House Drama!! 1987

House Plays Bedroom Farce The House Drama Festival once again provided a very wide range of talent, and illustrated the importance of adjusting one's play to one's audience. Over the years the festival has become traditionally preoccupied with comedies, the most popular of which have been by Alan Ayckborn. This year's festival included two of his plays, and it is interesting to note the powerful contrast in the productions. Salisbury House prepared the more static of the two, which tended to outline peoples' darker and more selfish sides, and was performed with this in mind. The collapse of a chair onstage was well handled despite the subsequent overcrowding on the remainder of the furniture, but the play as a whole was perhaps too dry to be viewed lavourably in the light of the surrounding comedies. Monteacute, on the other hand, prepared one act of Ayckbourn's "Absurd Person Singular", one of the wildest come-dies of the Festival, which outlined the absurdities of life and behaviour, and was performed at a good, cracking pace. It was good to see that the Festival was not totally without Junior School involvement. Franklin Junior spresented an interesting slant on world diplomacy, based around a comic attempt at world arms talks. It ended on a rather heavily laboured point, but was not without its "moments", particularly in the depiction of huge varieties of faces and nationalities. Beaufort House produced an entertaining and well acted spoof detective story, with two deliberately stereotyped villains acting together to form an amusing pair. Court House also performed a spoof, although on the first night they were unfortunately forced to resort to Anna Pinkster as a very last minute stand in for Sarah Grose who had lost her voice. Despite this, the play was successful and amusingly acted. Franklin seniors took the risk of breaking the mood of their play- primarily straight - by writing in a couple of comedy parts which failed to blend in with the reast of the play. 'The Real Inspector Hound" by School House was very typical of a Stoppard play: amusing and clever but not infrequently confusing. The blend of reality with dramatic creation was very well presented, and although one was never quite sure what was happening, the play was thoroughly enjoyable. The most unexpected success of the Festival was Wimborne's. Having been cut down since the dress rehearsal, the play turned out to be hilariously funny. The whole Festival succeeded in entertaining the audience and bringing a good number of new faces to the Canford stage. Anne Brackenbury whose close links with Canford drama qualified her admirably as our adjudicator, gave her comments in a mixture of advice, criticism and encourage men