Our November 2016 production was well received.

Our April 2017 production will be “Touch of Danger” by “Francis Durbridge”.

Showing at the Riddell Memorial Hall, Walton-on-the-Hill on 27th, 28th and 29th April 2017.

Rehearsals are now underway.

Congratulations to all those involved in the production of Bedroom Farce.

Four into three won’t go; except, in Ayckbourn’s 1977 play, it miraculously does. A pair of roving neurotics hawk their problems around the bedrooms of three other couples; and what emerges  is Ayckbourn’s hilariously bleak view of middle-class marriage. “Alone together, so much shared” as Beckett once wrote.

The Teahouse of the August Moon

Congratulations to all those involved in the production of The Teahouse of the August Moon, which was received to wide acclaim. The lighting and set were superb and the performances equally so.

The first production of the Gage’s 65th year was a resounding success. Congratulations to the cast, crew and Leslie Parker’s excellent directorship.

Boris Smolensky’s budget repertory production of Murder at Priorswell Manor is looking decidedly shaky, being mostly held together by long-suffering stage manager Pat.  The cast, and the director, are more interested in their egos than in the play, and life imitates art when Boris’s wife, Renee, is murdered on stage.  So whodunnit?  Could it be dimwit Ginette, Boris’s current mistress?  Or Ginette’s ex-boyfriend Tim?  Or professional jealousy from Christa or Sophie?  And is Boris completely guiltless?  This play within a play provides bewildering clues, hilarious gaffes from the inept actors and red herrings galore to keep the audience guessing right till the end.  Simon Brett is well known for his radio plays, his Charles Paris series of theatrical thriller novels, and his crime series of Fethering mystery novels, so to have a stage play by him is a treat.

This was a sell-out production, and we’re planning great things again for our 65^th anniversary year in 2015.

Jim Wormold, an under-employed vacuum cleaner salesman living in 1950s Cuba, is struggling to pay for his teenage daughter’s increasingly extravagant lifestyle.  So when the British Secret Service asks him to become their ‘man in Havana’ he can’t afford to say no.  There’s just one problem . . . he doesn’t know anything!  To avoid suspicion, he begins to recruit non-existent sub-agents, concocting a series of intricate fictions about them.  But he soon discovers that his stories are closer to the truth than he could ever have imagined . . . in a darkly comic tale, how will ‘our man’ come out on top?

MURDER AT THE FAIR

A dastardly murder was performed at Riddell Hall on 7^th June by The Gage Players. The tragic death was re-enacted, private letters and pertinent newspaper articles were made available and an eccentric detective was seeking your help.

The jam, sold by Middy the French wife of ne’er do well Sam, is spiked and the local toff is killed.  Was it Sam trying to get money, or his wife who can’t keep away from the bottle, or someone else?  What exactly did happen on that bicycling holiday in France all those years ago?

The Gage Players put on a successful production of Yes, Prime Minister in the spring of 2014. A brief synopsis follows, as well as some photos.

As the play opens, in the Prime Minister’s study at Chequers, Humphrey and Bernard are scheming. It’s been a rough day for P. M. with the “government in crisis.” The economy is suffering, jobs are at an all-time low, debt is high, and it is all his fault. The way out Humphrey tells the P. M. is with the Kumranistanis who will loan 10 trillion dollars for an agreement to buy their oil. But joining the Euro is part of the deal and the P. M. will not agree. Humphrey has leaked the deal and his bank is buying up Euros. To counter and do damage control the P. M. threatens Humphrey with Civil Service Reform. Egad, there goes the home in Province.

Meanwhile a Kumranistani official has a request that threatens to topple the deal. Seems he wants sex with an underage schoolgirl or the deal is off. Procuring women for sex is against the law. Sutton sizes up the issue. “Better for one girl to get screwed than the whole European economy.” Will they procure a prostitute? Will the deal be on? The climax is brought about with a bolt of lightning and a thunderclap with such real sound effects and a downpour of steady rain. The P. M. is sure it is God speaking to him!

In November 2013, the Gage Players put on a successful production of this comedy by David Turner, directed by Gill Lucas.

The play itself concerns Fred Midway, a pillar of society and a model citizen. One Sunday his house is threatened with disaster when the love-lives of his three children come to an unfortunate and simultaneous crisis. Eileen’s boyfriend turns out to be a married man. Avril wants to divorce her husband. Tom is about to father a contraband baby. Something must be done about all this and only Fred has the necessary low cunning to do it.

In April 2013, Gill Lucas directed The Gage Players in Jimmie Chin’s Take Away The Lady.