Written By
Philip King
Where and When
9th – 11th November 1967 @ The Church House, Wimborne
The Plot
Zany, madcap events transpire at the Reverend Lionel Toop’s vicarage in Merton-cum-Middlewick. The plot revolves around Lionel’s wife, Penelope, who dabbles in a football pool with the help of their maid, Ida, and Ida’s suitor, the droll Willie Briggs. The most fantastic complications ensue when the triumvirate wins, or when they think they have won, more than 20,000 English pounds. Lending richly comic hands are the old maid parishioner, Miss Skillon, and Penelope’s out-of-this-world uncle, The Bishop of Lax. What happens when these assorted characters all get together on one stage has to be seen to be believed.
Cast
- Penelope Toop – Elizabeth Anthony
- Ida, the maid – Janine Brockes
- The Reverend Lionel Toop – John Anthony
- Miss Skillon – Daphne Young
- Willie Briggs – Christopher Hughes
- The Reverend Arthur Humphrey – Sam Fawcett
- The Right Reverend The Lord Bishop of Lax – Donald Waterfield
Creative Team
- Producer – Donald Waterfield
- Stage Manager – Arthur Brooks
- ASMs – Muriel Brooks and Ian Raeburn
- Property Mistress – Lynne Taylor
- Prompt – Muriel Brooks
- Lighting – Dennis Curran
- House Managers – Tim Eling, Robert Tomlinson and Stephen Ware
- Make up – Cynthia Shackles
Gallery
Reviews
A few years ago Wimborne Drama Club attracted full houses with performances of Philip King’s farce See How They Run. Last week – if Saturday’s audience was any criterion – they repeated their success with a club production of the sequel to that play, Pools Paradise.
Set in the surroundings of Merton-cum-Middlewick Vicarage, the zany clerical household pursued the very uneven tenor of their various ways; and four members of the earlier cast – John Anthony, Elizabeth Anthony, Sam Fawcett and Donald Waterfield – obviously revelled in their respective roles of the Rev. Lionel Toop and his wife Penelope; the Rev. Arthur Humphrey and the Bishop Lax.
The inevitable mixup is sparked off when Penelope – in spite of her husband’s horror of gambling – is inveigled into a flutter on the football pools by her maid, Ida, and the maid’s dimwit boyfriend Will Briggs. These parts were played with zest by two newcomers, Janine Brockes and Christopher Hughes, who, from the moment they realized that their coupon had come up kept the fun bubbling.
Daphne Young at the indomitable Miss Skillon, deteremined to rule the Toop’s lives, was vigourously militant; and Carolyn Young supported as a bewildered choir boy.
Donald Waterfield was responsible for the very capable production; and Arthur Brooks stage-managed assisted by Muriel Brooks and Ian Raeburn. Dennis Curran was electrician; Cynthia Shackles was make-up artist; Muriel Brooks prompted; and Lynne Taylor was property mistress. House managers were Tim Eling, Robert Tomlinson and Stephen Ware.
Programme
