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<title>My RSS Feed</title><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/index.html</link><description>Drama Update</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2011 Karen</dc:rights><dc:date>2011-02-11T15:40:49+00:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:54:27 +0100</lastBuildDate><item><title>Play readings</title><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2011-02-11T15:40:49+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/b9d4bdf92b3e70ea122225d1324168ce-8.html#unique-entry-id-8</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/b9d4bdf92b3e70ea122225d1324168ce-8.html#unique-entry-id-8</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[After a particularly challenging day at work - you know, the days when you come out of a meeting feeling like you want to hit something! - I was looking forward to switching off and participating at a relatively relaxing evening of play reading now that the craziness of the panto was over!      A group of us met at a fellow members house to read through and discuss various options for the forthcoming festival season - anything from ancient greek comedy and a members own work to a play about 3 monkeys typing Hamlet (I&rsquo;m not even sure how you would categorise that!).    This was a very sociable session and lots of laughs were had by all - just the tonic I needed after such a crap day!]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>January rehearsal</title><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2011-01-06T13:22:24+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/9e93382689f6552d22881928694a88da-6.html#unique-entry-id-6</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/9e93382689f6552d22881928694a88da-6.html#unique-entry-id-6</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Great to be back in the swing of things after the Christmas break - if the performances are as much fun as the rehearsals are, the audiences will be in for a real treat.&nbsp;&nbsp;   Its hard to believe this is a show originally performed a hundred years ago and the jokes are still fresh!&nbsp;   Lets hope we all stay so!!!


Mark Padbury]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Mother Goose rehearsal</title><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2010-11-03T10:54:28+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/b6b93bc20b8ad098752cdeb7738af6d5-5.html#unique-entry-id-5</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/b6b93bc20b8ad098752cdeb7738af6d5-5.html#unique-entry-id-5</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Everyone arrived to rehearsal tonight in high humour, the laughing and joking continued throughout the evening, with innuendo's being found in many of the lines!   We worked our way through scenes 5, 6 & 7 to the end, which means that next week we can start at the beginning again and work on the blocking.   The highlight of the evening for me was watching Dave doing the scene at the wishing well when he had to keep holding his leg up in the air!   Being first Wednesday of the month we celebrated everyone's birthdays in the month, so there was plenty of cake!   Everyone seems to be working very well and putting in loads of effort, it helps that everyone has fun at the same time.   I'm looking forward to seeing how next week goes.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Golden Beaks Festival</title><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2010-09-29T14:42:14+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/86dfb22a5ba89a48350c8ab64cc9841e-4.html#unique-entry-id-4</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/86dfb22a5ba89a48350c8ab64cc9841e-4.html#unique-entry-id-4</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Festival founder, playwright David Tristram decided to set up this particular festival in 1997 because he was &ldquo;fed up of attending festivals where the wrist-slashing piece with the social message always won because the comedies which had everyone rolling about was deemed too frivolous&rdquo;.    


This festival appealed to us on a number of levels; after the closure for refurbishment of the Didcot Civic Hall &ndash; our rehearsal and performance venue &ndash; whatever we did would need to be small scale, a one act play is easier to pull together over the summer when people are away on holiday, and it would be a great social opportunity for the membership to go away for a whole weekend together &ndash; a sort of outward bound for luvvies!  


This was also made easier by the fact that one of our members have family who live near Bridgnorth, and knew a pub where we could stay that offered B&B, Self-catering cottages and camping &ndash; so something to suit everyone&rsquo;s pocket &ndash; not to mention good food and a variety of real ales!    So the next task was to find a suitable play.    Not having a clue about the standard of the groups performing, we decided that our main objective was to have as much fun as possible, so settled on a very silly early Moliere play &ldquo;The Flying Doctor&rdquo; which was full of slapstick and very similar to panto in style.    Rehearsals were predictably chaotic due to the holiday season but loads of fun and everyone threw themselves into the spirit of the play.


The festival itself is run over one weekend and consists of four sessions of 3 plays (matinee & evening performances &ndash; max 12 entries).    We were scheduled to perform on the Saturday evening, so the majority of us arrived on the Friday night and after pitching tents, piled into the pub for food and a drink or 2.      After a somewhat chilly night, the following beautiful sunny morning found us all in the pub garden having a words rehearsal and making last minute adjustments to the set and costumes (much to the amusement of the other guests!)   before heading off to Bridgnorth to find the theatre.


Bridgnorth is a market town situated on a cliff-side along the River Severn and &ldquo;The Theatre on the Steps&rdquo;, a converted church, is about halfway down the cliff accessed only by an old stone stairway &ndash; our first challenge (apart from parking &ndash; which was a nightmare due to the fact it was market day!)   was to get all the set down the steps, which was hard work to say the least, but everyone pitched in to help including the young children in our party.     There was no backstage storage facility so all our set and props were piled onto an open terrace by the stage door that overlooked the Severn Valley before we all went in to enjoy the first session.


We were first on the bill for Saturday night so were allowed onstage from 6pm to erect the set and run through a technical rehearsal.    Again it was all hands on deck to perform this operation &ndash; our trusty flat packed set, used for all the local festivals this year was dragged out again and made to look like the exterior of a mediaeval house by the cunning use of trellis covered in Ivy and fake flowers hooked to the walls.    Luckily there was no time restrictions for setting the stage so we could take a little more care than usual in getting it to look just right and I have to say the end result was very colourful and attractive.


David Tristram himself made the introductions for the evening session while we nervously waited backstage.    Our performance was definitely the best we had done it so far &ndash; no major fluffing of lines, and the set managed to stay in one piece (no mean feat given the amount of door slamming and jumping in and out of windows that was required in the script!)   and the audience actually laughed at times (always a good sign when performing a comedy!)    So we came off the stage relatively pleased with our efforts before manically removing our set to make way for the next group.    Luckily we were able to drag the whole thing off in pieces and dissemble it outside on the terrace, before carrying it back up the stone steps and into the awaiting cars.    Then a quick drink in the theatre bar and back into the auditorium to watch the remainder of the plays and listen to the adjudication.


Mike Kaiser was the resident adjudicator being a friend of David Tristram and living just a few miles away from Bridgnorth.     David Tristram told us in his intro that if we didn&rsquo;t like anything that Mike said we had to boo or throw things at him so we were ready with our rotten tomatoes when Mike took the stage.    He&rsquo;d obviously done his homework as he started off by telling the audience that he had adjudicated us earlier this year at the ODN festival - at which point my heart sank .....urk, he remembered us!    However, he went on to give us a favourable adjudication &ndash; luckily he was a Moliere fan and thought the extra bits we&rsquo;d added were in keeping with the style and felt Moliere would have approved!    He also thought the set and costumes were great, lighting was effective and we used the stage well.    He pulled us up on a few timing issues (which we agreed with) and had a slight problem with one of the characters.    We had a shortage of men who were available for the trip so we changed one of the male characters &ndash; the father of the pretty young heroine &ndash; to a wicked stepmother whom he felt was too glamorous and too close in age to the other two female characters, (but couldn&rsquo;t a stepmother in the 17th C be feasibly 16 years older than her stepdaughter??    Well we thought so, and disagreed with him on this point.)


So we went back to the pub pretty happy with ourselves, enjoyed a few pints of &ldquo;Shropshire Lad&rdquo; (thoroughly recommended!)   and socialised until the small hours of the morning.    The next day some of our party dispersed in order to get children back at a decent time so they could be up bright and early for school, but a few of us stayed on to enjoy the remaining 2 sessions and to find out who had won the illustrious Golden Beak awards and accompanying cash prizes.


I have to say that I was really impressed by the range of comedies that were on offer over the weekend &ndash; I thought it was going to be a lot of David Tristram style affairs (and there were a few), but apart from our classical Moliere, there were 2 original works, an American comedy, an Australian comedy, a physical piece based on mime, musical pieces and some very entertaining monologues.     However, the thing that impressed me most of all were the number of performing groups that stayed on to support the efforts of others and the friendliness of everyone we met - from the festival organisers to the participating groups. 


As for our experience, there were 18 of us that made the trip &ndash; cast & crew, supporters and their families, and we had a cracking time.     Although we didn&rsquo;t come away with any prizes (not unless you count 2 raffle prizes!)   we did receive nominations in the Best Actress category and Adjudicators Special Award for our stage presentation.    But it wasn&rsquo;t just about performing in a festival, it was about spending time with a great bunch of people, working together, doing something we all enjoy and having fun.


The dates for the festival have already been set for next year &ndash; 17/18 September.    Will we be there??    Watch this space!


In the meantime, check out our road movie 


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>&#x22;What&#x27;s up Doc?&#x22; by Karen Carey</title><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2010-05-12T10:28:51+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/ab06b7e78dd08bb0bd22d0a9ada755aa-3.html#unique-entry-id-3</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/ab06b7e78dd08bb0bd22d0a9ada755aa-3.html#unique-entry-id-3</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In my experience, it&rsquo;s always difficult to motivate a rather deflated cast after what could be perceived as a bit of a festival mauling.      So after downing a lemsip to ward of an impending cold, I set off for the Civic Hall with a slight sense of trepidation to review the adjudication with the cast and to discuss what changes we could make to the play in the light of the comments made.    However, after about 10 mins of griping and airing our own views on the adjudication, we quickly dusted ourselves off and got down to business with our usual good humour.  


The Adjudicator, Helen Sharman&rsquo;s main criticism was that the play was not performed as per the author&rsquo;s intention.    Dario Fo uses farce to criticise the establishment and his plays are full of stock &ldquo;Commedia Del&rsquo;arte style characters and conventions - ie slapstick etc.      This, I accept.    Whereas last year when we attempted Fo&rsquo;s &ldquo;One was Nude and one wore tails&rdquo; and threw ourselves whole heartedly into these conventions (and were criticised at Henley for being too OTT!), we probably did play it a little safer and looked to the more sinister aspects of the play and not the more farcical aspects.    So ideas were thrown into the melting pot on how we could energise the farce without changing the basic shape and structure of the play, after all with only 2 weeks to go til the Didcot Festival that would be impractical.


When Fraser started talking about Bugs Bunny we obviously thought the strain had got to him or he had eaten too many carrots for tea.    Then he reminded us of the many different characters the crafty bunny assumed in order to confuse and befuddle his arch enemy Elmo Fudd - drawing comparisons with his character of the Maniac.    Could we possibly use this as a starting point??  


So with this in mind, we decided to have some fun and set about rehearsing, exaggerating every character and milking the comedy for all it&rsquo;s worth in a slapstick, cartoon-like fashion.     Of course lines and moves were forgotten and general hysteria descended frequently, but we had a blast and the next couple of rehearsals will continue in the same vein, developing and refining our new found silliness.   


So will it be a different performance next time??    Oh yes!    Will the next adjudicator be more appreciative??    Who knows!  


The only thing I am sure of is that the next 3 adjudications in Didcot, Abingdon & Wallingford will each throw something different at us, but if we can have as much fun performing it as we did rehearsing last night and are able to communicate that to the audiences, then I for one will be a happy bunny. 


I consider myself very lucky to have such a bunch of &lsquo;looney tunes&rsquo; in my cast!
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Henley Festival - by David Cooke</title><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2010-05-10T13:59:33+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/d4ced50d9b6f7b28d8f15962b4c9e500-2.html#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/d4ced50d9b6f7b28d8f15962b4c9e500-2.html#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It was with some collective trepidation that we finally got to perform our little play in front of a paying audience.   Were we brilliant?   Yes &ndash; in a word.   Did the adjudicator agree?   No &ndash; in another word.


&nbsp;       


Alright so we left the odd prop offstage but Fraser and Keith brilliantly covered up the lines which referred to the errant hat and we didn&rsquo;t get picked up on it.   So we were &frac12; a minute longer than the allowed time, again not something we got picked up on.   Strangely enough, we&rsquo;d always been at least 5 minutes longer than that and for the life of us, we can&rsquo;t work out where we managed to save those extra minutes.   No what the adjudicator didn&rsquo;t like was the way we did the play.   In a nutshell &ndash; it didn&rsquo;t meet with her expectations of the way the play should be performed and this coloured the rest of the adjudication.   More slapstick, more pace, more energy is what she was looking for, less realism.   So away we shall go and no doubt our beloved director (who truth be told, was expecting a bit of a hammering) will do some tweaks but in my own humble and entirely biased opinion, we really weren&rsquo;t bad, and a fair number of the audience came up to us afterwards and agreed.


&nbsp;


As for the rest of the evening, there were two other plays, one junior and one serious play which both received (again in my entirely biased opinion) far too reasonable and uncritical judgements.   OK so you don&rsquo;t want to dampen kids spirits when they&rsquo;ve put a lot of effort into producing a play, but honestly I had very little idea what the hell it was supposed to be about.   There were some very nice artistic touches and some good performances but I was left feeling &lsquo;Err..&rsquo; and the singing whilst very melodious was mostly lost beneath the sound of the live musicians.   The other piece, whilst extremely well set and beautifully acted, was wrist-slittingly depressing.   I suspect this is why Phoenix tend to do comedies and farces but we could have all done with play being shorter, about 5 minutes in total would have done me.


&nbsp;


I realise the above will sound like sour grapes, but truthfully, there was much good stuff in the comments we received and it was really good for the cast to try the play out on a real audience.   We will take what we have learnt and build on it for our next tour-de-force at Cornerstone in Didcot on 29th&nbsp; May, but I hope we don&rsquo;t lose the fun we&rsquo;ve all been experiencing to-date in putting this play together.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>One week to go... by Karen Carey</title><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2010-04-29T14:24:58+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/25702ff998f467b23beeded82a5c35c9-1.html#unique-entry-id-1</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/25702ff998f467b23beeded82a5c35c9-1.html#unique-entry-id-1</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Well, one week to go until our first outing to the Henley festival and surprisingly enough the cast actually seem to know most of their lines......not necessarily in the right order, but us directors can&rsquo;t ask for miracles after all!


The idea was to arrive 15 mins early, set the stage and then go through the play twice -ha ha ha!!  


Bob - our set builder extraordinaire - has designed and built this amazing set that includes 2 doors and a window that unfolds and slots together (Ikea really could do with a genius like him!) - however, even his simple design had the rest of us numpties scratching our heads and bumbling around much to his amusement (I have no idea how he puts up with us sometimes!).     Eventually an hour later the set was finally in place.     Now this may be problematic as, according to festival rules, we need to be able to set the stage in 10 mins - I have no idea how we are going to do this!     Answers on a postcard please!
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>&#x22;Anarchist&#x22; by cast member David Cooke</title><dc:creator>karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk</dc:creator><dc:subject>Drama Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2010-04-05T11:25:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/53124abb00242bd40c27d0c9ba1b8438-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.didcotphoenixdrama.co.uk/page9/files/53124abb00242bd40c27d0c9ba1b8438-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[So, another year, another round of festivals, another Dario Fo play being directed by Mrs Carey or "she who had better be obeyed if you want to keep all your sticky-out bits intact" as we (the cast) like to think of her.   God, some things are so predictable.   But anyway, for those of us who didn't want to don Tigger outfits for this year's festivals there was little other choice.   So with heavy hearts and a feeling of dread, I and a few others braved the auditioning process (known as 'waterboarding') for 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist' and were 'lucky' enough to be chosen for this year's hilarious take on the Italian police force and their tactics (also known as ... oh no wait, that's MI5 isn't it)&nbsp;.   I use the word 'hilarious' with some trepidation as the script in English shows no signs of it on the page.   Perhaps in the original language, merely reading it out loud would have had me queuing up to have an emergency operation where I'd ruptured some internal organ in fits of uncontrollable laughter.   Not as impossible as you might think, someone actually died laughing whilst watching an episode of the Goodies - strange but true.   The sad truth is that the script left me feeling bemused, confused and worried.   The worried bit was the the wordiness of it, particularly with respect to the part of the Maniac (capital letter intended).   Of the&nbsp;20 pages of densely covered script in 4 point Arial, 32 of the pages were the Maniac's monologues.   I should have known better (as the song goes), Karen's casting was impeccable (or at least inspired given the choice) and as we have started to rehearse the play, what had seemed dire and long-winded on the page has turned out to be funny, pacey and with real punch - problem is that's only the stage directions.   But seriously, without giving too much away, the play has taken on a whole new persona when acted out.   Our very own (no-one else wanted him) Fraser Norton is superb as the Maniac (some type casting there I think) and has managed to learn the equivalent of the entire Koran backwards in less than 4 weeks and provides most of the dark and light in the play.   In fact I was surprised he wasn't nominated for a DAFTA just for his performance to date.     The rest of the cast comprises Martin Redhead as a splendid Inspector Bertozzo, the only person in the play who actually gets a name rather than just a title, that's how good he is.   Bettina Hughes as WPC, a dim but jolly female police officer (more type casting I think you'll agree) who makes up in her interjections what she lacks in numbers of lines.   Keith Norman as Sports Jacket - a sort of 'Life on Mars' character who prefers solving Rubiks cube type problems by hitting them with a sledge hammer, scooping all the bits into a paper bag and then jumping up and down on them (even more type casting).   And finally me, David Cooke as Superintendant - a man whose erroneous belief in his own self importance is only dwarfed by his own&nbsp;enormous stupidity (supreme type casting I'm sure you will agree).   As for the plot itself - like I said come and see it but I will just say that even the West Midlands Serious Fraud squad would have to take their hats off to the corruptness of the Italian police particularly as portrayed by me and Keith.   Sadly the anarchist himself doesn't get a look in, not even as a chalk outline on the floor but if we don't produce the goods on the nights I suspect there will be an Accidental Death of a Cast Member which perhaps we could stage next year.]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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