Rude Awakenings

(4f)

•  Astrid - The youngest member of the Little Gissing Art Group.
•  Pauline - Aged 50+ A long-term village resident. Secretary of the Little Gissing Art Group.
•  Olivia - Aged 40+ A newcomer and weekend resident.
•  Harriet - Aged 50+ Pauline’s old school friend from Godalming.

Mary Dawson, West Meon Theatre “Set in a comfortable country village (and easily staged with minimal props and scenery) Rude Awakenings is a bittersweet comedy full of charm and humour which manages, nonetheless, to delve beneath the surface of middle-class village life to reveal some of the pain of relationships both past and present.”

Joanna Harry, St Michael’s Players, Chiswick “A great One Act play for a cast of four – the story’s really clever and you can imagine it actually happening. Then the ending comes along – priceless! Absolutely loved it.”

Katie Jacobs, West Meon Theatre “The play has four very strong and very different characters – funny and engaging throughout... the end has a marvellous twist. Great fun to do!”

Hazel Town, West Meon Theatre “Thank you for writing such a great play. It was such fun to perform.”

Bryony Wilman, St Michael’s Players, Chiswick “The play is beautifully written, very funny and builds up nicely to its climax”

Keith Jacobs, West Meon Theatre “A perfect piece for local drama groups with humour, broad and subtle, shades of pathos and a witty tale of amateur artistry, pretension, deceit & all the usual goings on in village life”

Fleur de Henrie, St Michael’s Players, Chiswick “The play provides laughs from the outset but towards the end a change in mood allows the audience a moment of compassion in a sea of laughs. This is a great play written by a talented playwright.”

Kevin Quinn, Helen's Bay Players "We produced 'Rude Awakenings' and really enjoyed it. We put two twenty minute sketches before the interval and Rude Awakening as the second half of the evening. We got our local art group to exhibit their work around the auditorium and on stage and had them paint the works of art in the play. They enjoyed being part of the fun. One question for our future reference- when an author specifies a piece of music to be played as part of the performance does the licence fee cover performing rights for the song or do we need to cover that separately - and how? This will arise next year when we are hoping to produce Janet Shaw's 'One Day I'll Fly Away'."

Burdock Valley Players, Upper Clatford Village Hall Rebecca Case, The Daily Echo ‘Rude Awakenings' by Nicolas Ridley saw a Little Gissing host the annual amateur art competition, bringing together four very different women, with all their nuances and complexities. The cast did an excellent job, bringing their characters to life and moving the story along to its unsuspected conclusion. Pauline (Viv Slingsby) was suitably bossy as the chair of a village committee, contrasting with her charge, Astrid (Loren Williams), who gave a good impression of compliance, while Olivia (Anna Dowsett) was perfect as the superior London weekender, as was Harriet (Peta Moffitt) as the dippy school chum.