Lady Susan schemes her way to success

The popularity of South Brent Village Hall was entirely attributable to Lady Susan for three nights, as multitudes flocked to see her scheme her way through the SBADS production of “Jane Austen’s Lady Susan” by Rob Urbinati. We’ve added pictures to our archive.

We were delighted to welcome so many theatregoers to our show this May, with the largest non-panto audiences for several years. Their laughter buoyed the cast enormously and we have been delighted with the generous feedback for the show, with this message to SBADS summing it all up rather neatly:

It was excellent! What a very talented cast! Each character shone in their own right. The script was well written and extremely amusing and had the audience laughing all the way through. Hats off also to the front of house & bar team who gave us such a warm welcome and provided drinks before the show and in the interval. It was a wonderful and memorable evening and we can’t wait for their next production! Well done SBADS!

The talented cast was a rich mix of familiar SBADS faces, returning actors and those new to the stage.

Bridie Kennerley returned to the SBADS spotlight after a mere 13 years to play the titular Lady Susan with a delicious mix of coquetry, scheming and cruelty.

Katy Armstrong followed her performance with SBADS as a ‘Mother Figure’ last November to play daughter to Lady Susan, and as Frederica proved her emotional range to be a match for her devious mother.

Tristram ‘ten-stone weakling’ Grevatt stepped into the role of the rakish Reginald ‘triumphant musculature’ De Courcy, which gave the audience a good laugh at his expense.

Fresh from playing the Genie in Aladdin, and in only his second ever acting role, Mark Vickers brought the larger-than-life Sir James Martin to the stage in – what’s the word? – ebullient style that delighted those watching every night.

Sharon Hughes elicited enormous appreciation from the audience in her second appearance with SBADS, playing the ever-talkative and scandal-loving Alicia Johnson with obvious relish. She deserves special mention due to the extraordinary length of many of her lines which verged on soliloquy, and the audience loved both her comic performance and her (brief!) moments of pathos.

Also deserving of particular mention is Rachel Prince, who had mysteriously avoided following her father onto the SBADS stage until this production. The role of the – rightly – suspicious Catherine Vernon was no small part with which to make a debut, and she tackled it both bravely and magnificently.

Tim McGill did not expect to have to juggle playing Charles Vernon and directing the whole production: the shocking death of Robin Lee, who had begun to rehearse the part, forced a change of plans, and Tim’s dual role was an extraordinary feat given the complexity of the play. We thank and commend him both for his excellent performance and for staging such a triumphantly successful show.

We must extend our grateful thanks to all those who helped with the production – not least Alistair Cuthbertson for providing so much prompting during rehearsals that he deserved a part in his own right, Kim Kidney as both patient producer and hair-curler extraordinaire,  Georgia Wills keeping everything together as stage manager, Cathie Pannell and Val Meek attending to costumes and Rob and Julia Willoughby steering front of house. We must not forget our lighting guru Adam Cook who found himself both short of an assistant at the last minute and stuck for nail-biting hours on the A38 in the run-up to the final performance…

Most of all we must thank all those who came from far and wide to see SBADS perform “Jane Austen’s Lady Susan”. Your obvious enthusiasm made all our hard work worthwhile, and we hope that you will come back to see us again soon!

In the meantime, you can see pictures from the show in our on-line archive at www.sbadsarchive.co.uk/production/jane-austens-lady-susan/.