The 28th of April 2021 will see the curtain fall on the 41st and final night of Circle 67’s Lockdown Theatre. What started out as an attempt to keep our group connected during the dark days of the pandemic, has evolved to become a weekly Zoom performance that has debuted nearly 80 plays to our local supporters and a new international audience. Obviously it’s great news that we are slowly returning to more traditional ways of meeting (see our new Summer Shakespeare post) but I think it’s worth reflecting on what we have all achieved during this difficult phase in our lives.
They shall be my East and West Indies,
and I will trade to them both.
Antigone is the first of Sophocles' three Theban plays but covers the final act of the Oedipus tragedy.
Nell Trent is a young orphan girl who lives with her devoted grandfather in his London shop, a place full of old and curious treasures. He is keen to ensure that they live in peace and prosperity but turns to gambling in a misguided effort to make money. He has little luck and becomes heavily indebted to the moneylender Daniel Quilp who seizes the shop as payment, forcing Little Nell and her grandfather to flee across the country.
Following on from our great successes in France in 2013 and 2016 we are planning our next French adventure. We are hoping to take a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor to the Dordogne area of South-west France with performances planned for the weekend 2 - 4 August (the week immediately following our usual local tour 23 - 28 July). Merry Wives is very funny - Shakespeare's purest farce - and is his only comedy with no dark side. Nobody dies (a bit of a contrast to last year's Macbeth)! It should be great fun.
Read more on The Shorter Shakespeare Summer Tour 2019 - Casting/Reading
Group member Neville Chaplin has been busy working on a “new take” of the Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles for our spring production. The tragedy is tempered with wry comments from the chorus and the foibles of some of the characters. The casting/reading will take place in Bramfield Village Hall on Friday 23 November at 7.30pm. Rehearsals will start in January and performances will take place from 30 April to 4 May at five different venues in the local area. If you would like to be involved but cannot attend, or would like further information, please contact us
Come back with us to 17th century Paris where Orgon, an ageing, self-righteous, rich man is worrying about his place in heaven. He becomes besotted with Tartuffe, an imposter and religious hypocrite who worms his way into Orgon’s household. Orgon behaves more and more irrationally, offering Tartuffe his money and his daughter - but Tartuffe fancies someone else… With his family in uproar, the scales finally fall from Orgon’s eyes - but is it too late?
‘Open Sesame!’ Among the sand dunes of old Arabia, Ali Baba, a poor orphan boy, discovers the secret of the cave where a wicked and ruthless robber chief and his band of forty (or was it only two) fearless thieves have hidden all their loot. Ali helps himself to a bag of gold which he hopes will help him to gain his independence from his brother Kazim and allow him to marry his sweetheart Morgiana. However when Kazim’s wife, the bossy and greedy Fatima, accidentally discovers the gold, she decides she’d like some more and then everything starts to go wrong.
Once again Circle 67 will take to the road this July with its annual Shorter Shakespeare Summer Tour - performing in the open air at various venues around the area. This year we have chosen to stage Measure for Measure, in a new adaptation by Chris Collins.
