IMPROBABLE FICTION

Presented by - The Nonentities (A)

Location - Main House

Standard Ticket Prices

Curtain Up 7.30pm

An amateur writer’s circle meeting goes wrong with typically Ayckbourn complications – times, styles, costumes and characters all mix with hilarious consequences.

Director's Note

This introduction is being written at the end of the period of detailed planning and just before the play goes into rehearsal…. and with a growing realisation of the size of the challenge ahead of the whole company….!

To echo Ross Workman in his programme notes for Allo! Allo!, this play too will present our stage management, technical and backstage teams with a series of spectacular chal lenges in the design, building and operation of very specific, and somewhat alien, props and stage management – not least of which being the provision of a reliable, containment and life-support system for a silicone-based life form! Our Wardrobe Department will also have a huge challenge – not only with the provision of a large quantity of widely as- sorted costumes, but also with the management of the number of very quick changes that Act 2 will demand.

Then there’s the cast! The usual commitment for an actor is to learn the lines and under stand and master the intricacies and foibles of one character, with perhaps the occasional doubling. Most of this cast will be required to play at least three and in some cases four, widely different, wildly eccentric and rapidly overlapping people in a series of frequently intermingled and bizarre situations. Fortunately, I have admired, or worked previously, with most of them, and therefore know that they will commit wholeheartedly, enthusias tically and skilfully to the enterprise. They will be challenged! My job will be to enthuse and stimulate them. To try and lift them when they get tired (as they certainly will), con vince them that they are winning when they get depressed (as they well may), and generally try to make sense of and orchestrate the mayhem that our fiendishly clever author has created!

I am convinced that the company and support teams will be up to their task – I only hope that I am! If you, our audiences, derive a good measure of laughter, enjoyment and satis faction from watching what I believe to be a brilliant play, we shall have succeeded in some measure. Many thanks to you for taking the chance!

Hugh Meredith December 2008