It’s the week before Christmas and at a meeting of the Pendon Writer’s Circle, it’s clear that none of the group’s members are going to be winning the Booker any time soon. Read more …
Jess and Grace are struggling to get their pet projects – a bodice-ripper and a children’s story – underway. By contrast, Vivvi just can’t stop, having completed her sixth crime novel of the year. The geeky Clem is only part way through the most complicated sci-fi conspiracy adventure ever conceived, whilst Brevis is completely stuck due to his writing partner’s understandable disinterest in Brevis’s latest idea: a musical adaptation of The Pilgrim’s Progress.
The group’s chairman, Arnold, tries to inspire his colleagues by suggesting that they pool their ideas and collaborate on a joint work, but this revolutionary proposal meets with a distinctly muted reception. Until, that is, the meeting has disbanded, a storm begins to rage – and fiction suddenly becomes fact, when Arnold’s suggestion springs unexpectedly and chaotically to life . . . and the worlds of Wilkie Collins, Edgar Wallace and Arthur C. Clarke collide in the most spectacular way.
Clare Prenton’s game but slightly plodding production.
This determinedly light confection pales in comparison to Ayckbourn’s early, multi-layered works.
What follows in Clare Prenton's dexterously managed production is an ingenious series of fantasy wish fulfilment set-pieces involving an assortment of comic-strip style pot-boilers and a dazzling array of quick-fire costume changes.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Pitlochry from Thursday May 28, 2015, until Saturday October 17, 2015. Playing in repertory. Check website for performance dates.. More info: www.pitlochry.org.uk
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