Habeas Corpus

A comedy by Alan Bennett
Thursday 5 November 1998 - Saturday 7 November 1998
Faringdon Secondary School, Fernham Road, Faringdon SN7 7LB
Directed by Jo Webster

Performances start 7:30 pm. Doors open 30 minutes earlier.
Tickets: £4. Concessions £2.50 Tickets were available from Reflections, 8 Marlborough Street, Faringdon.

One of Alan Bennett’s earliest plays his acute observation and superb dialogue make this a gem of its time.

In the simple representation of the home of Dr Wicksteed we meet family, friends and acquaintances for whom the determination to put sex and the satisfaction of the body (or corpus) before everything else is the ruling passion of their lives. Set in the mid 1970s the then permissive society is taken to task in a farcical comedy where the characters (stereotypes as their names suggest) embark on a series of mistaken identity blunders and sexual encounters. As Wicksteed says at the close – “He whose lust lasts, lasts longest”.

“Habeas Corpus” literally translates from the Latin as “you may have the body” and nothing to do here with a court order that requires a person under arrest to be brought before a judge.

Habeas Corpus 1998 4

Sarah Varnom; Roger Leitch; Dave Headey

Habeas Corpus 1998 2

Karen Pearce; Roger Leitch; Gary Thompson

Habeas Corpus 1998 5

Lucy Walden; Dave Headey

Habeas Corpus 1998 3

Paul Garratt; Lucy Walden

Habeas Corpus 1998 1

Carole Tappenden; Gary Thompson; Karen Pearce; Sarah Varnom; Theresa Moon

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

Cast (in order of appearance):

Dr Arthur Wicksteed - Tim Reeves
Muriel Wicksteed - Sarah Varnom
Dennis Wicksteed - Gary Thompson
Constance Wicksteed - Lucy Walden
Mrs Swabb - Theresa Moon
Cannon Throbbing - Paul Garratt
Lady Rumpers - Carole Tappenden
Felicity Rumpers - Karen Pearce
Mr Shanks - Roger Leitch
Sir Percy Shorter - Dave Headey
Mr Purdue - David Campbell

See programme for further details.


Production No.128 (3 shows were performed over 3 days).