I'll name that tune in......

Attention to detail is really important in staging a play, and the Apollo in Newport can certainly claim to have done that with its next production - the J B Priestley classic, Dangerous Corner.

The plot requires a cigarette box that plays a tune when you open the lid. The play's director, Di Evans found a box of the right vintage, but no-one could identify the tune until cast member Ian Moth approached Angel Radio, who played it on air and invited listeners to identify it. The phone rang within ten seconds and it turned out to be a Bing Crosby recording first made in 1928.  The vintage cigarette box is not quite the star of the show, but its music does play an important part.

Dangerous Corner is built around an intricate plot with plenty of intrigue, twists and turns, and the Apollo believes it will keep audiences gripped.  

All seems well at the Caplan’s independent publishing house, until a can of worms is opened at Robert and Freda Caplan’s dinner party. A chance remark plunges the guests into a re-examination of the mysterious events surrounding the recent death of Martin Caplan, and skeletons come crashing out of the closet.

The cast includes Jack Tutt, who was once a pupil of Di's at All Saints Primary in Freshwater.  He recently turned professional but is performing in this play alongside an experienced cast, as an amateur.

Dangerous Corner runs from February 12 to 13, and 16 to 20.

More information at www.apollo-theatre.org.uk

Di Evans directs some members of the Dangerous Corner cast: left to right - Maria Wilkinson, Amelia Havard, Steve Reading and Ian Moth, and Jack Tutt (seated).

Dangerous Corner

“I think telling the truth is about as healthy as skidding round a corner at sixty.”

“And life’s got a lot of dangerous corners, hasn’t it?”

Is it always a good thing to tell the truth?

Robert Caplin thinks he knows his world: he has good memories of the much-loved brother he sadly lost the year before, but he has a wife who is surely a little too good for him, and is a partner in a thriving publishing business; he is lucky enough to count both partners, and their employee Olwen as close friends. His younger business partner is happily married to a beautiful young woman and the older partner is just about as steady and reliable a friend as a man could want.

So when he invites them all to dinner, along with a novelist they represent, what could possibly go wrong?

To tell the truth, everything. 

Dangerous Corner is the next Apollo production: details here - http://www.apollo-theatre.org.uk/dangerous-corner/

The Apollo Theatre is serving up a fiendish family fantasy instead of a panto for Christmas this year.

Its next production is a stage adaptation of Roald Dahl's famous children's story 'The Witches', in which a boy and his grandmother manage to foil the Grand High Witch's evil plot to rid the earth of all children... but not before the boy gets turned into a mouse!  The production has been billed as 'top drawer family entertainment' and 'a glorious journey of fiendish fantasy'.

The Apollo has lined up a cast representing all ages, including members of the theatre's Apollo Juniors.

The show is directed by husband and wife team Amy and Dan Burns.

Amy said: "We have loved directing The Witches! It is a fabulous production and has been a real team effort, with amazing costumes, and a clever stage set that I won't say too much about ..."

'The Witches' is on December 4 and 5 (a Saturday matinee replacing the evening performance), and from December 8 to 12.

More details at www.apollo-theatre.org.uk

Picture shows:  Amy Burns (bottom right) directing Chrissie Blow as the Grand High Witch (front centre) with other members of the cast in a scene from 'The Witches'.

The Witches: a Perfect Pre-Christmas Show!

Come and see our next production, from Saturday 4th December, with a matinee on Sunday 5th; then Tuesday to Saturday 8th-12th December. A perfect pre-Christmas show.

Here's what one of the cast members has to say about it:

The Witches is about this boy and his grand mamma. Most of the action takes place when they travel to a Hotel called The Hotel Magnificent and encounter some women who aren't who they seem. It's a great story and good for all ages as it's funny and not rude.

Featuring Dave Talbot as The Doorman.

Here's a rehearsal shot of Dave with Amy, the director.

Here's Carole Crow as Grandmother and Jamie Mallon as The Boy:

Tickets on sale here: http://www.apollo-theatre.org.uk/the-witches/

The Kitchen Sink

This is a very good place to come from. Cos it’s knackered and funny and it’s falling in the sea… But it’s not a good place to end up

The Kitchen Sink is set in a run down seaside town, following a family through a year. Martin’s milk float has seen better days – particularly the bits strewn over the kitchen floor. His wife Kath is concerned about him, about the state of her kitchen sink – and with their children: Billy aspires to enter art college, but his Dolly Parton portrait could let him down, while Sophie dreams of training as a ju-jitsu teacher - if she can keep her temper under control, and deal with the attentions of a young plumber who is himself caring for his ailing granny.

There is poignancy and pain, but through it all runs a deep vein of black comedy: the play is by turns hilarious and very touching; witty and warm.

The Telegraph’s review of it west end debut judged it: “one of the best new plays I have seen anywhere this year, and I cannot recommend it too highly.”

Neither can we!


The Kitchen Sink is on 16-17 and 20-14 October: tickets and further details are available on our website.

Review - Ladies in Retirement

Ladies in Retirement got off to a cracking start last Friday evening - not only did the first night audience almost fill the theatre but their reactions showed that the choice of play, the casting and the acting were highly appreciated.

I cannot have been the only one who secretly thought for several scenes that the costume department were not quite up to their usual high standards when choosing a wig for Leonora - it is brash, red and, well, not quite convincing. But as we discover during the course of the play, not only is this intentional, but it gives us another hint as to the character, played with great aplomb by Maggie Cardew.

For Leonora Fiske is an ex-good time girl, now living in retirement but still addicted to the good things in life, whether the newest music to play on her beloved piano, continually picking at the sweeties or guzzling champagne. Or indeed being visited by a handsome young man, as she is.

That handsome young man however is of the type with whom Leonora is very familiar - an appreciator of a pretty face and easy money, and capable of letting both land him in trouble. Adam Richardson is convincingly flirtatious and dodgy as Albert, the nephew of Leonora's live in companion, Ellen Creed.

But it is Ellen's other relatives who her mistress objects to, for when two other Miss Creeds come to visit, they outstay their welcome. Well, would you approve a house guest scattering driftwood and seaweed all over your sitting room carpet and filling your home with seashells and dead birds?

Di Evans at times is in danger of stealing the show as Miss Emily, the resentful, eccentric collector of such items, while Cynara Crump, as the more overtly vulnerable Miss Louisa with her treasured telescope, all she has left of a dead suitor, adds her own piquantly amusing observations.

With her mistress demanding the sisters are sent packing, and her responsibilities to them weighing heavily, what will Ellen do?

Glenys Williams perfectly portrays Ellen's dilemma, and the scene in which she is, as she says, 'made to feel her position very much' is a pivotal art of the play.

Add to this the subplot of Albert trying to seduce lady's maid Lucy, played with convincing innocence by Carole Simpson, and a nosy but kind-hearted nun, played by Suzie Chilton, and the mystery of what has happened to Miss Leonora Fiske unfolds with black comedy underpinning the thrilling denouement.

Ladies in Retirement is showing at the Apollo Theatre every evening until Saturday 5 September - don't miss it!

An exercise in slowly accumulating terror.....

The Apollo Theatre's next production is a creepy crime drama based on a real murder.

'Ladies in Retirement' is one of the most popular productions in amateur theatre, and for good reason: it combines mirth and mystery, and mixes it with an undercurrent of genuine horror.

It was first performed at the Apollo in 1981, and is now revived under the direction of Eve Fradgley, whose mother Maggie Cardew is the Theatre's artistic director for the season, and is assisting Eve in directing the play, as well as playing the part of Leonora Fiske.

The play is based on a murder that was committed in 1886, and inspired an American 1941 film noir of the same name.

One of the features of the play is the way it slowly ramps up the tension - or, as the New York Times put it, 'it's an exercise in slowly accumulating terror'.

Set in a dark, lonely house in the marshes of the Thames estuary, the cast includes Glenys Lloyd Williams, Di Evans, Cynara Crump, Adam Richardson, Suzie Chilton and Carol Simpson.

'Ladies in Retirement' runs from August 28 to 29, and September 1 to 5, marking the start of the Apollo's new season.

Tickets can be booked online at www.apollo-theatre.org.uk, and full details of all the plays in the new season can be viewed there, too.

 Maggie Cardew in discussion with her daughter, the director, Eve Fradgley.

And a flashback to 1981 with Mary Baker and Barbara Turner in the Apollo production of 'Ladies in Retirement' that year.