The Oban Times

All change as Lorn Drama Club line-up is revealed

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This year’s Lorn Drama Festival is delighted to welcome clubs from Arran, Aberdour and Aberdeen, as well as local talent from Taynuilt, Seil and Benderloch, writes Sandy Neil.

In a departure from tradition, this year’s festival will take place between May 4-7, in Oban’s Corran Halls. The reason for the move is to allow teams from further afield to take part in the competitio­n.

The festival gives amateur actors and directors the opportunit­y to take the audience to different places and tell a wide variety of stories, some unashamedl­y comic, others more serious.

It also allows creative writers to try their hand at writing for the stage, and the festival organisers will again be awarding the Drama Festival Quill for the best original script, written by, or for, the clubs and in its first production. This award continues to encourage clubs and local writers to produce interestin­g and original work for the festival.

One original script will be performed this year. Fork in the Road is a comedy written by Seil Drama Club member, John Colston, which will be performed by the club.

Benderloch and Connel Drama Club

North are performing four comedies from John Finnemore’s Double Acts series of two-handed plays The Rebel Alliance, Penguin Diplomacy, A Flock of Tigers and WYSINNWYG.

The Rebel Alliance is a conversati­on between two women at a wedding reception; Penguin Diplomacy is set on a rocky island somewhere in the South Atlantic where a British diplomat encounters a resident Dane and some surprising penguins; WYSINNWYG is set in the sales department of Willard’s, a company making and selling baths, featuring a new employee trying to learn the ropes from her less than co-operative boss; and A Flock of Tigers, which co-incidental­ly features one of the founders of Willard’s and a conversati­on he has in the carriage of the 11:14 from Paddington to Worcester in 1934.

Finnemore is well known for comedy writing on Radio 4, notably the award-winning series Cabin Pressure.

Shazam Theatre company are travelling from Aberdeen to present Charlie to the

Checkout, Please, a comedy in which things are not going well for a new checkout operator: product returns, complaints, queue-jumping and an armed robbery!

Also travelling from the East Coast are Aberdour Players who are performing a Caryl Churchill play Escaped Alone. Premiered at The Royal Court in 2016, the play deals with global issues in a deceptivel­y cosy, suburban setting where four women discuss their inner thoughts on a dizzying array of subjects.

The festival is delighted to be welcoming Shiskine Drama Club from Arran who are performing Jilted Lovers’ Helpline about two phone operators for a counsellin­g helpline and the odd conversati­ons they have with those in need of support.

Taynuilt and District Drama Society are performing three dramatic works. The adults’ plays are The Recognitio­n Scene from Anastasia and Can Malone Die and the juniors are performing Bye Baby Bunting.

The Recognitio­n Scene from Anastasia by Marcelle Maurette, (English adaptation written by Guy Bolton) is an excerpt from the 1953 play Anastasia where the daughter of the deposed Czar, thought to be an imposter, attempts to convince her grandmothe­r of her true identity. Can Malone Die by David Pollard is about a best-selling author’s struggle with the people around him and his inner self. Bye Baby Bunting, written by Mark Green, is set in 1839 down a mine shaft, where the child labourers gather for their break.

All these plays can be seen at the Corran Halls between May 3-7 at 7.30pm. For tickets contact 01631 567333 or online by searching for Lorn Drama Festival at brown paperticke­ts.com.

 ?? ?? A Flock of Tigers centres on an enlighteni­ng conversati­on in the carriage of the 11:14 from Paddington to Worcester in 1934.
A Flock of Tigers centres on an enlighteni­ng conversati­on in the carriage of the 11:14 from Paddington to Worcester in 1934.

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