We’re very proud to announce that our latest production, the Vicar of Dibley, was seen by the record number of 340 people in the venues at Ste Dode, Boudrac and Marciac. Many have said that this was the best show we’ve put on and we were delighted with the many  favourable comments and messages that were received. These ranged from saying how fantastic it was and giving it praise for being  such a professional event to saying how entertaining the play was and it was just what was needed in such difficult times with Covid, the war in Europe and escalating prices!

The stars of the show were  obviously the actors, who kept the audience entertained through out the evening with their stunning performances and were rewarded by their well deserved encores. However, it was  delightful that at all 3 shows, the audience amusingly gave applause to the stage crew as they quickly went about changing the scenes!
To put on such a production as this, there are many people involved - the unsung heroes, who work behind the scenes  to make it all possible. The sets once made need to be transported and erected which takes many hours of work and then dismantled and  packed away ready to repeat for the following performance. Then there is the sound and light team, the front of house team, the bar and catering team and all those jobs that need to be done but don’t have a title! There are of course the stalwarts who work long hours setting it all up and then popping off into the changing room ready to tread the boards. It has certainly been a busy time for all the English Theatre  Company players and support team but it’s all been so worthwhile and great fun to be a part of.

People who have only recently known about The English Theatre Company may be interested that we have  now put on 15 well received productions in different towns and villages throughout the Gers and Haute Garonne region and our group and its faithful followers, just keep growing. The venues for our shows have been as  varied as the content. Some performances have been held in restaurants with 3 course meals, but more usually in a Salle de Fete with afternoon tea and cake or wine and canapés and once even  with Bubbles and cucumber sandwiches! Not even Covid could put us off and 3 very successful concerts were held out in the open with the audience invited to bring their own picnics!

The Committee will be meeting shortly to start planning our next event. So watch this spot to see what we are going to be doing next - maybe its something you might like to get involved in! There are many ways for people to help in a production and we are always on the look out to welcome new members.

​Melodie Minty  23 May 2022

At the age of just 31 in 1834, Charles Dickens, successful writer from humble beginnings, felt impelled to speak out against child poverty which was much in evidence all around him in his adopted hometown of London, helped not at all by the greed and selfishness of the wealthy.  In a short six-week flurry of inspired creativity, he set to writing a 66-page novella that would grab people's attention and 'strike a sledgehammer blow' on behalf of poor children. 
On 2 December 1834, his creation was completed but his publishers were less than enthusiastic about the concept  -  Dickens' current publication, Martin Chuzzlewit, was not meeting with unbounded success.  However he was so aflame with fervour for his project, that he poured his own money into the publication of the first edition, and the first 6,000 copies of A Christmas Carol appeared in the booksellers' windows on 19 December 1834.  
The instant and overwhelming success of the original publication of A Christmas Carol was such that it sold out before Christmas Eve 1834, having been on sale for less than one week.  In the following year, the novella was to be reprinted thirteen times and, in fact, it has never been out of print to this day.  Whether Dickens' 'sledgehammer blow' had the desired effect on the population is debatable, looking at the child poverty crisis of today, but his novella has been woven into the fabric of our social history, becoming an indispensable part of our Christmas entertainment in one or more of its many incarnations.
Imagine, then, the delight of the ETC production team upon learning this, when their presentation of A Christmas Carol was scheduled for the very same day of its original publication, 19 December, exactly 187 years later just before Christmas 2021.
As a rehearsed playreading, the script of the ETC's production is an adaptation of the original novella, edited to fit the casting requirements of the Company.  But the dialogue spoken remains faithful to Dickens' original, using only his beautiful and familiar words.  In fact, the narrator of the story is Charles Dickens himself and, in the ETC playreading, we see him seated at his writing bureau as he creates the characters and their story that unfolds before him.
With wonderful creativity, the Company members brought the characters to life, dressing them in an imaginative suggestion of costume redolent of mid Victorian England, and skilfully portraying a 'bewilderingly large' number of personages, up to as many as five for just one actor.  The collaborative effect of this fine ensemble work was greatly appreciated by the audience, as were the ensuing mince pies and mulled wine, served to them by the cast against a convivial background of Christmas music.  And, as Dickens himself says, "There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour."

Having been forced to perform outdoors for almost two years due to Covid restrictions it was a joy to be back inside and on stage again — thanks to double vaccinations and QR codes.
And what a play to celebrate our return to the stage. Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy has been delighting audiences for more than a century. We chose to produce it as an abridged version in live radio broadcast format.

Rehearsals were fun as our actors honed their lah-di-dah accents and got into character.

Yesterday we put the whole show on the road and premiered at Larreule in a superb Salle des fêtes. The audience loved the performance and laughter reigned throughout. At the end of the play the cast served cake, cava and cucumber sandwiches to the audience who stayed on for ages enjoying the after-show ambience.

We’re back on the road next Sunday,  October 3, at the salle des fêtes in Boudrac, then the week after on Sunday 10 October at Sainte-Dode. We have limited tickets available for both performances and these are available from our box office: ruth.faiers@gmail.com
If you haven’t seen it, don’t miss it — it’s one of the best  events we have staged!

Our four performances at four venues on four days went down a treat with our audiences. First off we played in front of the Mairie at Sembouès on Saturday 3 July. The morning had started with rain but a decision was made to go ahead and by the time the performance began the sun was shining.

We upped sticks and set up the next day behind the Salle des Fêtes at Sainte-Dode and the sun was so fierce there were lots of burnt arms and legs.

Third up was Gaussan (left) where there was plenty of shade but a surfeit of mosquitoes! Finally we shifted everything to Larreule near Maubourguet for the final performance on Sunday 11 July. Again the weather was kind and we were grateful for the shade of century-old plane trees.

More than 200 people came to enjoy our "Mixed Doubles" — a compilation of short plays which, although first performed in 1969, reflects just as truthfully today on various aspects of married life, whether that takes the form of competitive sporting rivalry with workmates as in Score by Lyndon Brook, musings on humdrum domesticity in Countdown by Alan Ayckbourn, or wistful dreams of a shared life hereafter in Resting Place by David Campton. In the form of interval pieces, two mimed playlets written by Michael Frayn complete the fun — Look Away Now and Toasters.

​See the Gallery page for on stage photos.

The English Theatre Company were keen to stage an event as quickly as possible once restrictions were lifted. To this end we have been rehearsing outdoors and socially distanced for the last few weeks and today announced four venues for our pop-up comedy theatre events — see Future Events page.

Because rehearsing in large numbers was not allowed during Covid restrictions we chose two- and three-person pieces. Three are performances of short plays by Alan Ayckbourn, Lyndon Brook and David Campton along with two mimed interval sketches by Michael Frayn. 

Under the title Mixed Doubles our programme is a musing on various aspects of married life. We have had great fun rehearsing and preparing for performing after a long break. We can't wait to tread the boards again even though everything will be outdoors and socially distanced. It promises to be a hoot!

To see what we have been up to during lockdown please look at our 'Future Events' page

Under a gentle Autumn sky, with a backdrop of sparkling Pyreneean peaks and in warm sunlight dappled by an avenue of plane trees, eight ETC players performed two of Alan Ayckbourn’s five interlinked works collectively entitled “Confusions”. This continues our successful format of rehearsed readings outdoors, for a pic-nicking public and makes for a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, with the players just a few metres from their appreciative audience. Written in 1974 by this prolific and much loved dramatist, each piece is the usual masterful combination of subtle comedy and social commentary.
 
The first, “Mother Figure”, gave us Lucy (Maggie Crane), a fraught and exhausted mother whose ability to hold an adult conversation has disintegrated under the stress of motherhood and who treats everyone in the same childlike and condescending way. Both Rosemary (Gill Foster), a concerned neighbour, and her chauvinistic and controlling husband Terry (Maurice Shorter), are reduced to a state of infancy by Lucy’s mothering and puerile conversation.
 
The second playlet “Between Mouthfuls” sees a hilariously hapless waiter (Ian Warwick) inadvertently entwined into the conversations of two couples in his restaurant. The couples’ marriages are both disintegrating, because the wife in one (Nancy Robotham) has had a brief affair with the pompous and disagreeable husband in the other (Phil Faiers) – who also happens to be her husband’s boss! While the cuckolded husband (Bill Kimber) fears only for his job and not a jot for the desperation that drove his wife to be unfaithful to him, the cheated wife of the boss (Jacqueline Rochelle-Cawte) haughtily and disdainfully declines to eat a succession of courses placed before her, puffing on her cigarette throughout and vowing loudly to kill the mistress when she finds out who it is. The denouement finds the boss offering to buy his grateful underling a brandy in the bar while the wives are destined, off stage, to come face to face in the toilets.
 
Two typically amusing satires artfully directed by Annie Dawes.
                                                                                                                                                                Blog post by Anne Dickens

Well we did it!
After various Covideo conference calls and despite living in Pandemia the ETC managed to put on Neil Simon’s elegant comedy, “Rumors”. We chose his American version, hence the spelling. We staged both performances at the delightful outdoor setting at Sembouès Salle des Fêtes. Happily the weather was on our side even though there was an orange alert for thunderstorms for the second performance.
Our aim was to keep our theatre group active during coronavirus restrictions and to let our 500 or so ‘Friends’ know that we are able to stage socially distanced outdoor events.
At Sembouès our audiences sat in the shade of two giant sycamores with a picnic while the cast performed a rehearsed reading of “Rumors”. There were many highlights not the least of which was when a dog wandered to the front of the stage area, squatted, and left a puddle. The audience loved it and the cast struggled to suppress laughter.
We are planning more outdoor play readings, hopefully without canine interruptions, so keep an eye on our website.

Having decided to stage the ever popular 'Allo 'Allo in May, we held auditions and selected our cast. Our co-directors sent us away to learn our lines before rehearsals began. Those rehearsals started last week.

However, after just two rehearsals — which were hilarious — the Coronavirus crisis forced us to postpone the production until further notice. We are determined to stage this classic non-PC comedy as soon as we are permitted to.

In the meantime it is not Au Revoir, Au Revoir, more like À Bientöt, À Bientöt !

The fun and the hard work are now over. Mad Moments has been performed and the players are now ‘resting’ until they are next required to go on stage.  Also having a well deserved rest are those often unsung heroes who make performances possible: stage management, prop makers, technical team, publicity providers, ticket sellers, front of house folk and bar staff. Our director, David Alcock, once said that everyone in a production was of equal importance and I am sorry if I have not included every category in my listing.

Mad Moments was performed at Marciac, Letoure, Sainte Dode and Boudrac. The latter is a new venue for the English Theatre Company and has splendid facilities even if the stairs do creak! Our audiences were good and their applause and appreciative comments made all the time spent rehearsing and learning words and moves worthwhile. Everyone played their part well in spite of coughs, sneezes and various aches and pains. No-one actually ‘broke a leg’ and there were no casualties -  apart from a broom!

Now it is nearly Christmas and everyone is preparing for that but also looking forward to the next production. What will it be? No-one knows as yet but I am sure  it will be greeted with the same enthusiasm and dedication as the last one.

Sadly, Dave Barney, a founder member of the Company and a kind and generous sharer of his theatrical expertise will not be taking part in the next production. Paula Latuske  will not be there either to capably carry out the administration work involved in running the Company and putting on its shows. They have both returned to England for a life of, we hope not too adventurous, travelling and seeing the world.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with many happy ‘Mad Moments’.

Gill Foster (Guest blogger)

​Depressing isn’t it? The everyday news that never seems to get any better. But help is at hand. The English Theatre Company offer you a solution. We prescribe a dose of our comic relief. We aim to banish the blues, make you smile and even laugh out loud.
 
How about some geriatric dancing – yes, really! Our tribute to the unique humour of Victoria Wood; a criminal cat; songs to pull at your heartstrings and the introduction of a very special young lady who is joining us for the first time. And of course, much much more.
 
Yesterday we were in rehearsal bringing all the acts together. Some of us wearing our costumes for the first time and a motley crew we were. Flair and imagination gone overboard! As the dates of our November performances approach with lightening speed our rehearsal schedule increases until suddenly it’s opening night. The overture is about to start …
 
Our box office is taking bookings for all four of our venues. Boudrac on 9th November at 12.00 noon; Marciac on 10th at 3.00 pm; Lectoure on 16th  at 3.00 pm and Ste Dode on 17th at 12.00 noon.
 
If you would like to spend an afternoon with us, please book as soon as you can by phone: 05 62 06 37 14 or by e-mail: etcmadmoments@gmail.com.
 
So, what depression?  Do join us.