Lindfield Dramatic Club presents Deckchairs and Village Fairs

Lindfield Dramatic Club

Lindfield Dramatic Club will present a triple bill entitled Deckchairs and Village Fairs as its spring production at the end of May. Pairing two comic duologues from Jean McConnell’s popular Deckchairs series with Alan Ayckbourn’s evergreen short farce Gosforth’s Fete this promises to be a thoroughly entertaining evening with lots of laughs. The opener is Day Trippers in which a seaside outing takes an unexpected turn. This is followed by Cruise Missile where opposites collide on a holiday afloat. Rounding off the event is the hilarious Gosforth’s Fete which throws five disparate characters together in a damp tea tent as they try their best to run a successful village fair despite the surrounding chaos and confusion. Deckchairs and Village Fairs will be performed on Thursday 30th and Friday 31st May at King Edward Hall, starting at 8pm, with the bar open from 7.30pm. Tickets are available priced £12 from Caragon at 69 High Street, Lindfield, or online from www.tickettailor.com/events/lindfielddramaticclub

Lindfield Dramatic Club's comedic return and upcoming shows

By David Nicholas

Members of Lindfield Dramatic Club staged a riotous return to the stage of the Kind Edward Hall on the first weekend after Freedom Day, giving the reopening performance for the venue and one of the very first non-restricted productions of a brand new play, Lockdown in Little Grimley by David Tristram.

The first half of the show starred Nellie Carey and Sarah Baldock in Cupboard Love, a gentle comedy set on two deckchairs, where the characters slowly realise that they share the same gentleman friend.

Lockdown starred Martin Linaker, Chrystelle Tar, Sue Blair-Fish and James McKinnie who, with spectacular comic timing, followed the antics of a hapless amateur society, desperate for audiences. The chairman calls an emergency meeting to discuss his idea for their next production when restrictions ease - a touching love story, set in a hospital, with all profits destined for the NHS and called the Phantom of the Operating Theatre. The performance recalled the height of lockdown with the characters maintaining social distancing, hoarding toilet rolls and wearing a bee-keeping hood for protection from the virus. The play descended into farce when rehearsing the scene in the operating theatre, one of the cast members suffered what everyone thinks is a heart attack, but turns out to be a bad case of banana cake induced indigestion.

Lindfield resident Jenny Slack said: “It was a very welcome and entertaining evening and so good to hear spontaneous laughter sitting within a live audience again. It was very pleasing to see LDC back in the King Edward Hall again. After a long break the performers obviously enjoyed their craft too and received well deserved applause.” LDC will return in October with their autumn show and if you would like to audition or be involved behind the scenes follow LDC on Facebook or Instagram @lindfielddramaticclub and the website: www.lindfielddramaticclub.webs.com

Important play at King Edward Hall, Lindfield

By Rex Cooper

Importance of Being Earnest at King Edward Hall

Lindfield Dramatic Club is turning to one of the best known and best-loved plays in the English language for its autumn production this year – Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

With a strong cast that includes new, young members alongside established performers, the club is continuing along the route that has been its forte over the past decade, but moves away from the broader comedy that has generally been on offer.

Wilde’s comedy of manners about love and marriage amongst the upper classes has been a hit with audiences and critics for more than a hundred years and LDC is returning to the play after a 19-year gap.

Director Rex Cooper said: “Pretty well every theatregoer can quote the best known funny lines from the play but it is full of humour from start to finish and audiences have to concentrate in case they miss something.

“We look forward to our regulars coming along and supporting us and, given that it is almost two decades since we last presented this classic, we can, hopefully, attract some new, younger audience members – especially as the play is now part of the UK’s National Curriculum.”

The Importance of Being Earnest can be seen at the King Edward Hall on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 26th-28th October. Tickets (£8) are available at Tufnells Home, 59 High Street, Lindfield. Tel: 01444 483483.

LDC serve up ‘Murder and Chips’

Following its hugely-successful production ‘Chuckles and Chips’ last year, Lindfield Dramatic Club (LDC) is breaking new ground for this year’s spring production on Friday and Saturday, 24th & 25th May.

The club is staging a Murder Mystery Evening at the King Edward Hall, with a short play in three acts by Chris Martin, called ‘Who Killed the Director?’. As last year, the evening will be divided by a fish and chip supper.

Appropriately, the play is set in a theatre where members of a local amateur dramatic society are rehearsing a murder play set in the 1930s.

Audience participation is part of the entertainment of course and so they will be divided into 12 tables of six people each – strictly limiting the attendance each evening to 72. 

LDC Chairman Rex Cooper explained: “We assume that people will have organised themselves into their six-strong ‘teams’ when buying their tickets but individuals or couples can easily be linked up with others to make up a table. After all, we are talking about like-minded people here, many of whom know each other thanks to being regulars at our productions.”

Tickets will be available from the Happy Feet shoe boutique in Denman’s Lane, Lindfield from 1st May, costing £12.50. The performances begin at 8pm and the bar will be open at 7.30pm and again during the interval.