---

  Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Wed 2nd - Sat 5th June!


Tickets: £8.50
Concessions (first two nights only): £6.50

You can also book tickets by emailing Chip and Kate at carpenters264@btinternet.com. There's still some tickets left (although Friday and Saturday are nearly fully booked), so grab them while you've got the chance!

'Adam, the eldest of seven brothers, goes to town to get a wife. He convinces Milly to marry him that same day and they return to his backwoods home. Only then does she discover he has six brothers - all living in his cabin. Milly sets out to reform the uncouth siblings, who are anxious to get wives of their own. Then, after reading about the Roman capture of the Sabine women, Adam develops an inspired solution to his brothers' loneliness...'

Directed by Alan Lord.
27th - 30th October 2010

Readings for Billy Liar will be held very soon. The reading dates will be held on Friday 25th June and Tues the 29th June at 7.30pm in the main hall.

'Less than dedicated to his job as undertaker's clerk bored with his North Country family background, Billy Fisher takes refuge in his own invented world. For Billy, an energetic imagination makes life tolerable but well-nigh intolerable for all around him. He lies his way into and out of every situation producing any explanation and making any promise that will extricate him from his present predicament, and thereby creating ever more tortuous entanglements for the immediate future.'

Cast

William "Billy" Fisher - The title character, Billy is 19 living with his parents Alice and Geoffrey and also his grandmother, Florence Boothroyd. Billy practically lies to everyone he comes across and is always talking about an offer for a script-writing job for a famous comedian in London.

Alice Fisher - Billy's mother. Alice is always rushing about tidying up and looking after her mother that she never gets a chance to sit down for more than a few seconds.

Geoffrey Fisher - Billy's father. Geoffrey uses the word "Bloody" in his sentences so often it has lost all meaning. Geoffrey has been a successful removals businessman so his family live in quaint middle-class lives despite him and Alice having Working-Class upbringings. Geoffrey has a short temper and often never shows emotion.

Florence Boothroyd - Billy's grandmother. Florence is always talking to the sideboard and  drinking out of a pint-pot.

Arthur Crabtree - Billy's friend. Arthur works at Shadrack & Duxbury's with Billy. When we first see Arthur and Billy together they go into a routine of putting on thicker Northern accents than they normally do.

Barbara - One of Billy's fiance's. Barbara is always eating Oranges.

Rita - Rita is 17 but comes across as a hard lass. Rita is Billy's other fiance.

Liz - Scruffy Lizzie, as she is known to everyone, is Billy's third girlfriend and the only one Billy actually wants to elope with.

---

AGM

6th August, 7.30pm, Small Hall

This year's AGM will be on the 6th August. We have a few committee members who will be standing down, so if you are interested in joining the committee, or would like to come along and discuss something, then I hope to see you there!

Cheese and wine will be provided, so you won't be left hungry!

Everyone is welcome, and I hope to see a great turnout!

---

Forthcoming Shows

Hamlet directed by Matthew Austin - Friday September 10th - Sunday September 12th 2010.


Billy Liar directed by Alan Lord - 27th - 30th October 2010.

Cinderella directed by Kate Ayres - Panto 2011.

Disney's Beauty and the Beast - Musical 2011.

---

Members Corner

This month we received an article from Andy Prior, who was inspired by the upcoming production of Hamlet! Thanks Andy, and Ginny for her previous contributions. If you have anything you would like to see here please email me at matt.kerslake@googlemail.com.

Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet

"Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet" is one of the most famous British advertising campaigns for a tobacco product. It was a long-running campaign for Hamlet Cigars, lasting on television until all tobacco advertising on television was banned in the UK in 1991. They returned in cinemas in 1996, continuing there until 1999.

Commercials used an excerpt from a jazzy rendition of Bach's Air on the G String, played by the then young Jacques Loussier, which is still frequently associated with the brand.

The advertisements featured in television, radio and cinema commercials, various print media, and on billboards. The slogan and the entire campaign was created by the Collett Dickenson Pearce agency in 1966. The premise is that a man finds himself in an awkward or embarrassing situation and lights a Hamlet cigar. Lighting and smoking this cigar makes him smile and forget his woes. The campaign branched out from traditional advertising, even publishing a book of cartoons based on the idea.

These adverts were often mocked, most notably on The Kenny Everett Television Show!

Celebrity appearances to promote the cigar include Ian Botham, Ronnie Corbett and Gregor Fisher.

The advert was listed as the eighth greatest television advert of all time by Channel 4 in 2000. Coincidentally, the parody of Channel 4's blocks logo from 1980s had featured in one of the ads, where after forming a 5 instead of a 4, the blocks "rewound" and reformed into a random structure that then morphed into a face which then smoked a Hamlet.

The term has entered public consciousness and is sometimes used as a "don't worry about it" motto.

Might we remind you – there is to be no smoking in the auditorium!