Classic comedy – with a new twist

NOEL Coward’s classic comedy “Private Lives” is to be staged in Culcheth on February 8-9 – with a new twist.
Newly formed amateur group Consensus Touring Theatre will present the play at Culcheth Sports Club, Charnock Road. Curtain up: 7.30pm.
The play concerns a divorced couple who go on honeymoon with their new spouses only to find, to their horror, that their former spouses are staying in the same hotel – in the next bedroom.
It was first performed in 1931, with Coward starring in it himself, alongside Gertrude Lawrence.
Later productions have involved such stars as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Vivien Leigh and Lawrence Oliver.
Consensus Touring Theatre has been started by a number of experienced amateur actors and is an experimental group in that, instead of having a sole director taking the helm, the members of the cast all share the directing role.
Founder member Philip Wade said: “Our ethos is to breakaway and steer to a new principle, so that all involved are to play a role in enriching and embellishing the piece as we go along.
“This principle, we feel, has not only been feasible but very refreshing to us as performers. Maybe, in the future, other performers would consider and sample the same philosophy?”
After staging the play at Culcheth, the group plan to take it on tour around theatres across the North West.
All tickets are £7 and are available from the club 01925 763096 or 07962 290708.
Pictured: The cast, left to right: Sebastian Farrell, Jane Rigby, Judianne Fisher, Philip Wade.