The Gage Players present, in association with Stagescripts, Agatha Crusty and the Village Hall Murders by Derek Webb.

Agatha Crusty (pronounced Croosty) is a crime novelist. She’s also pretty adept at solving crimes. And when her sister-in-law Alice invites her to spend a few days with her in the village of Chortelby, it’s not long before she gets caught up in a series of murders which seem directed at members of the All Saints Village Hall committee.

From Toby, the Vicar, and Eleanor, Chair of the committee, to Harry Knott the caretaker and identical twins Olivia and Oliver Truscott-Pratt, there are plenty of suspects. And with an investigating officer as incompetent as D.I. Twigg, there are plenty of laughs as the murders begin to pile up.

But, while packed full of wit and very funny scenes, this is also a genuine murder mystery with an ingenious plot which will tax the little grey cells of the audience at the same time!

Our Winter 2019 production

Our play was Good Things by Liz Lochhead.

Set in a charity shop on three different days in one year – Twelfth Night in January, Valentine’s Day in February and Christmas Eve in December – Good Things is a poignant and funny play with a lot to say about finding love later in life.

Performance dates at The Riddell Hall were 28^th, 29^th and 30^th November, 2019.

Our spring 2019 play was Curtain up on Murder by Bettine Manktelow

An amateur drama group is rehearsing in a theatre at the end of a pier. A storm is building up and any thought of leaving the theatre is baulked by finding that somehow all the exit doors are locked from the outside. A ghostly presence flits across the stage and when the assistant stage manager falls to certain death through a trapdoor, the players begin to flap. Then one of the actresses is found poisoned, and it becomes clear that a murderer is in their midst . . .

Our November 2018 offering is Ladies Who Lunch by Tudor Gates on 29th and 30th November, and the 1st December.

26th, 27th and 28th April, 2018

PLUS an extra date at the Banstead Arts Festival on 2nd May, 2018

directed by Lars Sawyer
An amateur production in association with Playscripts, Inc.

In a triple bill of one-act plays, three early films by Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, are brought to life on stage with live sound effects and a live broadcast from the studio of WBFR’s radio station.  The Lodger, a story of the London fog, a tale of mystery and murder; Sabotage, about a bomb plot in London; and The 39 Steps, a tale of spies, political intrigue and unlikely romance – all three  bear Hitchcock’s trademark ability to stretch an audience’s nerves almost to breaking point . . .

Performance dates: 26th, 27th and 28th April, 2018 at 8pm, The Riddell Hall, Dean’s Lane, Walton on the Hill.  Doors and bar open at 7.30pm.  Tickets £10, box office 01737 812 703.

An extra performance is being put on for the Banstead Arts Festival: 2nd May 2018 at 8pm. Banstead Community Hall, Park Road, SM7 3AJ. Tickets £10. 

This new play, being given its premiere by The Gage, is set on a railway platform on the rural outskirts of London. The timeframe stretches from the 1930s to the 1970s, and during this we learn of the lives of some of the people who pass through the station, many of whom are left to fill in time there while waiting for the train . . .

Jeanette, a motherly soul, looks after the station café and also looks after George, who hangs around the station hoping that his wife Jane will return on the next train . . . Tom is a musician whom we first meet worrying about an audition. In time he becomes the conductor of a major orchestra and marries Mary, whom he met at the station when she arrived as a teacher accompanying evacuee children.

The play also has its serious moments, when the repercussions of a terrorist bombing in London reach some of our characters; and again when a newspaper reporter tries to put together a scandalous obituary for another of them, but is foiled . . .

Many lifetimes pass before your eyes in Waiting for the Train.

Performances will be at 8pm on Thursday, 30th November, Friday, 1st December and Saturday, 2nd December, at the Riddell Hall, Walton on the Hill.
Tickets £10, box office 01737 812 703.

Patrons intending to dine before the show at The Blue Ball pub near The Riddell Hall will be offered a 15% discount on food if, when they come to pay the bill, they show their pre-bought tickets to the staff.

Put the play dates in your diary now!

The Following Pictures Courtesy of Andy Carter LRPS CPAGB

The Following Pictures Courtesy of Melanie Rolls