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Madhatters Theatre Club – Annual Report 2008-2009
Once again, this has been a year of ups and downs for the Madhatters.
We have also celebrated our 60th anniversary. We continue to have
problems with recruiting and retaining volunteers, as well as
audience numbers, but we have worked hard and tailored our drama for
a range of different audiences and venues.
We put on two very popular shows this year at our normal dates: an
Evening of Melodrama in November and a Recession Revue in May. We
continue to work with pupils and staff from Malorees School and
especially appreciate the support of Tom Rainbow, deputy head and
head of music. We have expanded our venues, staging smaller shows at
the Vive Iterum café in Dollis Hill and highlights of our
productions for an old people’s home in Edgware.
Our Evening of Melodrama was staged at the Stables. We put on two
plays: Andrew Sachs’ hilarious Wages of Sin, a choice made
especially topical by the Russell Brand affair, and Black-Eyed
Susan, by Douglas Jerrold. Martin directed us and Tom was master of
music. The wages of Sin was probably the more successful play as it
was so funny. Jess worked very hard @ dying dramatically and Martin
was hilarious as Jasper the bent butler. Ken rejoined us briefly for
this show and played Lady Priscilla’s second husband. Cathy gamely
took the female lead in both melodramas after Fiona dropped out due
to work pressure. She especially enjoyed the role of the scheming
Lady Priscilla but found Black-Eyed Susan a bit too virtuous for her
taste. Roger Kelly rejoined us just in time to take the part of the
valiant William and threw himself into the acting and singing. Ken
and Donald revelled in the parts of the dastardly Crosstree and
Doggrass, while Joan energetically doubled up as chair and Admiral.
We included a supper with our evening performances and Cathy
organised a cream tea for the Sunday matinee. Mary Draffin wrote a
witty review in the style of the melodrama.
We worked with children from Malorees School in May to stage a
topical Recession Revue, complete with soup kitchen and
mouth-watering snacks prepared by the cast to reflect the theme.
Jess not only directed the show, he also researched and even wrote a
lot of it. The company performed extracts from the 18th century play
by Thomas Shadwell Stockjobbers, Not Serious Money, about the 80s
City boom, Beating Depression, with memories of the Great American
Depression, and Roaring Trade. The music and drama was spiced up
with hilarious quotes from sages old and new on money. We were
joined by Garry Smith’s excellent folk songs, Judi Friend with a
very visual sketch about a city girl gone bust and Chris Channing on
the guitar. Nigel Smith also joined us for one evening with folk
songs. The Malorees children were directed by Jennifer Redston in a
song and dance routine from Bugsy Malone and they devised an
interesting sketch entitled The Man who Sold the World. Tom
accompanied them on the piano. Martin obtained a grant of £2,000
from Grassroots for this show, which meant at least that we did not
lose money.
Our preview Melodrama night in October was blighted by bad weather
and produced a very small audience. Numbers for both shows were a
bit disappointing and were, of course, not helped by engineering
work on the Jubilee Line, with the network closed for both
production weekends.
Once again our membership situation has not improved greatly. Simon
Dutson has joined and stayed and we were very glad to welcome back
Roger Kelly to our regular acting team. Other members have fallen by
the wayside for a variety of reasons: Fiona had too much work to
continue with us, Maureen has been ill, Steven moved to Stepney,
Gemma was an enthusiastic and talented new member but has been
unwell, Donald took a Madhatters sabbatical, Vic was made redundant
and moved to Germany. New volunteers often contact us, especially
through the Brent Volunteer Bureau, but rarely end up staying for
long. Often they do not show up at all or have unrealistic
expectations, assuming they can develop skills that we do not really
offer on a continuous basis, especially stage make up. Other local
groups also suffer similar problems. We are especially saddened by
the current ill health of Maureen and wish her all the very best in
her fight against cancer. Because of the cost of a stall, we decided
not to have a stall at the Gladstonbury Festival and joined with the
Gladstone! team in publicising the play in the park.
We continue to enjoy social outings: to the National Theatre for a
variety of shows; local theatre at the Tricycle and other local
groups; excellent Christmas dinner at the new Dollis Hill café, Vive
Iterum; outings to other productions; and of course after-play
parties, kindly hosted by Martin and Sheila. Several Madhatters have
also joined in the open air Brent Arts Council play in Gladstone
Park. Last July several members acted in a promenade production of
Treasure Island, scripted by Martin’s son, Michael and his fiancée
Amy. Michael and Amy once again came up trumps with a fantastic play
about William Gladstone, complete with music and Victorian costumes.
Martin obtained a very good grant and kind weather blessed most of
the performances.
We were invited to stage a Hallowe’en drama @ the Vive Iterum Café.
This attracted new audience and we received invitations afterwards
to perform @ the Dollis Hill Tennis Club in 2010and also a birthday
party. The 2010 show is going ahead but the birthday party fell
through when the child’s father lost his job. To celebrate our 60th
anniversary we held a party @ Martin’s and also planted 200 daffodil
bulbs in Gladstone Park in September. We publicised our Hallowe’en
night, the Melodrama preview @ the Stables and the daffodil plant in
a special social newsletter.
We also sang carols for Save the Children in December and organised
a Burns Night @ the Vive Iterum Café to celebrate Robbie Burns’
250th birthday. Vive Iterum did fabulous food and we had a good turn
out but the group were our normal crowd and we did not attract new
audience, as we had hoped. Our effort to re-run the Recession Revue
@ the Vive Iterum also fell flat: seems that Vive Iterum expect us
to do the publicity and bring in the audience, unless they invite us
to something they are organising themselves.
Simon Mercer has taken up management of the Madhatters website after
Simon Redston finally admitted that he was finding it a bit much.
Simon M has done an excellent job keeping it bang up to date – see
for example the fine Gladstone! photos on the home page.
The coming year will be busy as we work to grow our membership. We
plan to put on a play by a well-known playwright such as Alan
Ayckbourn in November and hope that a big name with the promise of
high-quality contemporary drama will help attract an audience. We
also plan to contact local schools with special offers on school
bookings and theatre workshops. The care home in Edgware are very
keen to have us back for occasional Sunday afternoon shows and
Michael’s singing goes down especially well. We have an advance
invitation to put on a Hallowe’en show at the local tennis club.
We are, as ever, grateful for all our supporters: audience members,
shops etc that display our posters, reviewers…
Cathy Mercer, Secretary, and Martin Redston, Chairman
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Madhatters Theatre Club – Annual Report 2007-2008
Welcome to the Madhatters’ AGM 2008 and the Annual Report.
Once again, this has been a year of ups and downs for the Madhatters.
Due to a continuing fall in numbers, we have only been able to stage
one play for the second year in succession. Nevertheless we put on a
very popular production in November of Galton and Antrobus’ hit West
End farce When did you last see your trousers?
We were very grateful to Tom Rainbow for his patient direction of us
but farce requires swift action and reaction and we weren’t always
fast enough. The star of the show was undoubtedly Roger Kelly’s
magnificent box set with four (five?) doors, which consistently
refused to stick and withstood nightly battles between bent copper
Jess and our leading man, Leo, fulfilling a life ambition to star in
a fast-paced farce. Donald continued his portrayal of crime in the
dual role of burglar and bent police inspector and Cathy was the
long-suffering ‘bit on the side’. Michael and Fiona stole the show
as a stoned punk and Danish au pair; while Martin’s dirty old home
secretary and Roger’s gravely-voiced colonel both went down well.
Maureen made a fine debut in dangly ear-rings and negligee as dirty
Deirdre and doubled up as seamstress on duty, mending the suit which
Leo and Martin mauled in a magnificent fight every night. We greatly
appreciated the help of Bulgarian Anetta, who stepped in to do sound
and light for us at very short notice. We also appreciated her
mother’s excellent cheese bread. However, it must be stressed that
our small company was very over-stretched with the hard work of
acting, set building, lighting, sound, publicity, programme design
and printing for this production.
We decided to take a rest from acting in May. Instead we put on the
Madhatters Mish Mash, an evening of music and monologues, with
audience participation and food and drink, all for £5.00. This
proved a great success with, among other turns, recorder recitals by
Judy Friend, who also took like a fish to water to the part of
Cecily in an impromptu Importance of Being Earnest. Some audience
members commented that this was the most entertaining Madhatters
evening they’d been to and we hope to stage Mish Mash 2 in
September, as a curtain raiser to our November show and to build up
funds and our presence at the Stables.
Once again we had a stall at the Gladstonbury Festival, though
unfortunately the takings of £60 were stolen. Our ‘play in a day’ in
August fell to the wayside due to lack of take-up, probably due to
everyone being on holiday and because of the time lapse from its
advertisement at Gladstonbury. However, the ‘play in a day’ attempt
did result in the recruitment of new local member Maureen MacMillan
who is not only an enthusiastic actress but also an excellent cake
maker and seamstress, as she proved with her diligent work on the
suit-that-tore in When did you last see your trousers.
Sadly our membership situation has not improved this year. Our ‘play
in a day’ only recruited one new member. We are also very glad to
welcome back Fiona Cowie to our regular acting team. Other members
have fallen by the wayside for a variety of reasons: Rosanna is
concentrating on her studies, Leo has moved to Luton, Roger to
Oxford and Anetta had too much work to continue with us. However,
new members do not join to fill the gaps. Other local groups are
suffering similar problems.
We were very sorry to learn of the premature death of Richard Lees,
our former lighting and sound manager. Richard, who was only 48, had
suffered for several years from painful cancer and the after-effects
of a stroke. We were also saddened by the death of Tim, Joan’s
long-term friend and a loyal supporter of the Madhatters, again
after a long and painful illness. Several Madhatters attended his
funeral in Willesden. On a more positive note, we congratulate Greg,
long-term front-of-house helper, and his partner Becky on the birth
of Stephen in May.
We continue to enjoy social outings: to the National Theatre for a
variety of shows; open air theatre at Shaw’s Corner and Regents
Park; local theatre at the Tricycle and other local groups;
excellent Christmas dinner at the new Dollis Hill café, Vive Iterum;
outings to other productions; and of course after-play parties,
kindly hosted by Martin and Sheila. Several Madhatters have also
joined in the open air Brent Arts Council play in Gladstone Park.
Last July several members acted in a lovely promenade performance of
Peer Gynt. This July are acting in a promenade production of
Treasure Island, scripted by Martin’s son, Michael. We hope to have
our yearly visit in August to the Regents Park Open Air Theatre for
their musical Gigi.
The coming year will be busy as we work to rebuild our membership,
with an increase in our social events at the Stables, starting with
something in September, a Hallowe’en visitation to the Dollis Hill
café and an evening of melodrama with pupils at Malorees at the end
of November. We are also planting a mass of daffodil bulbs in
Gladstone Park in September to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the
Madhatters Theatre Club!
Cathy Mercer, Secretary, and Martin Redston, Chairman
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Madhatters Theatre Club – Annual Report 2006-2007
Welcome to the Madhatters’ AGM 2007 and the Annual Report. This has
been a year of ups and downs for the Madhatters. We had two
excellent major productions in 2006, The Roaring Boy of Brent in
May, specially written for us by Audrey Ringrose, and a very
successful version of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milkwood in November. Both
these productions involved children from Malorees School again and
Malorees’ deputy head Tom Rainbow directed the music with his usual
aplomb. We decided to take a rest from acting in May 2007. We have
had several social outings and once again had a stall at the
Gladstonbury Festival, which resulted in some good recruits.
After our successful production of The Roaring Boy in Brent last
May, our membership looked extremely strong by the end of 2006,
especially as the large number of small but interesting parts in
Roaring Boy and Under Milkwood pulled in several people looking for
a taste of theatre. We welcomed to our cast Rosanna, Tom, Sue Ling
and Tricia, who all played several parts in Under Milkwood with
flair; Tom’s girlfriend Joan is a theatre professional and dealt
very ably with the lights for Under Milkwood.
However, in the new year, various personal or work-related problems
meant that none of our new recruits were able to act in our May
production. This, coupled with family and work commitments for
Teresa Kelly and Melissa, another recruit, Shirly, Sue O’Connell and
Shane O’Connor, plus Simone Dornbach’s sudden emigration to the USA,
meant that we were unable to cast for both the spring shows that we
selected. So we decided to have a fundraising social evening
instead, our evening at the race, which was hugely enjoyable and
raised £141 for our funds. We must be the only amateur dramatic
group in the world with a shortage of women!
On a more positive note, we were glad to welcome back Edit Howard to
front-of-house and cake baking after serious illness and we
congratulate Greg Howard, long-term front-of-house helper, on his
marriage in May to Becky, now also a front-of-house helper. We have
also been keeping in touch with Richard Lees, our former lighting
and sound manager, who continues to suffer serious ill health.
Our two productions both went off very well.
Our May production was The Roaring Boy of Brent, a play about local
highwaymen specially written for us by Audrey Ringrose, an active
member of the Playwrights and Players group at the Soho Theatre.
Because of the historical and community nature of this play, we were
able to win a substantial grant from the Arts Council. This meant
some beautiful period costumes, proper fees for the playwright and
also support for a professional director, Jonathon Bidgood, who got
excellent results not only from the actors but also from the
children of Malorees School. Particularly outstanding performances
were put in by Jess as the would-be highwayman and Donald Elliott,
Martin and Leo all did well as baddies: escapologist Jack Sheppard,
dastardly double-dealing Jonothan Wild; and eighteenth century heart
throb Jeremiah Lewis. Both Teresa Kelly and Sue O’Connell performed
well when they stepped in at very short notice to play the bibulous
mother of Jack Shepherd after Joan Foster was unfortunately too ill
to take the part.
Our November production was a production of Dylan Thomas’ Under
Milkwood. We had hoped that Jonathon would be able to direct us
again but sadly, due to heavy work commitments, this could not be.
We were very grateful to Susan Shrand, actress and teacher, for
stepping in to direct the ever-changing cast. Once again we involved
the children and this time Cathy directed them. Under Milkwood
proved an entertaining play to act, with lots of small but
interesting parts and musical interludes, excellently handled by Tom
Rainbow. We welcomed Tom, Rosanna, Susan and Tricia to their debuts
in this production and all did extremely well. Sue O’Connell was
outstanding as single-mum Polly Garter.
Many thanks to everyone for all their hard work acting, directing,
set building, lighting, sound, publicity, programme design and
printing.
We continue to enjoy social outings: to open air theatre at Shaw’s
Corner and Regents Park; to the West End to Evita; local theatre at
the Tricycle and other local groups; excellent Christmas dinner at
the Little Star restaurant; outings to other productions; and of
course after-play parties, kindly hosted by Martin and Sheila. Dates
for the social diary: Sunday 22 July: Mrs Warren’s Profession at
Shaw’s Corner; and Tuesday 24 July, Lady Be Good at the Regents Park
Open Air Theatre.
The coming year will be busy as we work hard to rebuild our
membership, with active leafleting and recruiting, a ‘play in a day’
in the Stables 12 August, which will hopefully bring in new blood to
acting - play tbc - and a high-profile farce at Malorees at the end
of November.
Cathy Mercer, Secretary, and Martin Redston, Chairman
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Madhatters Theatre Club Report for year ending 31 March 2006
Madhatters Theatre Club - Annual Report 2005-2006. Welcome to the
Madhatters' AGM 2006 and the Annual Report. We are pleased to report
another year of progress for the Madhatters. Once again we have had
our two major productions - both successful and with the support of
Malorees School. We have had several social outings and once again
had a stall at the Gladstonebury Festival. Our membership has
continued to grow this year. We welcomed to our cast Shirly Marom,
who shows a particular flare in learning lines; Angella Hodge, who
made a one-off appearance in Dry Rot; Simone Dornbach, who combines
a little acting with set building; and Sue O'Connell, Shane O'Connor
and Chris Channing who joined us for our 2006-7 productions. We also
welcomed back Corrine Gladstone to acting and costume support and
Paul Hurst returned to prompt us through Dry Rot. We were
particularly sad to lose the help of Edit Howard on front-of-house
due to ill health. We were also shocked at the news of Richard Lees'
stroke just before Christmas but are glad that Richard is now on the
mend. Richard has managed our sound and lighting for several years.
Our two productions both went off very well. Our May production was
John Chapman's Dry Rot, a classic Whitehall farce. Simon Rawlings
directed us but the star turn was certainly the set, with a sliding
panel and a collapsing stair case, constructed by Johnson and
Clayton Smith. Dry Rot is a fast and furious farce and many of the
audience commented that this was the best Madhatters production that
they had seen. Particularly outstanding performances were put in by
Roger Kelly as the permanently apoplectic Colonel Wagstaff; Donald
Elliott in a fat suit as the spiv Alfred Tubbe; Jess Abbo as the
confused French jockey; and Leo Zahra as the very athletic jockey
Fred Phipps. Our November production was an evening with a French
theme of Grand Guignol horror-comedy: Chop Chop and The kiss of
blood, with a short connecting piece written specially for us by
Corrine. Jess Abbo made his debut as director. Our production ran
for two weeks, with four performances, both on Friday and Saturday
evenings, in the first week at Malorees School and then at the
Stables Art Centre. We sold out on our fist night at the Stables and
this new venue helped recruit new audiences. This was a semi-staged
production, without major scenery or costumes, although the
guillotine in Chop Chop made a great impression. The audience
enjoyed a French buffet supper, ably organised by Simon Mercer. We
decided at the end of the year not to renew our membership of NODA.
Our box office takings have passed the £1,000 mark which means that
the membership fee is much higher and we felt that we derived little
benefit from our membership, since NODA focuses mainly on operatic
groups, with little relevance to inner-city drama groups such as
ourselves. Moreover, we insure ourselves outside NODA and we felt
that the feedback received on NODA reviews were largely negative,
offering little to build on. However, we may review our NODA
membership in future years. Many thanks to everyone for all their
hard work acting, directing, set building, lighting, sound,
publicity, programme design and printing. We continue to enjoy
social outings: to open air theatre at Shaw's Corner and Regents
Park (Shaw's Pygmalion and HMS Pinnafore); excellent Christmas
dinner at the Little Star restaurant; outings to other productions;
and of course after-play parties, kindly hosted by Martin and
Sheila. Once again, we feel that we can look to the future with
confidence, with established, attractive rehearsal and performance
venues, charitable status and a great website.
Cathy Mercer, Secretary, and Martin Redston, Chair.
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Madhatters Theatre Club Report for year ending 31 March 2005
2004-5 has been another successful year for the Madhatters. It has
seen us putting on two successful comedies in May and November and
forging closer links with pupils and staff at Malorees School. Our
May production of Aristophanes' Frogs was the play that many people
said we couldn't do but we proved that it was very funny as well as
very old - it dates from 405 BC, making it one of the oldest comic
works in the world. Cathy directed and we performed it in the round,
making ample use of Jim Robson's excellent PowerPoint contest in the
second half. Year 4 Malorees pupils performed the frog chorus and
stole the show. Their presence also meant a substantial increase in
our audience numbers. Our November production once again was
performed in the round and included pupils from Malorees, this time
in a dramatisation of 101 Dalmatians, directed by Martin, with Cathy
working with the children. The children played a larger part
throughout this production, with two pupils taking the part of
Lucky, the leader of the puppies, and about 20 other children
playing the chorus of puppies. Jess' atmospheric and witty
paintings, projected on a screen, sets the numerous scenes which
helped the play to move swiftly and smoothly from the manicured
lawns of Regents Park to the dingy Suffolk hide-out of Cruella de
Vil. We also welcomed Diane Stirling-Gallagher, making her debut as
the cook in 101 Dalmatians to great critical acclaim. In both
productions we received terrific support from staff at Malorees,
especially Tom Rainbow. This year we decided not to participate in
Gladstonbury because the sound levels of the music have drowned out
our previous dramatic efforts. However, we have continued to play an
active part in Brent Arts Council and NODA, although the reviews
that we have had from our NODA critic, Harvey Kesselmann, have not
been very helpful. We have also continued to enjoy social outings,
once again enjoying a picnic and Shavian drama at Shaw's Corner, an
alfresco musical at Regents Park Open Air Theatre and several visits
to other productions, as well as an excellent Christmas dinner in
the Little Star in Willesden. We continue to enjoy the excellent
facilities of the Stables for rehearsals, refurbished to an even
higher standard in May 2005. Our major concern is membership, with a
serious shortage of technical back-up and actors, especially female
actors, making us perhaps the only amateur dramatics group in the UK
with this problem.
Cathy Mercer Secretary
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