Visiting Hour

(Keeping Mum, Magic, Plaster, Show Business)

A selection by Richard Harris
Friday 3 November 1995 - Saturday 4 November 1995
Faringdon Corn Exchange, Corn Market, Faringdon SN7 7JA
Directed by Helen Barter

Performances start 7:30 pm. Doors open 30 minutes earlier.
Tickets were available from Breath of Spring (florist), 4a Market Place, Faringdon.

Four (of six) interlinked plays set in a National Health hospital during visiting hour. Alternately funny and sad – with elements of tragedy and comedy in each.

Plaster

Directed by Helen Barter

Eric, hospitalized following a car accident, is visited with hilarious results by his canny wife!

Kate Lord; Alistair Warner

Cast (in order of appearance):

Eric – Alistair Warner
Helen – Kate Lord

Show Business

Directed by Dave Headey

This play follows the satirical vagaries of a TV crew filming a documentary on the world’s first quadruple transplant – until they discover they are pipped at the post by a transplant operation in another hospital!

Jo Webster; Duncan Graham; Roger Leitch

Jo Webster; Roger Leitch; Carole Tappenden

Roger Leitch; Carole Tappenden; Debbie Lock

Duncan Graham; Roger Leitch; Carole Tappenden; Jeni Summerfield

Duncan Graham; Roger Leitch

Cast (in order of appearance):

Fiona – Jo Webster
Naomi – Carole Tappenden
Maureen – Jeni Summerfield
Julia – Debbie Lock
Darbon – Roger Leitch
Nurse – Duncan Graham
1st woman – Beryl Rees
2nd woman – Joan Lee
Father – Walther Schoonenberg
Mother – Irene Schoonenberg
Daughter – Kate Peer
Son-in-law – Robert Wentworth
Critic – Peter Webster
Woman critic – Beryl Rees

Keeping Mum

Directed by Helen Barter

A poignant monologue that sees Pauline sitting at the bedside of her dying mother. As she mulls over her own churning emotions she realizes a love that, it eventually transpires, is now too late to communicate.

Irene Schoonenberg; Carolyn Taylor

Cast (in order of appearance):

Pauline – Carolyn Taylor
Old woman – Irene Schoonenberg

Magic

Directed by Debbie Lock

Brenda, a timid spinster awaiting a hysterectomy, suffers a visit from a crass work colleague and her appalling husband who performs very bad jokes and conjuring tricks.

Cast (in order of appearance):

May – Beryl Rees
Arthur – Dave Headey
Sandra – Lucy Walden
Brenda – Joan Lee
Ron – Peter Webster
Joan – Jo Webster

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

Production No.119 (2 shows were performed over 2 days).