Click here for Jef Pirie’s review of Talking Heads
The Director
Director -Bruce SIBLEY
The Cast
Production photos - Courtesy Margaret Long
Talking Heads is a stage adaptation of the BBC series of the same title created by Alan Bennett.
These unforgettable portraits of quirky, often vulnerable, sometimes awkward, but always very English characters marked Bennett as one of the great writers of his generation.
Darkly comic, poignant and uplifting, Talking Heads are widely acknowledged as modern classics.
Bennett’s great achievement is to get under the skin of his characters and bring them vividly to life with remarkable understanding, compassion and bittersweet humour.
Featuring:
A Chip In The Sugar,
Lady Of Letters
Her Big Chance
A Cream Cracker Under the Settee
Playing at the Ice Factory Studio Theatre
Thursday 30th October to Saturday 1st November and then Wednesday 5th to Saturday 8th November. Nightly at 7.30
Tickets £11 on opening night £13 all other performances. (No booking fees) Opening Night SOLD OUT
The Cast and Roles.
Bruce Sibley, Director
Bruce has played a wide range of roles in recent times for The Shaftesbury Theatre after moving from Sussex where he was frequently found directing as well as treading the boards! Bruce enjoys exploring all styles and periods of Drama but is keen to bring more modern writing to the stage. His most recent challenges include directing a number of plays: “Two,” “Things I Know to Be True” and “The Ladykillers” as well as “Mother Goose!” He is an examiner for LAMDA examinations which takes him all over the country and he enjoys watching young people sharing their enthusiasm for performance work. He hopes you enjoy tonight's performance.
A CHIP IN THE SUGAR
Dan Wilkin as Graham Whittaker, a closeted middle-aged man who is over dependent on his mother.
Graham finds life difficult enough at the best of times. When Mother meets an old flame, Frank Turnbull and seems set to marry him, Graham's old insecurities rear their ugly heads.
Dan is in every performance
A LADY OF LETTERS (Shared role)
Charlotte Ewart as Miss Ruddock, a letter writing busybody.
She believes prisoners have it easy, but when her poisonous, complaining letters become criminal, she finds herself as one of them, she finds freedom and happiness, possibly for the first time.
Charlotte is performing from 6th to 8th November.
Layla Crabtree As Miss Ruddock, who writes letters – not, unfortunately, social communications filled with harmless news, but letters of complaint and commentary to the authorities to compulsively interfere in her neighbours' lives.
Layla is performing 30th October to 1 November and 5th November.
HER BIG CHANCE
Kate O’Connell as Lesley, an actress who tells all, blind to the sinister undertones of her story as well as to her own self-delusions and gullibility.
Kate is in every performance
A CREAM CRACKER UNDER THE SETTEE (Shared role)
Laura Wilson-Back as Doris, a fiercely independent widow.
Doris falls while attempting to clean. She reminisces about her life with her late husband, Wilfred, and her difficult relationship with her home help, Zulema.
Laura is performing on 30th and 31st October, then 7th and 8th November.
Marilyn Adams as Doris, a fiercely independent woman who falls after she tries to clean. She reminisces about the time her late husband, Wilfred, wanted a dog and promises that looking after it would be his province.
Marilyn is performing on 1st, 5th and 6th November.