The extraordinary Whiteshill Weekend Revue

Tonight there is the last chance to see the Whiteshill and Ruscombe Players present "The Weekend Revue": 7.45 at the Village Hall.

I went last night and words fail me - it is a quite extraodinary experience that only if you see it can you fully appreciate and understand - well maybe not understand - but words here certainly cannot do justice to the evening....but to give you a flavour I'll try...

The first photo above is of the team of women who did a couple of numbers from West Side Story - they included the extraodinary young girl, Ros Bremmerkamp who soloed "Tonight" - beautiful indeed.

The next inset photo is of a sketch.....you've heard of "Grumpy Old Women" and "Grumpy Old Men" well here is "Grumpy Old Pets" which included the Chair of the Parish Council dressed as a grumpy dog complaining that the people he lived with kept getting lost and that he often needed to put them on the lead...

The next photo in the first lot is from Peter and the Wolf with another Parish Councillor dressed as Peter - as the programme says "this innovative and ground-breaking production is heavily influenced by the Japanese representational theatre of 'No'. As in, 'No', we don't have much in the way of props nor did we have a cast until the last minute".

The photos left are from a couple of other sketches - the first being "The Archers" - as the programme says "the only episode of this BBC masterpiece ever recorded in Whiteshill" - Ruth in the show seemed to be carrying on with the herdsman...and Joleen....ummh there is no way I can explain - you have to be there!! The sound effects were slightly too loud but added a certain something....the beer hand-pull noises were recorded at the Star in Whiteshill.

The second sketch is a version of Bill and Ben and little Weeeeeeee-eed - one of my favorite childrens programmes - apparently when they were axed from the schedules they were saved by Charlie at a house called Highgrove, not far from here - well we visit them here and Charlie is there but Bill is actually Billinda - I don't remember that bit...

Anyhow the programme also had lots of music - a couple of sessions from "Edge of Blue" - pictured left - brilliant music - we also heard from Sam Jones (guitar) and Milly Griffin (bass) performing Pachelbel's Rock Canon and Gigue' in D minor (second photo) - great stuff....there was more like a sketch entitled "The Committee" and join-in singing plus a running commentary from two members of the audience who quite literally joined in at every possible and impossible moment....a huge thank you to all the hard work that went into the show......an evening I wont forget!!!