Last year, I saw a wonderful production of an extraordinary play in a tiny theatre above a pub, hidden in the backstreets of uptown Bristol. Fringe theatre of this kind is a remarkable thing. Sometimes playing to audiences of a number one can count on both hands, the intimacy of watching the actors only a few feet away takes the audience member to a completely different plateau to anything they may have experienced before.
I started Hambledon Productions in January last year with my brother, John. We have been producing theatre in various guises for about ten years. But since we both wanted to take our theatre company more seriously, we launched ourselves officially and began planning our future. Our first professional play premiere STOP! YOU’RE KILLING ME sold out in a week and received standing ovations at each performance. It was such a success that we took the show on tour last summer, with a one-night-only performance on the fringe in London. The cast of seven were all local actors; it was written by John and opened at the Louth Playgoers Riverhead Theatre.
This Easter, we are producing two plays. The first is a premiere of NEWS AT TWO MINUTES PAST SIX written and directed by John Hewer, and the second takes us back to that show I saw last year in Bristol. THE COLLECTOR is a novel written by John Fowles, and this new adaptation by Mark Healy will transfer to London’s Etcetera Theatre in Camden Town in May this year. Rehearsals for THE COLLECTOR are underway in London, with Jonathan Rigby directing at the helm. Local actor Laurence Brown and myself are playing the two characters in the story. NEWS AT TWO MINUTES PAST SIX has a cast of ten local actors, who are rehearsing at the Louth Riverhead Theatre. As the opening nights for both productions loom, preparations are falling in to place and decisions are being made. There’s a lot to think about! I hope you’ll join us for two nights of fabulous theatre.
