2009

This year was the 50th anniversary of WADS’ first public performance - Haul for the Shore. To celebrate, the company staged a dramatic read-through, in full costume, of one its previous hits, Daisy Pulls it Off by Denise Degan, which WADS first performed in 1993. Several members from the original production, including Chrissie Ferngrove, Bridget Culley and Claire Isbester, were again among the cast. 

“Henry wants a wife, and to catch one he advertises in the local paper. He gets rather more than he bargained for! An hilarious farce in one act, guaranteed giggles all around!” So said the blurb for one of the three one-act plays that WADS performed in July to showcase the work of three new directors. Called Another One Night Stand, the show featured Tennessee Williams’ This Property is Condemned for two actors, directed by Esther Privett and Alex Donovan, Waiting for the Telegram, an Alan Bennett monologue, and Wife Required, a farce by Falkland L Cary and Philip King, directed by WADS newcomer Sophie Robinson. 

In the same month, WADS also performed Chanticleer, from The Nun’s Priest’s Tale - one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales - at the Church Fete. This was part of the adaptation by Claire Isbester that WADS performed in 2000. The cast consisted of a fox, a cockerel, the narrator, the old widow and several chickens - some of whom were fete-goers press-ganged into performing. 

In November, WADS staged The Passing Out Parade by Anne Valery, where we met seven raw girls who had just signed up and followed their trials and tribulations at the hands of Joyce “blood-and-guts” Pickering. The play featured an all-female cast, including four actresses new to WADS. With a barrack room setting, a soundtrack of music and songs from the period, authentic 1940s accessories, uniforms and even wartime undergarments, the show re-created the dark days of 1944 with comedy, drama and even tragedy, as the girls of B Company ATS came to grips with the Great British military machine.