Cold Comfort Farm

A drama by Paul Doust, Stella Gibbons
Thursday 21 July 1994 - Saturday 23 July 1994
Faringdon Community Theatre, The Pump House, 5 Market Place, Faringdon
Directed by Beryl Rees

Performances start 2:30 pm and 7:30 pm. Doors open 30 minutes earlier. Matinée on Saturday only.
Tickets: Adult £4. Child (under 16) £2. Senior Citizens £2 Tickets were available from Faringdon Travel, 11 Market Place, Faringdon.

Adapted from the novel by Stella Gibbons

Cold Comfort Farm 1994 CuttingFollowing the death of her parents, the book’s heroine, Flora Poste, finds she is possessed “of every art and grace save that of earning her own living.” She decides to take advantage of the fact that “no limits are set, either by society or one’s own conscience, to the amount one may impose on one’s relatives”, and settles on visiting her distant relatives at the isolated Cold Comfort Farm in the fictional village of Howling in Sussex. The inhabitants of the farm – Aunt Ada Doom, the Starkadders, and their extended family and workers – feel obligated to take her in to atone for an unspecified wrong once done to her father. As is typical in a certain genre of romantic 19th-century and early 20th-century literature, each of the farm’s inhabitants has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred, or fear, and the farm is badly run. Flora, being a level-headed, urban woman, determines that she must apply modern common sense to their problems and help them adapt to the 20th century.

The action of the play takes place in and around Cold Comfort Farm, near Howling, Sussex in the 1920’s.

It will be the first time that this play, world premiered at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury, in 199l, has been produced by an amateur group in Oxfordshire. Also joining us on stage were some members of the Impetus School of Dancing, Swindon.

Cold Comfort Farm 1994 1

Irene Schoonenberg; Jeni Summerfield; Joan Lee; Kate Peer; Jill Headey; Kate Lord; Dave Headey

Cold Comfort Farm 1994 5

Dave Headey; Nancy Reeves

Cold Comfort Farm 1994 3

Nancy Reeves; Helen Barter

Cold Comfort Farm 1994 4

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

Cast (in order of appearance):

Flora Poste - Helen Barter
Charles I Seth Starkadder - Nick Hobden
Mr. Neck - Walther Schoonenberg
Judith Starkadder - Carolyn Taylor
Rennet - Pauline Durham
Adam Lambsbreath - Dave Headey
Elfine Starkadder - Debbie Lock
Urk / Richard Hawk-Monitor - Alan Taylor
Reuben Starkadder - Mike Durham
Amos Starkadder / Sneller - Roger Leitch
Aunt Ada Doom - Nancy Reeves
Mrs. Hawk-Monitor - Carole Tappenden
Photographer - Steven Lewis
The Chorus / Quivering Brethren / Various Starkadders - Jill Headey; Joan Lee; Kate Lord; Kate Peer; Irene Schoonenberg; Jeni Summerfield
Starkadder Children / Quivering Children - Louise Benton; Louise Butler; Claire Green; Philip Hurst; Julian Probert; Paul Summerfield

See programme for further details.


Production No.115 (4 shows were performed over 3 days).