Arundel Players set to return with fast-moving comedy
The Arundel Players are back on the stage with a production of the classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers.
They should have staged it last June, but remarkably they have been able to keep the cast intactfortheirautumnrunatthe Players’ Priory Playhouse from November 8 to 13 (tickets 07523 417926, open daily until 9pm).
Graham Linehan’s stage adaptation of the much-loved film will be directed by Tony Hudson. Posing as amateur musicians, Professor Marcus and his gang rent rooms in the lopsided house of sweet but strict Mrs Wilberforce.
Thevillainsplottoinvolveher unwittingly in Marcus’ heist job. The police are left stumped but MrsWilberforcebecomeswiseto theirruseandMarcusconcludes that there is only one way to keep the old lady quiet. With only her parrot General Gordon to help her, Mrs Wilberforce is alone with five desperate men…
“We were supposed to have been doing this in June last year,” says director Tony, “but we took the decision not to do it quiteearly.Werehearseforeight weeks, and we decided not to do it literally before we had even started rehearsing – though actors tend to do a lot of line learning before rehearsals and we had done some preparation already. There’s a lot of work that goes into it so it was a horrible decision but it was a safety decision. And it was touch and go even now whether we were going to be able to do it. We are still crossing fingers.
“It was my decision to do the play. All the directors at Arundel put in plays for the artistic director to agree on, and I love the old classics and seeing as the Arundel audience, the majority of them, are of the mature type, they basically love old classics too.
“A couple of years ago I directedThe39Stepswhichsold out. That was a really good play andwegotreallygoodaudiences. The Ladykillers is a similar kind of thing, a fast-moving comedy. It is based on the 1955 film which had a great cast. It is one of my favourite films. I just really like the way that it is written. There’s so much comedy in it and there is so much that is sinister and twists as well. It’s a great piece. The stage play is the same story and the same characters but the writer has put more comedy into itanditisalsomorevisual.Hehas brought it all into the one house.
“It is not easy to cast. There are so many age groups in the actual cast. You have Mrs Wilberforce, the elderly pensioner, and you have the sinister crook and have got Harry, the young crook and so on, but we have managed to keep all our cast from last time. We have been really, really lucky. I was really scared that we could lose people. Other directors have had to recast their plays but we did well. We started rehearsing in the middle of September.”
The actors were really keen to get back to it: “They all just jumped straight back in. They are all absolutely fabulous.”
“It has been lovely to work with such a beautiful cast, a group of people who are so good humoured about everything.”