevalence of salad on the menu. Add to this the demands of the short-sighted Ruth and the cluelessness of Tom, the vet, and you are left with a perfect recipe for a disastrous family reunion.

LUNCH HOUR / THE £12 LOOK (24th - 28th August 2010)
By Sir John Mortimer / J M Barrie
A double bill of one-act comedies from two of our most loved writers for the stage to end the season. In Lunch Hour, we meet a pair of lovers trying to snatch an hour of time together in a Hotel room in Kings Cross. However, as the Manageress reveals the explanation given for the taking of the room, the girl sees a whole new side to her paramour she never dreamed of. In The £12 Look, we meet Sir Harry and Lady Sims on the eve of the announcement of his knighthood. However the arrival of a secretary to type the great man’s letters of acknowledgement reveals a history he would rather not have admitted to!

Welcome to Frinton and to its legendary Summer Theatre season.

My name is Edward Max and I hope you have a wonderful summer, whether you visit the theatre or not.
Here is some background to the Frinton Summer Theatre.

In 1937, Frinton Summer Theatre started. Over the months of July and August, a few hardy professionals presented a season of weekly repertory theatre at the Imperial Hall in Pole Barn Lane. Of course the war stopped the season in its tracks in 1941, and it was not until 1947 that  the Cambridge academic TP Hoar started up the season again in the McGrigor (formerly the WI) Hall. They ran it until 1974, whilst all around them the tradition of this kind of theatre-making began to die.

In 1974, Jack Watling was encouraged by residents to take over the season, which he duly did. A year later, the Friends of Frinton Theatre was formed and for the next thirty years, between the two of them they kept the season running. Jack was Artistic Director, then his son Giles took over, and finally his son-in-law Seymour took up the challenge.
Seymour ran the business for twenty-one years in conjunction with his wife Nicky, and between them they built up the business, established a house style and went on to run the seasons over at Southwold and Sheringham in some years.

In 2004 I took over. I decided to move the repertoire into a more adventurous (for Frinton) area. In addition to Ayckbourn, Coward and Neil Simon, I added in Shaw, Ibsen and Chekhov; I added more contemporary work from writers like Yasmina Reza, Athol Fugard and John Godber. In addition to the comedies, farces and thrillers we now present repertory classics like Driving Miss Daisy and 84 Charing Cross Road. I also helped the newly established management committee raise (in conjunction with the Friends, the local Rotary and the County
Council) over £50,000 in funds to modernise the building; we now have new state-of-the-art toilets and kitchen facilities!

As the next six years progressed, I became more and more aware that the work we were doing was getting better and better. People sometimes laugh at the idea of Weekly Rep, but my experience has been that no-one laughs at it after they have seen one of our productions. With hard work, our design and technical team get an excellent finish on some wonderfully inventive sets (making full use of the stage and its terrifying dimensions of 17 by 13 feet!). For actors that know how to make clear choices, an excellent standard of work is possible. And by the end of the week’s run, when the big Thursday, Friday and Saturday night houses are in, the energy crackles off the stage, and bursts out of the auditorium at half-time, as the audience stands under the theatre’s fairy lights and consume their beer, wine and ice-cream. We regularly sell out. So avoid any dissapointment and book early through the Box Office number, 07905 589792. You might also consider joining the Friends of Frinton Theatre - the FOFT, as they are affectionately known. Membership brings the chance to socialise outside of the season, to raise funds and have fun at the same time, and to book your seats early. You even get a 15% discount on your season tickets!

PRODUCTION HISTORY

2004
Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer (Directed by Julian Harries)
Lettice and Lovage by Peter Shaffer (Directed by Christiana Hille)
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen (Directed by Edward Max)
Family Circles by Alan Ayckbourn (Directed by Julian Harries)
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (Directed by Edward Max)
Dead of Night by Peter Whalley (Directed by Christiana Hille)
Private Lives by Noel Coward (Directed by Julian Harries)


2005
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, adap. Stephen Mallatrat (Directed by John Baxter)
Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell (Directed by Christiana Hille)
Relatively Speaking by Alan Ayckbourn (Directed by Julian Harries)
In Two Minds by Richard Harris (Directed by Sean McLevy)
Man of Destiny by GB Shaw/The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard (Directed by Edward Max)
The Sneeze by Anton Chekhov, adap. Michael Frayn (Directed by Edward Max)
Life X 3 by Yasmina Reza, trans. Christopher Hampton (Directed by Sean McLevy)
Elsie and Norm’s “Macbeth” by John Christopher-Wood (Directed by Julian Harries)

2006
Intimate Exchanges by Alan Ayckbourn (Directed by Julian Harries)
Come Into The Garden,Maud by Noel Coward / Mark Twain’s Diaries of Adam and Eve by David Birney
Talking Heads by Alan Bennett (Directed by Sean McLevy)
Good Morning, Bill by PG Wodehouse (Directed by Edward Max)
Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward (Directed by Sean McLevy)
Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene, adap. Giles Havergal (Directed by Philip Weaver)
The Last Gamble by Bill McIllwraith  (Directed by Simon West, Keswick))
The Dock Brief by John Mortimer (Directed by Edward Max)

Adam and Eve (2006)

2007
The Public Eye by Peter Shaffer (Directed by Edward Max)
Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton (Directed by Jonathan Holloway)
Chapter Two by Neil Simon (Directed by Edward Max)
Marking Time by  Michael Snelgrove (Directed by Simon West)
Table Manners by Alan Ayckbourn (Directed by Edward Max)
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry (Directed by Philip Weaver)
The Late Edwina Black by William Dinner and William Morrow (Directed by Sean McLevy)

Table Manners (2007)

2008
Educating Rita by Willy Russell (Directed by Edward Max)
The Decorator by Donald Churchill (Directed by Jonathan Holloway)
I Ought To Be In Pictures by Neil Simon (Directed by Edward Max)
How the Other Half Loves by Alan Ayckbourn (Directed by Jonathan Holloway)
84 Charing Cross Road – by Helene Hanff, adap. James Roose-Evans  (Directed by Simon West)
Death Is Catching by Miles Tripp and Jean McConnell (Directed by Tom Littler)
A Place With The Pigs by Athol Fugard (Directed by Edward Max)

2009
April in Paris by John Godber (Directed by Edward Max)
Marsh House by Patrick Marlowe (Directed by Julian Harries)
One For The Road by Willy Russell (Directed by Tom Littler)
Say Who You Are by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (Directed by Julian Harries)
Absent Friends by Alan Ayckbourn (Directed by Edward Max)
Veronica’s Room by Ira Levin (Directed by Simon West)
Mr and Mrs Nobody by Keith Waterhouse (Directed by Tom Littler)

April in Paris (2009)

Mr and Mrs Nobody (2009)

2010
The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlum (Directed by Julian Harries)
A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking by John Ford Noonan (Directed by Tom Littler)
Come Blow Your Horn by Neil Simon (Directed by Anthony Clark)
The Box by Patrick Marlowe (Directed by Edward Max)
Changing Rooms by Marc Camoletti (Directed by Jonathan Holloway)
Living Together by Alan Ayckbourn (Directed by Edward Max)
Lunch Hour by John Mortimer and The £12 Look by J M Barrie (Directed by Edward Max)