Pools Paradise

A comedy by Philip King
March 1969
The Little Theatre, Old Royal Marines Camp, Butts Close, Faringdon
Directed by Evelyn Stoodley

Zany, madcap events transpire at the Reverend Lionel Toop’s vicarage in Merton-cum-Middlewick. The plot revolves around Lionel’s wife, Penelope, who dabbles in a football pool with the help of their maid, Ida, and Ida’s suitor, the droll Willie Briggs. The most fantastic complications ensue when the triumvirate wins, or when they think they have won, more than 20,000 English pounds. Lending richly comic hands are the old maid parishioner, Miss Skillon, and Penelope’s out-of-this-world uncle, The Bishop of Lax. What happens when these assorted characters all get together on one stage has to be seen to be believed.