Curtain raiser is just darling
New Theatre Players working on Concordia show
THE CONCORDIA Theatre’s new season opens with 1970s farce Darling Mr London.
Based on the book by Anthony Marriott and Bob Grant it follows the story of Edward, a continental telephone exchange worker.
Despite the mundanity of his day-to-day life - a wife and in-laws that despise him, his hobby of fighting battles with toy soldiers and being a general loser - he creates an alias as the charming Mr London when connecting phones.
This suddenly gets out of hand, however, when four glamour females travel to London to compete in the Miss Europhone Contest and arrive to meet the flirtatious Mr London.
Things quickly get very complicated as Edward tries to conceal his telephonic peccadilloes from his wife, mother-in-law and his lodger.
Ian Hamilton, who plays Edward and is chairman of the New Theatre Players, said: “It’s a farce, something that the audiences in Hinckley traditionally enjoy.
“It’s also something very different to the last production the group put on, The History Boys.
“It is always difficult to learn a long piece like this as you have to choreograph each movement to react to what is being said. In one scene I am talking to a woman who I’m hiding in a cupboard for example, and you can’t rehearse that during the read-through, so it can be a bit unnatural at first.
“We are at the stage now though when people are starting to put their books down, and it is a wonderful cast.
“It’s very fun and by no means a high drama.”
The show is the first of the new season at The Concordia, and runs between September 6 and 10.
To buy tickets, or for more information on any of the other shows, visit www. concordiatheatre.co.uk