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TADS Recent Production – A Review

3rd February 2020 @ 6:06am – by Nick James
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Having decided to produce its revered pantomime every other year, Tattenhall Amateur Dramatics Society, better known as TADS, passed the Director's baton to Lisa Ford for its Winter performance – a comedic play with a difference. With a small cast but a long name – The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery is a performance in the currently popular mode of 'the play that goes wrong' – an ambitious but ultimately successful series of performances to sell-out audiences at the Barbour Institute.

tads review

To be successful, a show of this kind demands a fast pace both on stage and behind the scenes, with Mrs June Bernhardt, played by Eileen Reisen, ably demonstrating this with the quickest of costume changes and, like so many of the actors, an extraordinary ability to swap from one character to another without allowing the audience to lose the thread of the story.

The real-life husband and wife team of Rob and Angela Turner displayed more than a touch of Morcambe and Wise in the cleverly orchestrated musical number towards the end of the play. The pairing of Andrea Davies and Tiz Corcoran as elderly members of the Women's Guild provided much hilarity, not least when at the unexpected opening of one scene, they forget which one of them should have been sitting in the wheelchair. Hannah Bennett and Rachel Whittingham once again produced polished performances, the former remembered for an infectiously funny 'corpsing' scene when she struggled to restrain her laughter at the latest mishap, the latter for the most 'dramatic' of death scenes after the latest murder at the Manor.

The proceedings were masterfully supervised by the bossy Chair of the Guild, Mrs Phoebe Reece, played by TADS stalwart Julia Bona. Gifford Lea Retirement Village was suitably represented by established resident Derek Battersby, who as Stage manager, was responsible for so many of the mishaps including incorrect re-positioning of the collapsed scenery so that the fireplace ended up rather nearer the ceiling than the floor.

TADS demonstrated once again its ability to produce high quality entertainment in a village setting, bringing the community together on both sides of the stage in a production combining mystery, intrigue and humour.

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