A comedy by Simon Williams

Directed by Helen Davison

4th-9th September 2006 at 7.45pm

Synopsis:

This is a fast moving and witty comedy.

Leonard writes a book and enters it in a competition run by Harriet, who is the editor of a feminist magazine. All entrants must be female, so Leonard adopts the pseudonym of Myrtle Banbury.

Much to his surprise and horror he wins the competition with a story based on his experiences as a single parent. This means Leonard and Harriet must meet and necessitates Leonard having to dress in female clothes and assume the identity of Myrtle Banbury.

Of course, Leonard falls in love with Harriet and finds courage as the flamboyant Myrtle!

Everything moves quickly to a hilarious finale, with encouragement from Leonard's father, Gus and Leonard's daughter, Dee-Dee.

The Cast:

Review:

by Linda Kirkman, Theatre Critic for the Daily Echo.

"This production is the first on the Club's newly rebuilt and very splendid new stage, and it gets the new season off to a flying start.

"A superb set and excellent lighting effects complement Simon Williams' highly amusing comedy, in which the humour is beautifully brought out thanks to Helen Davison's fine direction and some first-class timing. The play centres round the subterfuge than ensues when a male author enters — and wins — a female-only writing competition, and he has to bring Myrtle Banbury to life — with more than a few complications along the way.

" Tom Swadling is immensely likeable as shy statistician Leonard, and he comes over a treat as Myrtle too. Samantha-Jane Farnsworth is delightfully bolshie as his teenage daughter, Dee Dee, and Noel Davenport has created a lovely, eccentric character in Leonard's father, Gus.

"Vanessa Turner acts well as head of the feminist publishing house 'Love Is All Around', although she lost her lines a little too much during the second half, which tended to make her performance a little less realistic than it might have been.

"Gold stars must go to all for that excellent and difficult final 'phone scene', but black marks though for those awful doorstep sandwiches."