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Manchester
Players in: Antic Alibi by Jack Walsh Staged: 16/11/1951
at the Little Theatre, Head Office Liverpool
Left to right: Edna Holden, William Keil, Glenys Jones and
Joan Middleton The Manchester Players did not need any prompting, however! The
Manchester actors had obviously been on the stage before and Glenys Jones's
presentation of the lady of questionable character was extremely good and
brought her well-merited applause.
Joan Middleton as Lady Stamming and William Keil as her solicitor had
that ever-present difficulty of working up a rapid state of suspense within
the time limit of one act. They
managed excellently until the departure of Glenys Jones. After that we thought that they experienced
some difficulty in maintaining it, though from an acting point of view the
scope is there. The difficult part where the solicitor strikes his client and
the subsequent situation seemed to lack fire.
Nevertheless, these two actors carried the play and held their
audience, it was just that slight unevenness which struck us. The part of the
maid was taken by Edna Holden, who had much more of a part than is usually
allotted to a maid. She did it with dignity and poise, and that artificial
subservience which is so often seen on the amateur stage in this
role, was, happily, lacking. It was a very enjoyable little play and the
Manchester Players can feel proud of it. Manchester
Players in: Inquest on Monday by Mark Pearson Staged: 29/10/1954
at the Little Theatre, Head Office Liverpool
Colin Shuttleworth, Beryl Brown, Peter Hargreaves,
Harry Turton (seated) and Bowden Black. The advantages of working together regularly as a
team were obvious in the smoother and more harmonious blending of
personalities in the Argosy performance and the dramatic piece, they chose
lent itself to a close-knit performance. Manchester chose a much more difficult
play to stage. Inquest on Monday by Mark Pearson, with seven principal
characters, no more than two being on the stage at the same time, one of the
two being on throughout. The choice of play, which contained frequent digs
and pokes at bank clerks and the banking profession caused hilarity out of
proportion to the intentions of the playwright who probably never visualised
his play being performed before an exclusively bank audience. This made the
task of the players much more difficult and they are to be complimented on
getting away with it as well as they did. The action takes place near a park
bench on which is seated an old gentleman. Various people join him and then
move on and each is concerned with an incident which took place at the spot a
few nights previously. The old gentleman was excellently portrayed by Harry
Turton. Beryl Brown as the young wife was also excellent, quite the best of
the other principals and we understand that she is the holder of awards for dramatic
art. The part of her husband was played by Peter Hargreaves—quite a good performance.
The American, played by Colin Shuttleworth, rather fell down on his accent but
was otherwise good. The policeman, played by Bowden Black, was a bit “
stagey,” partly owing to a uniform which was on the large side, but the
portrayal was quite adequate. The walking-on parts caused much amusement. A
city gentleman, hurrying across the park, complete with brief case, could
hardly have been bettered than as E. S. Doughty played him. The racing
walker, played by Cecil Tenneson, w as handicapped by the width of the stage,
but he got his laughs all right. The courting couple, played by Gwen Lloyd
and Ronald Pope were also completely convincing. Altogether a nicely
presented little play—congratulations to Peggy Bedford, the producer.
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