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Worcester House House Play 2011 - ‘The Vicar of Dibley’

After yesterday’s two comedies from the boys, it was now the chance for Worcester House to show what they could do. Only featuring the first episode (30 minutes long), it presents the story of how Geraldine Granger (Tlamelo Sethswaelo) wins the hearts of the local community and fights against the right-winged view of David Horton (Florence Petrie). Under the direction of Lucy Tucker and Zoe Ward, they certainly gave a real sense of the prejudice against the appointment of a woman vicar at the beginning of the play which gave way then to a gradual acceptance of change at the end.

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As soon as members of the audience walked into the theatre, the set design looked fairly simplistic, but later on it became a valuable asset for the changes of scene, from the Chapel to the Town Hall. However, at times the scene changes did seem to be too regular to keep the plot moving. The costumes were very suitably chosen for each character (thanks to Mr Beever) and the wigs made the audience have to look twice to believe that these were young girls playing middle aged men. Even though it would have been nice to have had the bald cap stuck completely on, a special mention must be made to Florence Petrie’s transformation into a man, which was a highlight.

There were some good contributions from the cast. Some well cast actors were chosen for the minor parts, including Claire Moffat’s cameo as Reverend Pottle, and Imogen Paddon playing the slightly odd Letitia Cropley. Many of the actors took their inspiration from the television series and wisely chose not to drastically change them. Amber Humphreys played Frank Pickles, who oozed with boredom and dullness as the character should! Jim Trott (Katie James) and Owen Newitt (Naomi Ofulue) were both excellent at their characters, creating many moments of laughter and some good use of the theatre steps added to the comedy moments.

Of course, in every House Play there are some memorable performances. Phoebe Chappell impressively played Alice Tinker, the dim-witted girl who believes that she is perfectly normal. Hugo Horton (Siobhan Hartnoll) was well chosen as she played the naive and childish son of David Horton and the audience saw glimpses of the start of a love relationship between Hugo and Alice. Florence Petrie again should be congratulated, as she was very successful at portraying the right-winged Parish Council chairmen with professionalism and discipline well beyond her years. Finally, Tlamelo Setshwaelo charmed the audience with her bubbly personality and larger than life persona. It was a shame that the production didn’t include another episode, as the audience were still eager to learn more about the goings on in Dibley.

On the whole, this play was a lot more light hearted than last year and proved a popular choice with the crowd. It is not easy to bring such a well known television series onto the stage, but it was with hard work and determination that Worcester House made this possible and pulled off a sound production.

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The fifth play of the 2011 House Drama Festival was performed by the girls of Worcester House. They aimed to follow the strong start made by their predecessors, who had set the bar very high. Worcester had picked ‘The Vicar of Dibley’, which as a play with a large number of male characters was always going to prove a challenge for the directors, Lucy Tucker and Zoe Ward.

The time of 5.15pm on a Tuesday meant that the theatre took a while to fill, as students were drifting in from games options and with this in mind in order to help the atmosphere Worcester would have done well to play some music to set the scene before it started.

The opening scene was a little tentative but the collective confidence grew as the play went on. In one of the scenes there was a suspicion that certain cast members were reading their scripts on stage, but this was brief and there were no prominent gaffes in the delivery. The play featured a string of strong individual performances, notably from Tlamelo Setshwaelo as the vicar and Florence Petrie as the ‘Old fashioned, right wing, traditional Parish Council Chairman, David Horton’.

Florence delivered a strong performance, despite cutting a diminutive figure and only being in the Third Form. Tlamelo on the other hand, is a regular on the Worcester stage and was cast perfectly, dominating the stage and speaking her lines very clearly, while acting strongly to seem as if she really was a revolutionary vicar instead of an actor rattling off a script.

The costumes were good and they needed to be in order to help to turn the girls into credible men. The ‘bald wig’ used to portray David Horton made Florence Petrie look like Matt Lucas from a distance but it helped her to maintain her character. There were good performances from the rest of the cast namely; Claire Moffat as Reverend Pottle and Imogen Paddon as the eccentric Letitia Cropley, Amber Humphreys played Frank Pickles in a convincing fashion and Jim Trott or Katie James and Owen Newitt /Naomi Ofulue were both well observed characterisations. Phoebe Chappell played Alice Tinker with a light touch and Hugo Horton or rather Siobhan Hartnoll was suitably uncomplicated and jovial.

There was a sparse usage of special effects, with the girls preferring to change the stage completely rather than have designated corners for each scene on which the lights could be focused. A consequence of this was that the transition between the scenes was too long and this resulted in some problems with the lighting.

The play ended rather suddenly and when the girls all joined hands for the collective bow, there was some confusion. Several members of the audience commented that the scenes could have been chosen more carefully, as the directors seemed to miss out upon the crucial ones where the vicar gets the village onside, resulting in a record turnout for her debut service but it was a good attempt at a difficult play.

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