Black Comedy

A farce by Peter Shaffer
Thursday 29 April 1993 - Saturday 1 May 1993
Faringdon Community Theatre, The Pump House, 5 Market Place, Faringdon
Directed by Carolyn Taylor

Performances start 7:30 pm. Doors open 30 minutes earlier.
Tickets were available from Faringdon Travel, 11 Market Place, Faringdon.

The action of the play takes place in Brindsley Miller’s apartment in South Kensington, London, at 9.30 on a Sunday evening in the late 1960s, during a power cut. In this play the usual conditions of light and dark are reversed: when the lights are “on” we see nothing but darkness; when they are “off” we see the characters behaving as if they were in a blackout. The play begins in complete darkness.

Brindsley Miller, a young sculptor, and his debutante fiancée, Carol Melkett, have stolen some very expensive antique items and furniture from his neighbour Harold Gorringe, who is away for the weekend, in an attempt to spruce up his normally slum-like apartment in order to impress a wealthy art collector, Georg Bamberger, who is coming to view his work, and Carol’s father, Colonel Melkett. As they contemplate the coming evening, Carol inquires about Brindsley’s previous mistress, a painter named Clea. Brindsley tells her that he saw her for only three months and that the relationship took place two years ago. Just as Carol places a Sousa march on the record player, a fuse short circuits causing a blackout. The stage is instantly illuminated.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Comedy_(play)

Nick Hobden; Deirdre Hamley; Dave Headey

Peter Webster; Deirdre Hamley; Dave Headey

Deirdre Hamley; Dave Headey; Mary Green; Nick Hobden

Debbie Lock; Nick Hobden; Dave Headey

Mary Green; Peter Webster; Nick Hobden; Dave Headey;

Roger Leitch; Debbie Lock; Nick Hobden; Walther Schoonenberg

Photographs by kind permission of Ian Smith (founder of the ‘Faringdon Folly’ newspaper)