Notice is hereby given that the 40^th Annual General Meeting of Cheshire Theatre Guild will be held on Wednesday July 7^th commencing at 7.30pm at Winsford Civic Hall.

This will be followed by our usual play extracts (strictly timed not to over run!). Our adjudicators comments and the award ceremony.

More information on the AGM will follow but it is not too early to start getting numbers for ticket requirements – no limit – but we do need to know in advance to enable the Civic Hall to arrange the seating and tables.

Get your posters to me at the usual address or to Maureen Melville at 24 Forest Close, Cuddington, Northwich, Cheshire, CW8 2EE tel 01606 888216.. This year our judge is a well known local artist and tutor Richard Kelsall.

This year our Manchester Evening News salver for Best Overall Production will be replaced with a superb new cup “The John F Blackburn Award”.

This trophy has been kindly donated by Stella Blackburn in memory of a true gentleman of amateur theatre and a great friend of Ron Arscott. A Shield in memory of Ron is already presented to the Runner up to Best Production.. I know that Stella and others who knew Jack and Ron are delighted their names are linked together again for the most prestigious awards in the festival.

Knutsford Little Theatre June 19^th & 20^th. Meg Cooper (tel 0161 881 8416) awaits your entry forms by May 22^nd please. The Cheshire Theatre Guild One Act Play Festival rules are extremely flexible – we will even accept a play extract or scene, a monologue, or an original work.

Our adjudicator David Wood works mainly in the Manchester area and is currently adjudicating Section A of the Greater Manchester Drama Federation full length festival. He has also adjudicated the Hale One Act Festival.

GoDA – whose patron is Sir Alan Ayckbourn – was founded just after world war 2 with the express purpose of improving the standards of adjudication of amateur drama by “establishing recognized principles of practice to which its members could be relied upon to adhere”.

There are currently about 80 members of GoDA; as the internationally recognized body for the adjudication of all forms of theatre, GoDA adjudicators are contracted to adjudicate Drama Festivals all over the UK, Europe and – occasionally – further afield as well.

The selection process is rigorous; to begin with, the candidate must complete an application form, and be invited to attend a Selection Weekend (not automatic) which are held every 18 months or so; references are taken up; the weekend consists of talks, an interview by a panel of senior GoDA Council members, and written tests and assessments. On the Saturday evening, the candidates watch an amateur production as part of it’s audience; overnight they each write an adjudication of the show, and on the following morning each of them delivers a verbal adjudication from the stage of the theatre to the Selection Panel (4 people, scattered round seat theatre, watching like a hawk, and taking notes!)

Invitation to become a member of the Guild is very difficult to attain; at the 2002 weekend, 2 of the 7 attending were successful; at the 2003 weekend – held over a scorching hot weekend in July – only 2 of the original group of 8 were successful.

Why am I telling you all this? Because the 2 successful candidates at the last Selection Weekend – and now GoDA adjudicators – were Robert Meadows (CTG 2002-03) and Jeff Brailsford (CTG 1996-8).

Who says that the CTG doesn’t search out the very best of everything for it’s member societies?

(There’s a footballing joke in there for those who understand such references!!)

For those of you who think being Chairman of the Cheshire Theatre Guild is a life of glamour and being treated like a celebrity wherever you go, the picture on the left may shatter your illusions somewhat.

It shows John Powell working as part of the stage crew at the Gaiety Theatre, Douglas, during the day on which Tudor Players set up their production of “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” by Neil Simon. Yes, the Gaiety can afford a vacuum cleaner, but ever the perfectionist, John insisted going down on hands and knees with a dustpan and brush to remove every last piece of dust.

John then went on later that evening to appear as part of the triumphant cast who, at the end of the week, were presented with trophies for The Best Production, The Best Comedy and The Play The Audience Liked Best. Jeff Brailsford, Shirley Southern and Terry Hollinshead were nominated as Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor respectively. The Adjudicator, Colin Dolley, made some extremely complimentary remarks about the way the team had captured the style of the play, but the three sisters, Meg Cooper, Helen Gresty and Leila Pilkington weren’t too sure about his comments likening them to the three witches. He did, however, love their hats and the way they sat on the sofa.

And the title to this article ….. ?

The play includes a couple of references to a cactus which can’t survive living in New York. The props list at the back of the script (12 pages of props!!) describes it as being a potted cactus – where the demand that it be four feet high as well as dead came from is a bit of a mystery – but nevertheless, that is what we asked for. Believe it or not, a request on Manx Radio on the morning of our appearance produced a call ten minutes later offering us – a four foot high dead cactus - which was duly delivered that afternoon. And yes, it was four foot high and it was dead, so why the owner was insistent that she wanted it back we couldn’t work out.

The bare left ankle on display in the photograph above is not some obscure dress ritual demanded by the Gaiety Theatre Management. John walked backwards into a tray full of beige paint at one point and his left sock was drying on a radiator backstage.

Your reference in the last Newsletter to A A Milne’s play “Mr Pym Passes By” sent my mind racing, and me scurrying to my personal archives to see how much, in fact, things have changed – especially in relation to choice of play.

I went back to Festivals of 30 and more years ago – Manchester Drama Federation (as it was then) and places like Fleetwood and Clitheroe when we used to compete there; very few Ayckbourn plays and no Godber; hardly any Neil Simon, Alan Bennett or “modern” plays (with “modern” themes).

Among the forgotten “gems” I found these; how many of them do your readers remember; which ones would they fancy presenting now?

As you know I’m adjudicating for the AETF this season and – sad to say – only one production all season has come from that list. I’d venture to suggest that any Society could make a really good bill from that list alone!

Returning to “Mr Pym Passes By” for a moment I wonder whether anybody else, apart from me, knows it; a gentle comedy, with 7 parts (3M 4F) ranging in age from 19 to 60-something; first produced in 1920, with a cast that included Leslie Howard, Irene Vanbrugh and Dion Boucicault. Years ago I had a copy of the script which I lost; I tracked another one down and – one of these days – I’ll get this delightful play back on the stage after goodness knows how many years.

You didn’t mention his other plays, (he was quite prolific), including “The Dover Road”. Milne was a writer of comedy, and popular in his day; he’d be well worth a revival!

No there isn’t a stage version of “Winnie the Pooh”.

Jeff Brailsford.

This is an open invitation to all those who are actively committed to the performing arts within the Cheshire Theatre Guild.

An ambitious promenade performance will be performed in the first week of July 2005. It will be staged

outdoors at Anderton, near to the Boat Lift and at the Lion Salt Works, Northwich.

The project is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and has the support of Weaver River Initiative, Vale Royal Borough Council, The Lion Salt Works Trust and the Development of the Arts for Northwich. The funding will be used to gather reminiscences and memories of Cheshire residents who once worked in the Salt Industry and on the River Weaver. These stories will be shaped into a ‘dramatic narrative’. Funds have also been made available to meet the costs of staging the production.

The process of gathering material for the performance has already begun. A team of professional and volunteer researchers are beginning to interview ‘the tellers’, whose stories will provide the raw material. The spinning and weaving of these tales will take place during the latter part of the year. But, of course, the project will be an opportunity for the Guild’s talent to take to the open stage as performers, designers, technicians and supporters. Having seen so much excellent work last year during my travels as an adjudicator, I would be delighted if groups could make this opportunity known to its members. Those who have worked on projects of this kind in the past have found the experience very memorable. That was certainly true of the recent ‘Marbury Mysteries’!

The way to express an interest would be to contact DAN Office on 01606 41597 or you might wish to contact me directly on 01606 551453. I look forward to talking to you about the ‘Salt Tellers’.

Robert Meadows

John R Powell

Chairman