2003, The Gondoliers - A Space Oddity

Rehearsals

As usual there was some discussion about a show for the following year, and the orchestra had expressed a preference for The Gondoliers. Ian came up with the idea of setting it in Lygon Street, while Lynne was more radical, having it on Venus.

Seventeen auditioned for both Trial and Gondoliers, but no-one from outside the group, which made it difficult to cast, particularly as some weren't available for all performances. Darren, the obvious choice for Marco, was rehearsing Les Miserables at the time, and their cast members' were banned from doing other shows during the rehearsal period. So we didn't have a Marco at the first rehearsal, but eventually Carl Harte, who had performed with EMO, was encouraged to audition and was cast. An interesting coupling was Lesley Walton and Gerard Fullarton as the secondary lovers. Both are born comedians and made for a very funny couple. Malcolm Wilton was an imposing Bath Rahda and David Cox and Robyn Ford the Plaza Toros. This made for a uniformly older cast than one usually expects, but one which was experienced and worked well together.

Work for The Gondoliers had already started. Sets were being built and painted and much other planning was taking place. There had been some discussion among the committee early in the year about a request to include a fourteen-year-old friend of Lesley Walton in the cast, with Lesley to take responsibility. This was accepted with Lesley to act as “mother". As it turned out, both Lauren's parents become involved and attended many of the rehearsals. Her mother assisted with costumes and father helped with the lighting.

Warrandyte was unavailable for much of the rehearsal period, so Sunday rehearsals were held at St Mary's in Greensborough. Meanwhile Lynne went over to Italy for a couple of weeks to study the original setting, while Judith went to England to visit her mother to find that, sadly, she'd died before she arrived.

During rehearsals, however, things were going remarkably well. John Bumford came down from Seymour to assist with the pianist problem for one rehearsal early in June and was amazed that the principals had their books down.

Performances

Show Program

The charity performance went very well and Diane Morgan, who had not been involved in the show, came along and did a very encouraging review for the cast, though there were some problems with the "space gondola". There was some compromising on the gondola before opening night.

As always, you never quite know were opening night is going to go. There were a lot of mistakes that hadn't happened before (first night nerves?), particularly in the dialogue, and the audience was too small to get a lot of reaction from them. We had the smoke machine for the first time, but that only worked once instead of three times. The operator had left the theatre to get some tea, leaving someone else to operate it without instructions. So the only time it worked, it was too late and going too long. Then someone had to crawl behind the set, in view of the audience, to turn it off.

There were a few missing on the second night as the Flints were at their daughter's wedding, along with Graham. It was the smallest audience ever. Audiences picked up after that. On the last night when the Duchess made the comment, "That's so like a band!" the orchestra let off firecrackers, which threw her and she took some time to come in with her next line. The conductor, Marie Louise Wright, hadn't known it was going to happen. The show was appreciated by enthusiastic but small audiences.

These history notes have been kindly provided by our long-term artistic director and co-founder, Graham Ford.