BUGLE BOY Goes Royally in Windsor

This past week our tour of the Musical BUGLE BOY - THE LIFE STORY OF GLENN MILLER has been at the beautiful Theatre Royal in Windsor. The audiences have been great all week and we have had quite a turn-out of Lindy Hop dancers entertaining the crowds as they made their way into the venue. On the Monday opening we were also indebted to the History on Wheels Museum [ www.historyonwheels.co.uk ] from nearby Eton Wick for bringing down the actual black Cadillac from 1941 used by General Douglas MacArthur who was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and the Philippines campaign of 1941/42. The lovely car complete with a 'General MacArthur', parked right outside the front of the building and was certainly an attraction to the audience as they arrived at the show. All in all it was a fabulous week and the company had a great time in the theatre that is in the shadow of Windsor Castle. I am sure the Queen, if she had been in residence during the week, would have been jiving and jitterbugging with the rest as the music of the legendary Glenn Miller drifted across the road. 

 

 

A BEDFULL Ends Its Tour

After a week of THE WIZARD OF OZ and its final performance being at 4 p.m. there was time to drive down to Eastbourne's Devonshire Park Theatre, having dropped off the props in Edmonton on the way, to catch the second act of the last performance of our very successful tour of A BEDFULL OF FOREIGNERS. The company on this particular tour appear to have had lots of fun and that is to be very much expected with the hilarious Damian Williams in the cast. As I have known Damian for over 25 years now I can vouch for the fact that he never fails to put a smile on your face on and off stage. He is just a genuinely funny man. A big thank you to the rest of the cast, Paul Morse, who sadly won't be joining us in Chesterfield for panto this year; Jo Parsons, who worked with Damian in Sheffield panto last Xmas; Charlotte Dawson, the daughter of the late great Les Dawson, who certainly has a few attributes her Dad never had; Kylie Butler, who is expecting her first child in August but being in bed for a lot of Act Two was her perfect part; David Rumelle, who can be seen on ITV's 'This Morning' tomorrow with the cast of 'Wild Boyz' and Polly Smith, who has managed to get a new agent out of the tour. We also  mustn't forget Chris Radford, the CSM who worked tirelessly to keep the show running smoothly and was very pleased when his commemorative mugs contained no spelling mistakes time round, and Adam Samuel, the ASM, who did manage to get on as 'Heinz' for one performance. It hardly seems possible that the tour is now over but we have received lots of great comments about the production.

 

 

THE WIZARD OF OZ in Welwyn Garden City

It has been a very busy week rehearsing and, ultimately, performing THE WIZARD OF OZ at the Hawthorne Theatre, Campus West in Welwyn Garden City. From Sunday to Tuesday we were at the Vineyard Barn, situated about five minutes walk from the theatre and, although Welwyn Garden City is fairly commutable from Essex the threat of bad M25 traffic, particularly after the Easter holiday days, meant an early start each day. What with then rehearsing and then driving back it was pretty much twelve hours door to door. From the Wednesday onwards we moved into the theatre itself and that was when the show really came together. Such is the way of multi-purpose venues such as Campus West we had to be out of the theatre by 6 p.m. to allow the auditorium and stage area to be prepared for a film to be shown. We did manage to do a full Dress Rehearsal on the Thursday morning before the first show at 1 p.m. In all we did six performances which were all very well received and it would appear the cast and the invaluable children who played the Munchkins, Emerald City citizens, Tornado Dancers and Witch's Minions all had a great time. It all seemed to go very fast and this was seen to good effect on the last performance when, because of another impending film showing barely an hour after the final curtain of THE WIZARD OF OZ, the first act set was dismantled and loaded in the awaiting lorry during the interval. We will be posting some photos of the show, and the kids pizza party held between shows yesterday, very soon.

MURDER MISTAKEN Gets More Great Reviews

After the excellent reviews for our touring Musical BUGLE BOY - THE LIFE STORY OF GLENN MILLER last week, it was great to see that our tour of the thriller MURDER MISTAKEN also received a Five Star Review from the Remotegoat Website this week. You can read the full review by clicking on the following link:

MURDER MISTAKEN REMOTEGOAT FIVE STAR REVIEW

There was also another very good review in the Chichester Observer [also seen in the Littlehampton Gazette and the Worthing Herald] and you can read that review here:

MURDER MISTAKEN CHICHESTER OBSERVER REVIEW

The tour will soon be seen in Yeovil, Weston-super-Mare, Lowestoft, Chesterfield, Buxton, Middlesbrough and Eastbourne.

BUGLE BOY Jitterbugging into Wycombe and Guildford

After a great first week in Southend our tour of BUGLE BOY - THE LIFE STORY OF GLENN MILLER moves on to Wycombe Swan [Tuesday & Wednesday] and Guildford Glive [Thursday to Saturday] this week. On Tuesday, the opening night in Wycombe the audiences were treated to some great jiving and jitterbugging in the theatre foyer as they arrived for the show by members of a local dance school that specialises in teaching this great form of dance that was hugely popular back in the forties or Glenn Miller time as we would prefer to call it. Once again the theatre was bedecked with American and Union Jack flags to give a really different experience to the show. It was quite different for the cast too as, after the small stage encountered last week, the acting areas of the Wycombe Swan were much easier to manoeuvre on and all the entrances and exits were back to how they were originally directed. The band obviously had more room too and there was less danger of the trumpeters falling off the back of the rostra as one unlucky player almost did last week. Sitting amongst the audience I found there was a lot of warmth for the whole show and the excellent reaction enjoyed last week was definitely back. The two ladies sat to my left were very concerned about the singing over Moonlight Serenade heard in Act One. "I much prefer it without the singing", one of the ladies remarked as I made my way past them to the foyer for the interval. Quite amazingly, fifteen minutes later, when I returned to my seat her friend was heard to say, "I preferred it better without the singing". And who said the age of debate was dead? Three performances in Wycombe will be followed by four at the new venue in Guildford, namely GLive. 

Venues beginning with W are obviously in fashion this week as MURDER MISTAKEN is spending a week at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing on the West Sussex coast. Press Night last night provoked many suggestions of how Act Two would pan out as it is not so much of a 'Whodunit' thriller, more of a 'Whose going to be next?'. Maybe we should also be thankful that both our tours are in southern venues at the moment as, after basking in warm spring sunshine over the past week, a great deal of the North-West and North-East was covered in snow today and thousands were left without power for much of the day. It did mean a proposed trip to Chesterfield had to be postponed as the manager was snowed in. With Easter and a production of THE WIZARD OF OZ in Welwyn Garden City to sort out it may be a week or so before Derbyshire will be revisited now.

Five Star BUGLE BOY Swings Into Action

Our tour of the Musical BUGLE BOY - THE LIFE STORY OF GLENN MILLER opened last week at Southend's Palace Theatre and immediately got some fantastic Five Star reviews from theatre critics and audiences alike. You can read some of these reviews by clicking on the links below:

THE STAGE REVIEW

THE PUBLIC REVIEWS - FIVE STAR REVIEW

WHATSONSTAGE REVIEW

The tour will be playing the following dates, with more being added:

2/3 APRIL                      WYCOMBE SWAN

5 to 7 APRIL                  GUILDFORD GLIVE

16 to 21 APRIL              WINDSOR THEATRE ROYAL

1 to 5 MAY                     BILLINGHAM FORUM THEATRE

8/9 MAY                         SWINDON WYVERN THEATRE

14 to 16 MAY                 HAYES BECK THEATRE

17 to 19 MAY                 DARTFORD ORCHARD THEATRE

21 to 23 MAY                 PETERBOROUGH KEY THEATRE

24 to 26 MAY                 HULL NEW THEATRE

12 to 17 JUNE                CROYDON ASHCROFT THEATRE

26 to 30 JUNE                WORTHING CONNAUGHT THEATRE

5 to 7 JULY                     SWANSEA GRAND THEATRE

9 to 11 JULY                   DURHAM GALA THEATRE

17 to 21 JULY                 EASTBOURNE DEVONSHIRE PARK THEATRE

24 to 28 JULY                 EASTBOURNE DEVONSHIRE PARK THEATRE

7 to 11 AUGUST            BOURNEMOUTH PAVILION THEATRE

30 AUG to 1 SEPT        BUXTON OPERA HOUSE

6 to 8 SEPT                   DUNSTABLE GROVE THEATRE

For more information on Glenn Miller, the tour and the playwright Den Stevenson and his passion for his show BUGLE BOY, his excellent Website will really get you In The Mood at www.thebugleboy.info

Murder Mistaken Opens in Stevenage

Our latest thriller tour finally opened at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage as MURDER MISTAKEN had its first performances. The staff and crew of the theatre were very helpful in getting the show up and running and allowed us all the necessary rehearsal facilities in the rehearsal studio behind the stage as well as assisting with all the relevant pre-production through the Get-In on the Tuesday and then on Wednesday prior to the opening night. There was a sense of nervous tension throughout the cast, particularly on the Wednesday morning as the cast realised they couldn't get off the roller coaster taking them to the first performance. The Dress Rehearsal was pretty smooth after an initial stumble that became a bit of a false start. As usual Geoff had done a fantastic job with the set, the furnishings, which included a gas fire that he had actually made from a roasting tin of all things, and the costumes. The fifties is definitely a decade that is one of Geoff's favourites.

The show itself went very well and the large audience appeared to be deeply engrossed in the plot as it thickened and in the story as it unravelled towards the final denouement. The generous applause at the final curtain was testament to the fact that they enjoyed the whole thing which will undoubtedly become slicker and smoother as it goes along. It is a classic thriller which I wouldn't describe as a 'whodunit' but more of a 'whose going get done next?'. After the week in Stevenage the play has a short break before arriving in Peterborough on March 26th.