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In the Community


Madhatters News, Summer 2009

The Madhatters don't just put on plays: we organise lots of social events too. Here are details of what we've got planned for the next few months: please feel free to come along. For further details of what the Madhatters are doing please contact Martin 020 8450 8505 or Cathy 020 8452 5239.
 
Coming up

See our Next production for information about our Alan Ayckbourn project, working on Gizmo and advance news of carol singing in aid of Save the Children.

Summer fun in the park

We all joined in the Brent Arts Council play about William Gladstone to celebrate the Grand Old man’s 200th birthday – he was born 29 December 1809 and spent weekends relaxing in the rural bliss of Dollis Hill when he was prime minister in the 1880s and 90s. Gladstone was staged in Gladstone Park in July. There was no charge, thanks to a generous grant. One performance was wet but the sun shone for the others!
More about Gladstone

2009 is a big year for anniversaries: 250 years since the birth of Robbie Burns, 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 200 years since the birth of William Ewart Gladstone, four times prime minister of Great Britain, finally stepping down at the grand old age of 85, in 1894.

Gladstone’s anniversary has a special significance for people in Brent as the Grand Old Man (GOM) spent so much of his later life staying in Dollis Hill House, the home of his friend and foreign secretary the Earl of Aberdeen. The grounds of this house are named Gladstone Park in his honour; the local phone code, 452, is of course GLA; and Hawarden Hill, the flats opposite, are named after his family home near Chester, Hawarden Hall.

Gladstone Park is 70 acres of playground, grass and trees, with the stables of Dollis Hill House now the Stables Arts Centre. At weekends, Gladstone and his beloved wife Catherine regularly drove out to the rural retreat of Dollis Hill House, to get away from the stress and strains of Downing Street. Here Gladstone picked strawberries and rose buds from the walled garden. He slept under the trees in a hammock and bathed in the pond. He served sandwiches and tea to the haymakers and sang hymns with Catherine. On Sunday mornings they drove to St Mary’s Church in Willesden and thousands of people turned out to cheer him. Sometimes the crowds were so large that the couple went instead to St Andrew’s Church in Kingsbury.

Brent Arts Council wished to celebrate Gladstone’s 200th birthday, especially as we are based at the Stables at the top of Gladstone Park, the former grounds of Dollis Hill House. The play was about Gladstone’s life and times in Gladstone Park. This production was the only play in the country celebrating Gladstone’s 200th anniversary. It is the latest Brent Council summer play in Gladstone Park – we staged Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2006, Peer Gynt in 2007 and Treasure Island in 2008 – all free and well attended, despite the odd summer shower. We were very fortunate in having a generous grant from the Awards for All Lottery Fund for this project. This meant that we could afford Victorian costumes, a professional director and professional actors, working with local actors young and old. The play was written especially for us by Amy Bonsall and Michael Redston, who wrote last year’s very popular Treasure Island.
 
       

The Madhatters Theatre Club is a registered charity (Registered charity No. 1095317)
and is affliated to the Brent Arts Council
© 2009 Madhatters Theatre Club

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