In October 2019 we have a double bill of comedies by  a pair of renowned playwrights.

Fumed Oak by Noel Coward

The Bear by Anton Chekhov

• NB: No Saturday show this year. This is due to a busy Cuckfield calendar with the both the Cuckfield Fireworks and London to Brighton Veteran Car run that weekend.
• So the show will run from Tuesday 29th October to Friday Nov 1st
• Tickets will go on sale in late September.

For a brief overview of each play see below

Fumed Oak

Best known for his sparkling comedies of high society (such as Blithe Spirit) Noel Coward was a staple writer and actor in English theatres and film from stage in 1920s until the 1960s (when he played crime boss Mr Bridger in “The Italian Job” with Michael Caine)

Fumed Oak is one of a number of short plays he wrote to revive that form but this is set nearer to his own origins in lower middle-class suburban London where clerk Henry lives with his wife Doris, whiny teenage daughter Elsie and Dorris’s mother. What will happen when the worm turns?

The Bear

While this play concerns a young widow and a man chasing a debt there’s no sign of tragedy and long dramatic pauses in this “farce-vaudevilles” by master of realism Anton Chekhov,  who also refered to it as A Joke in One Act.

The brutish Smirnov trying to get his money from a widow who does not have it.  But Popova is still coming to terms with her husband’s passing and some secrets from his past… Refusing interventions from her long standing servant Looka, she has to face down “the Bear” who is more than knocking at her door …

This fast moving comedy is about the oldest topic in the world with plenty of humour in the interplay between the characters.