| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Convenor: | |
| When: | On Thursday afternoons 2:00 pm 3rd Thursday |
| Venue: | Member's Home |
This is a small group. We borrow sets of one-act plays from the Music and Performing Arts department of Leeds library. This group is currently at capacity but if anyone would like to be a convenor, there is enough interest to start a second group.
We allocate parts randomly-The plays are usually comedies and quite old.
We don't practice or move around or dress up
1Help from the convenor and our U3A committee will be given if a second group wishes to start
Just Read and Laugh!
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Afternoon at the Seaside
17th September 2026
Our script was An Afternoon by the Seaside. a one act play by Agatha Christie: not one of her best known works, perhaps for good reason.
There were multiple characters – at least 12 so we ‘doubled up’ manfully – not easy to do as we were only 6 women. Main characters included two married couples, a mother and her young adult son, Inspector Foley and the mysterious ‘Beauty’ who is hiding even more than she has on display!
The curtain rises on three beach huts in the fictional seaside resort of Little-Slippyng-On-Sea. The dialogue, vaguely reminiscent of Donald McGill seaside postcards, intensifies with the hunt for a stolen emerald necklace, multiple red herrings and pairs of mixed up/dropped trousers. There was also the Christie twist at the end which was quite a surprise to us all as we read it!
Although this was a farce (definitely the way we played it) one has to admire Mrs Christie – she could certainly adapt her skills successfully to any genre. We all had a jolly good laugh!
Activity Update 2nd October 2024
The meetings start with a cuppa and a bun, then the chosen play, of a suitable length and with enough characters to suit the group, is distributed and members choose a character "blind" from a set of name cards.
Then we proceed to read it aloud.
We are currently reading "Stand by your Beds, Boys", from the USA, presented in 1974, where it ran for 8 months and became the longest running original comedy in Los Angeles theatre history.
To say it's 50 years old, it deals with issues that wouldn't be out of place in today's society.
It's longer than normal so we are reading it over two sessions, with a re-cap before the second reading. We have laughed! We haven't attempted the accents, although sometimes we do.It has some interesting characters including Miss Wilt, social worker, Mr Whittlebom, immigration officer, and Pickles Schuman, mother of one of the main characters.
When we've finished reading, we usually have a chat about our impressions of and reactions to it, then it's home-time.
A very enjoyable group, though currently up to capacity.
Play Reading Check List 3 June 2024
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