North East Theatre Guide: Preview: Kindly Leave the Stage on tour

30/04/2016

Preview: Kindly Leave the Stage on tour

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Baroque Theatre Company presents the play within a play

Kindly Leave the Stage

UK TOUR 2016

A comedy by John Chapman

“A play within a play the laughs came thick and fast....” “The stage is set for a superb farce full of great punch lines beautifully delivered. Baroque Theatre is one to watch”. Eastern Daily Press.

Photo: Kellie Colby

Norwich based Baroque Theatre Company announce their 2016 tour of John Chapman’s farce Kindly Leave the Stage. Back by popular demand, and marking Baroque’s biggest to date, Kindly Leave the Stage will play in an impressive 33 venues across the UK- from Penzance in Cornwall to Carlisle in Cumbria, and many towns and cities in between.

Kindly Leave the Stage visits a number of theatres across our region including Masham, Seaton Delaval, Carlisle and Millom.

Photo: Kellie Colby

The much-lauded Kindly Leave the Stagepremiered in 1993 and is a light-hearted take on the complete theatricality of stage folk. It is a celebration of fun, mayhem and thespian mischief and a similar format to Noises Off - a play within a play. The ensemble go head-to-head as they play the characters in the play and the actors who are in the play. It’s a fast-paced farce which is easy to watch and lots of fun. Jealousy, revelations and the precious actors’ egos are revealed as Baroque Theatre Company bring celebrated John Chapman’s crisp writing and hilarious ‘double entrendres’ to life.

The play tells the story of Rupert and Sarah whose marriage is on the rocks. Their friends Charles and Madge are both lawyers and agree to handle the divorce. Just after curtain up, Rupert forgets his lines, has a brain storm and threatens to kill Charles in full view of the audience because he’s been having an affair off stage, with his real wife, Madge. The rest of the cast try to ignore the incident and forge ahead with the original play but Rupert picks up a knife and advances on Charles, who is forced to take cover in a large cabin storage trunk which is on the set at the time. A real-life marital comedy evolves.

Photo: Kellie Colby

The situation is further complicated when the actor playing the old father, Edward, makes his entrance. He is an ageing Shakespearean star, once famous for his King Lear but now an alcoholic and down on his luck. He happens to have asked his new agent to the performance that night. Edward is blissfully unaware that the play has switched from art to life. Out of loyalty to a fellow actor, the rest of the cast do their best to accommodate the poor chap, but he gradually begins to think he is going mad, especially as some of his cues are coming from the storage trunk.

Photo: Kellie Colby

Cast in the role of Rupert is Ivan Wilkinson. Wilkinson returns to Baroque Theatre Company, after two previous tours with the company, playing Sergeant Lewis in House of Ghosts: An Inspector Morse Mysteryand Dr Watson in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol. He attended Mountview Academy for Theatre Arts, graduating in 2003. Wilkinson is joined by actors Paul Cleveland (Charles), Claire Bibby (Madge), Talitha Willsea (Sarah), Patricia Derrick (Mrs Cullen), Elizabeth Goram-Smith (Angela), Helen Fullerton (Nurse Brown) and David Shackleton (Edward).

The production’s director is award-winning Adam Morley. No stranger to radio, TV and theatre, Morley has directed over sixty productions including Newsrevue, the world’s longest running live comedy show at the Canal Café Theatre in London. To date, Morley has directed eleven productions for Baroque Theatre Company including Great Expectations in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens in 2010, Up Pompeii, The 101 Dalmatians and most recently Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol and The Great Santa Kidnap. Morley is the associate director at Canal Café Theatre and artistic director of Baroque Theatre Company.

Lighting and sound is by James Wenn and costume design by Suzanne Bell.

Travelling from venue to venue and back to home-base in Norwich during the 12-week, 33-venue stint, ‘Madge’, Baroque Theatre Company’s faithful tour van, and the show’s eight actors, will clock up over 5000 miles during the 2016 Kindly Leave the Stage engagement- that’s a staggering 101 hours (4 days) on the road!

"This imaginative and worthwhile play has been brilliantly revived and the delicious deconstruction of traditional farce, directed by Adam Morley, pleased all the audience. If it’s anywhere near you, don’t miss it” Eastern Daily Press