REVIEW: We Found Love and an Exquisite Set of Porcelain Figures aboard the SS Farndale Avenue, Burley Players

FOR their summer play, Burley Players put on the amusing ‘We Found Love and an Exquisite Set of Porcelain Figures aboard the SS Farndale Avenue’, produced by Deborah Nightingale.

Written in 1991 by David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jr, this was another farce from the stalwart veterans of the fictitious Farndale Avenue Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society. Their current production sails the luxury ocean liner SS Farndale Avenue into the world of thirties’ elegance. The ladies prove that the age of glamour and enchantment is not dead ... well, not quite.

Wanda Williams played the overbearing TG chairman, Phoebe Reece, who has written a play within the play, one of those 1930s shipboard-set concoctions with a sportsman and a playwright competing for the affections of a star actress.

Phoebe, of course, has grabbed the starring part of Beauregard St Clair for herself, along with five other parts. Jules Sawdon played Mrs Thelma Greenwood who has been allocated the role of famous filmstar Constance Lombard, Beauregard’s paramour, while Steve Reynolds was great fun as the long-suffering stage manager, Gordon, who has been roped in by Phoebe to take on the duties of a key performer who cannot take part as she has the double glazing men in.

Gordon is Noel Nightingale, Beauregard’s rival for Constance’s affection and also acts as Gwendolyn. New to the village, Karen Helford fitted in well with the Players as Felicity, Phoebe’s maid who is allocated a number of roles, both male and female.

Trouble starts when the Society finds its venue has been double-booked. Paul Hockey was the confident Disc Jockey who has an actual contract for the venue but grudgingly gives way to the ramshackle amateur production. However when the venue needs repair, the action moves to the steamship, SS Farndale.

Throw in ramshackle collapsing sets, boxes being thrown around to the sound of shattering priceless china, a bottom of the sea sequence with a lobster and crab (Tilly Johnson and Esme Baggott), a shipwreck on a desert island followed by a rescue; the ladies of the

Farndale Avenue carry on regardless to bring the thirties back to the stage. Aptly, the evening began with fish and chips with ice cream during the interval and ended with a great even game of bingo for the audience – all the cards are the same!

A time of good fun and laughter thoroughly enjoyed by the sell-out audience.

Alison Smith