The Visionary

In recent years there has been a tradition for the last play of the year to be voted the best play of the year. Can it happen again? Come along on December 3rd to find out. It's another play originating from the Collaborative Group and is by its chief instigator, Mary Conway. As Mary explains:

"There is a space between childhood and the grown up world where hopes for the future are built or forever compromised.

Ben is in this space.

Though Ben and his friend, Art, have just completed university with flying colours and have made plans to take the world by storm, for Ben return to his family home is accompanied by a deep questioning of everything he has known. As he struggles with what is real and what is not and redefines the relationships that have defined him, we see him emerge into an adult world stronger, more purposeful but with a kind of humility that is essential to intelligence".

The play is influenced by these lines from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?

The cast, as we go to press, includes such luminaries as Lee Knight, Caroline Langston, Andrew Ward, and a welcome return for P-P's very own Greta Garbo, the much-missed Paula Gilbert.

7.45, at the Phoenix.

Harry & John

After last week's aborted reading, this coming Monday's script is even more keenly anticipated. It's a one act stage play by Kevin Connor, whose last two pieces were an amusing mixture of zaniness and absurdity, quite unlike anything anyone else at P-P comes up with. Can he deliver a hat-trick? The story sounds slightly more grounded, as Kevin explains:

"Harry’s a security guard and witness to the private life of a superstar. Set between 1964 and 1968 in a security cabin at the exclusive St George’s Hill estate in the Surrey stockbroker belt, Harry & John is a story of friendship, fame, drugs and sex. Based on John Lennon living in Weybridge from the explosion of Beatlemania through to the hippie movement of the late nineteen sixties, the play asks the question – is it possible to lead a normal life when you’re the most famous person alive?"

Sounds rather good. I don't think the theme, "what's it actually like to be really famous?" has been dramatised all that much over the years. One of Woody Allen's early, funny films, Stardust Memories, gave it a shot, but what else? Anyone... anyone... Still, we'll find out on Monday, 26th November, at the Phoenix, 7.45.

History is History

November 19th provides us with a long-awaited play by one of our most illustrious allumni, Roger Mayhew. It's a stageplay so topical that the pixels haven't even dried yet. As Roger explains:

"Abby has gone to the School Prizegiving to see her daughter win an award for History but is unaware that her own past is about to catch up with her".

So what do you think? Is she about to be exposed as a closet Tory, paedophile, or both? Or is she herself the victim, about to wreak revenge on her tormentors? If the Newsnight crew are in the house, all bets are off.

Come along on Monday at 7.45 and all will be revealed.

Well actually it's the future. Owing to a fixture clash, History has been postponed. It'll reappear next term. Sorry.

Country Life - the radio version

For those who missed it when it was done at both Rada and the Old Red Lion last year, here's your chance to miss it again. The good people at the Wireless Theatre Company provided the time, the original cast provided the cast and Paul Blinkhorn came back to direct it. All you have to do is subscribe and listen. You can also get it on iTunes.

You can even check out its author's new website, here.

The Catwalk

Is it that time already? Yes, it is, it's competition time. Last year, as a response to the influx of actresses joining P-P, we ran a comp on the theme of HEN NIGHT. So popular was that that we're doing it again this year, with the theme of CATWALK. But will it do the trick, and conjure up roles for "binders full of women"? Come along on Monday 12th November to find out.