Theatre group takes on a new challenge
A theatre in south Shropshire is taking on a new challenge later this month.
Ludlow’s Two Score Theatre is known for recruiting new and untested local talent for its imaginative presentations of Shakespeare plays and they are revisiting the lost world of café theatre on April 22.
Most recently the theatre staged an epic production of Becket, the story of the murder in the cathedral of Thomas Becket, in Ludlow’s beautiful St Laurence’s Church and directed by internationally renowned Opera star Kim Begley.
Due to the pandemic their recent offerings have been restricted to “radio play” performances, the last being A Midsummer Night’s Dream for last year’s Ludlow Fringe Festival.
But as part of Ludlow Assembly Rooms upcoming week of celebrating local talent they are trying something completely different for them in Oscar’s Studio at LAR – two one-act plays with food and live music thrown in for good measure, in the classic style of café theatre first put on during the French Revolution.
On offer are Tom Stoppard’s New-Found-Land and Bennett’s A Chip In The Sugar, from his brilliant Talking Heads Monologues.
New-Found-Land is set in a dusty committee room high up in the tower of Big Ben, where two Home Office civil servants meet to review an application for British citizenship.
The applicant is from America - John Donne's "New-Found-Land". New-Found-Land combines an old man's reminiscences about the Great War and a young blood's passion for the New World to unusual and often hilarious effect.
A Chip In The Sugar, written and performed originally by Bennett himself, introduces us to Graham, a middle-aged bachelor, emotionally unintelligent and chronically dependent on his mother, who finds life difficult enough at the best of times. When Mother meets an old flame and seems set to marry him, Graham's old insecurities rear their ugly heads is a funny and poignant examination of life behind the net curtains.
The opening of Ludlow Assembly Rooms offers Two Score Company its first live public outing since lockdown.
There will be food (provided by Bill’s Kitchen Ludlow included in the ticket price), wine, frivolities, laughter and live music from talented local guitarist Oscar Teo, who will be playing live during the interval.
Oscar's music is an eclectic blend of genres woven together in his original compositions. With an improvisational element to Oscar's live performances, blues, jazz, classical, flamenco, Arabic, Gypsy jazz and folk influences all shimmer to the surface interlaced with beautiful drifting melody.
The show will be at Ludlow Assembly Rooms on Friday April 22. Tickets, priced £15 are available from Ludlow Assembly Rooms Box Office on 01584 878141 or online at ludlowassemblyrooms.co.uk
