Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Surrey Advertiser
21 March 2014
This lithograph shows the Guildford Union Workhouse as it would have looked in 1838.
St Lukes staff pantomime they performed Aladdin in the Coyle Hall in 1962. In July 1952, student nurses re-created an operating theatre on a float for the Guildford Festival, left, and walked away with first prize.
First World War casualties were pictured outside the front entrance of the Guildford Union Workhouse, below, when it became a war hospital in 1917.
Doris Laverty
This photo of staff in fancy dress was taken just after the outbreak of war in 1939.
Liz Lloyd and the new From Workhouse to Hospital exhibition at The Spike.
Comic play that will Literary heavyweights brought together at Mill make your ribs ache
The Bards of Bromley Mill Studio Rating: The Play That Goes Wrong Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Rating: THERES a veritable festival of laughter at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre at the moment. Last week we had the splendid Fallen Angels and now we enter the world of slapstick and sheer lunacy with a Mischief Theatre production of The Play That Goes Wrong. Take all the disasters that can happen in an amdram (and, lets face it, the occasional professional) show and cram them into an hour and a halfs performance and you have a play that will have you laughing so much, your ribs ache and your eyes water. Mischief Theatre Company was founded six years ago by a group of graduates from LAMDA, who, faced by the prospect of likely unemployment, decided to go it alone and write and perform their Alastair Muir Lunacy and escapism in The Play that Goes Wrong, at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. own demented dramas. And lo and behold, they found collapses in instalments and the Impaler. The part is then themselves in the West End, develops a malign life of its taken by a reluctant fellow attracting rave reviews. own. Theres an alarmingly and ultimately by (dont ask We are watching the mobile corpse and a gang of why) a grandfather clock. Cornley Dramatic Societys all-too-visible stage hands. How lovely to see a show latest production. Its the first The cast is admirably re- that is sheer escapist bliss. If, for which they have managed sourceful as they extricate as they say, laughing is good to field a full and appropriate themselves from crises caused for you, then The Play That cast, earlier attempts having by escalating disasters. Goes Wrong should be availincluded The Two Sisters and The heroine is knocked able on the National Health. Ugly and the Beast. unconscious and her part is Get yourself a ticket and Now it's the turn of The taken by an initially terrified forget your worries for a couMurder at Haversham Manor. backstage crew member who ple of hours. It runs until toNo economy has been spared becomes progressively more morrow (Saturday). in constructing the set, which diva-like and more like Vlad Margaret Burgess THE audience at the Mill Studio last week watched the punches fly as five literary heavyweights were forced into a ring. The central conceit of The Bards of Bromley is that Wordsworth, Milne, Eliot, Strindberg and Goethe attend a creative writing workshop in modern-day Bromley. Their efforts are pulled apart by Mrs Swerdlow, who runs the group, and by each other. Having premiered on Radio 4, this production by Theatre Proteus was the stage debut for the play which was written by Perry Pontac. The company tackled the writers celebrated Codpieces in 2012 and the main challenge here was to render it more than the sum of its cultural references. With a script awash with nods and winks, this was not easy. There is a fine line between a joke and a reference provoking a laugh from the cogniscenti. The cast gave it their best shot and, through ringing the humour from the caricatures, made it an enjoyable enough way to pass 70 minutes. A mention should go to Gary Griffiths, whose August Strindberg, straight out of a Hammer film, seethed and schemed his way through the story. The counter point to his nihilism was provided well by AA Milne, played wide-eyed by Duncan Partridge. At the centre of it all was Janet Gill, as Mrs Swerdlow, who did well with the shortcomings of a part with so much potential. The play is suited to the Yvonne Arnauds studio space, with just enough room for a cast of seven. Director Maggie Lilley kept the tempo up and made good
use of music to add humour to the monologues. Strindbergs first speech, and that of William Worsdworth, played by Jason Orbaum, worked particularly well. Theatre Proteus brought together a good production of a play that feigns to explore the contrasting philosophies of its literary idols. Andr Langlois