Nomes Youth theatre has limited spaces available in their Saturday drama classes. Please note that the Thursday production group is full at present.

Class times as follows:

7yrs to 9yrs 9:30am till 11am
9yrs to 11yrs 1:30pm till 3pm
11yrs to 13yrs 11:15am to 12:45pm

For further information and to book a free trial please contact nomesatnomads@hotmail.co.uk

All enquiries to rent2012@hotmail.co.uk

Production dates are 22 -25 Aug and 29 Aug – 1 Sept.

For those interested in auditioning for a part in the April production of Communicating Doors by Alan Ayckbourn, the following dates are announced:

Read Through

Monday 9th Jan at the Effingham Methodist Church 8pm

Auditions

Monday 16th Jan at the Little Bookham Village Hall, 8pm

Wednesday 18th Jan at the Effingham Methodist Church 8pm

For further details please contact the Director Murray Stephens on 01306 877940 or 07831 262600

Autumn term has  begun.
There are spaces in Saturday classes:

7 to 9 years at 9.30am,

9 to 11 years at 1.30pm

and 11 to 13 years at 11.15am.

All classes last for 90 minutes. The 10 week term fee is £85.

All participants in Saturday classes get to perform in the Main House summer show.

Come and try a class for free!
Contact: ninahomes@hotmail.co.uk

by  Rachel Barnett

This year Play in a Week has been written by Rachel Barnett, she is taking us into the world of film, A romp through 100 years of the history of film, shed a tear with a silent film star, gasp at the drama of a Western high noon, sing along to a musical classic, get lost in the intrigue of a detective thriller, and gasp at the special effects of an action movie. But what goes on behind the camera?

StudioSecrets is a glimpse at the world of the film-makers – the directors, the stars, the cameramen, and, of course, the financiers. A fast-paced story with an unexpected twist.

Performances: Sat 23 July at 7.30pm and Sun 24 July at 2.30pm – Tickets £10

Monday 8th to Friday 12th August

Come & join us for a week of drama and fun at the Nomad Theatre.

We spend the week casting, learning lines and rehearsing ready to perform the show to family & friends on the Friday afternoon.

Times: Daily fron 10am to 4pm

Price: £110 for the week – 10% sibling discount available.

(Optional breakfast club runs from 8.30am – extra charge involved)

For more information, please contact us at nomesastnomads@hotmail.co.uk

or ring Nina on 07905 209021

1 July 7.30pm, 2 July 2.30pm & 7.30pm, 3 July 2.30pm Tickets £10

At length one shell cracked and then another, and from each egg came a living creature that lifted its head and cried, “Quack, quack,”. . . . . . . . Come and enjoy the musical adventure of The Ugly Duckling and the friends and foes that he meets along the way. With a wonderful collection of songs written by Stiles & Drew, this childhood tale is brought to life by Nomes Youth Theatre. It will be eggcellent, you will crack your sides laughing, and by the final curtain you will be egging us on for more!!!!!

The Likes of Us (2011)

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 25

The Likes of Us (2011)

A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME
The Likes of Us is the first musical written by the winning team of Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice.  It is a strange cocktail of the traditional musical form with some chorus numbers reminiscent of Half a Sixpence, Charlie Girl and other successes from the ‘60’s and glimpses of the route they would finally take down the road of through written musicals many, at least in the beginning with solid rock themes.

THE MUSICAL
The piece has a certain naivety which is actually quite charming however the lack of a useable book does pose some sizeable problems.  For many a narration, no matter how witty, really cannot make up for good dialogue.  As some of the Narrators lines are literally a handful of words it also causes immense problems for scene changes if you are to be adventurous.as opposed to lacklustre with the staging.  However there are some truly wonderful songs and because of a lack of sung recitative the concentration on pure melody is far more noticeable.
The story charts the beginnings of the Barnardos’ children’s homes and follows very loosely, the life of Thomas Barnardo on his arrival in London from Ireland.  The show has a large cast including children and is scattered with poignant solos, some showstopping chorus numbers and a truly beautiful, childrens “anthem”.

CASTING
Never an easy task for most amateur companies these days.  We were however lucky to get a very strong principal line up.  Emile Maurice-Toussaint as the irascible but driven Barnardo gave the part a very personal touch as he spent much of his childhood in a Barnardo home.  Wendy Denny as Syrie Barnardo’s wife to be was warm and charming.  Annabelle Farrell as the tart with a heart, Rose was powerful and suitably alluring.  Nathan Farrell who as a first time song and dance man brought the part of, Johnny the juvenile lead to life with a wonderfully melodic and physical interpretation of, “Love is Here” was more than enough to soften any heart especially that of his charming and talented ingénue, Bronwyn Elliott as, Jenny.  Last but by no means least, Francis Pindar, as the auctioneer. Truly memorable in all respects and one of the undoubted highlights of the show.  A solid chorus who gave the showstoppers everything they needed to actually stop the show  The gentleman of the chorus deserve to be highlighted for their stirring interpretation of the rousing “Lion Hearted Land”.  Very much a number to be “commended to the house”!!!  2 teams of “kids” who were just mesmerising. and brought a tear to the eye every performance with their “anthem”.  At this point special note should be made of Jordan Farrell (14), Ellie Eves (15) and Ellie Silvey (15) as the unnamed “Lead Boy & Girls” who at their very tender age have the unenviable task of leading the entire company in one of the many showstoppers, “Man of the World”.  They did it with great panache.

REHEARSALS
In common with most companies early rehearsals were twice a week stepping up to 3 or 4 as the show got closer.  This was until December when we were brought to a grinding halt by the weather and in total lost 4 rehearsals no small number in the amateur world.  We also suffered 1 week before opening with 7 (that was a third) of the adult chorus off sick with the various bugs that infested the country in January and one of the kids breaking an ankle.  All in all now was the time for endless sleepless nights for the production team, Wendy Denny (choreographer), Steven Geraghty (musical director) and Stephen Whittock (director) and the inevitable thoughts of “why do we bother?”  At this point I would like to make note of the stunning choreography by, Wendy Denny as a Director/Choreographer it can be difficult to release the complete control of the production but her routines were perfectly conceived and executed and were wonderfully exhilarating to watch.

THE THEATRE, SET & CREW
The Nomads are blessed to have as their home the wonderful Nomad Theatre in East Horsley, Surrey.  Equipped with revolving stage and fully functional fly tower staging musicals especially this one is made a little easier (oh no it’s not) I hear the crew cry.  I had said from the first meeting with our building team and crew that I wanted a park bandstand that would magically “transform” into the rooftops of London with smoking chimneys and back and then be able to revolve.  As always with this exceptional team my wildest ramblings were fully realised and to such effect that every performance this “transformation” received spontaneous applause from the audience.  I must also thank here our scenic artist, Anne Thomas who masterminded and executed some of the very tricky paintwork involved with the set.  The biggest problem in staging a musical at, The Nomad is where to put the band as the theatre was never designed with musicals in mind.  The 9 strong band (some players quadrupling on instruments were banished to the studio behind the stage.  Special mention is made about one of the youngest and without doubt one of the best Musical Directors in the business, Steven Geraghty for his talent, imagination and technical expertise.  Another strong feature of the theatre is superb sound and lighting and as always the standard was kept very high.  I wish I had the space here to list the entire “crew” including builders etc but I don’t.  They all know who they are and over the years have earned my respect and thanks for just doing what they do and being so brilliant at it!!!!

MARKETING

Unlike most of the companies that perform this show, The Nomads decided not to take up the, NODA and RUG marketing package but to design our own.  With the co-operation of Jordan Farrell and his family a poster was designed based around an image of him as a shirtless starving orphan.  The poster was very successful and conveyed the distress and squalor of the era.  A successful radio campaign was undertaken including slots on local radio and the inevitable mention on the “Break a Leg” slot on BBC Radio 2’s Elaine Page on Sunday show.  Numerous press releases including a large piece in a magazine aimed at schools with ideas for their Christmas trips all the usual local advertising and the army of handbill distributors to put the bills through the letterboxes.  Obviously numerous mentions in the monthly newsletter help to get the message home.

COSTUMES/MAKE UP

Most costumes came from the theatres own wardrobe supply.  With a cast of 20 adults and 20 kids this is no mean feat but as always the wardrobe department under the guidance of Jill Asher came up trumps. I had said from early on that although the show is a very “rose tinted” view of the Barnardo story I wanted to make it a little harder and to that end decided to uniformly make up the cast so they looked more Victorean London and sickly and less Surrey, bouncy and healthy.  Generally this worked and the effect was almost “ghostlike”..

CONCLUSION

Every production throws up challenges musicals more than most and these challenges can often seem like mountains.  This one is no exception.  It is unknown, albeit written by a truly world renowned team.  It has no book instead a narration that is not all it might be and by virtue of no dialogue or recitative to build character the cast have an uphill task to win the audience and engender any kind of empathy.  They are fairly big mountains but they can be climbed as long as production team, cast and crew have imagination and are prepared to look “outside the box” and approach it with no preconceptions.  I suggest it is treated for what it is, an oddity!!  I tried to make it a series of postcards or snapshots of a time when lurking not far beneath the surface was a lot of unpleasantness.  Be imaginative with the staging don’t rely on an “Oliver” based set it won’t be enough.  If you decide to do the show I hope you would find as we did that Really Useful Group are fantastic to work with (some others could learn from them).  Having talked to other companies about the show they are always ready to listen if you want to do something new with it.  One group I know actually wrote a script instead of using the narration.  All in all I am very fond of the show and am particularly proud of our production of it and hope The Lord and Sir Tim would be too.  I would recommend it to any group but just say beware of some fairly large pitfalls get over them and enjoy it.  Certainly the audiences that came to our production were almost unanimously delighted with the show and had a great evening at the theatre.

The photographs were all taken by David Martin.

We regret that this production has had to be postponed until March.

More details later

At the age of twenty, Verity Taylor was charged by the police with damaging a chair by fire in the mental hospital where she was a patient.  Later she was committed to Broadmoor “from where she may not be discharged or transferred elsewhere without the permission of the Home Secretary”.

Using a technique of multiple characterisation, the play seeks to investigate in depth the personality of a young  girl, to ‘find’ her and at the same time studies the effects of her behaviour on the family, the friends and the officials in whose care she is periodically placed.

The Young Nomads have worked hard at understand and bringing to life this challenging and interesting piece of theatre and the results speak for themselves.  It is one thing to know about children with psychological difficulties, it is quite another thing to experience one of those children first hand.  The Young Nomads have had to really come out of themselves and be fearless in becoming the complex and struggling characters that make up this very informative and entertaining play

The Young Nomads hope to see you there!

Our guest speaker in October will be Dominic Combe. Dominic’s talk will be based on some number of an amateur theatre producer trying to run rehearsals for a play, all presented using an original phonograph and cylinders. Please contact me on 01483 283507 by Sunday, 17th October, if any member is unable to attend the luncheon. Please note, the date in the October diary was incorrect and should have read Wed. 20th October.

Mary Brooks.