Wimborne Drama As Unexpected Guest Arrives.

Wimborne Drama gets an unexpected guest.

Actually I was expected, being very kindly invited along by the director David Pile, to the Wimborne Royal Legion to attend the first ‘books down’ rehearsal of Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest, and on the anniversary of Agatha’s birthday too. When I arrived he offered me a drink and we sat chatting about the play for half an hour until the others turned up to rehearse. They all made me feel very welcome and it was nice to meet a lovely bunch of people with an obvious passion for acting. Then I sat down to watch, but more on that later.

How does Wimborne Drama go about putting on a play? There are forty-five members of Wimborne Drama, with a varying age range, and anyone can put a play forward for consideration. Once the play has been chosen auditions are held to find the right members to play the characters, which means the same actors or director are rarely used time after time. Then comes twelve to fourteen weeks of rehearsal before the play is put on at the Tivoli Theatre. This means meeting up four hours a week to rehearse together, and that doesn’t include all the hard work and extra hours the actors put in learning their lines at home.

The costumes are usually delivered a week before the performance and the set will be erected the Sunday before, the 17th October. There is only one set in this play so the company can deliver an uninterrupted performance with just one fifteen-minute break in the middle. That’s fifteen minutes in a two and a quarter hour play, so they’ll be no hanging around to be entertained. Wednesday the 20th October is their full dressed rehearsal and the play begins on Thursday 21st October and finishes on the 23rd.

Ten actors are involved in the play in total, including one poor soul who has to play dead for seventeen pages. Lets hope he doesn’t get bored, fall asleep and snore. Props are borrowed or hired, especially the guns, which have to be hired from a special company because of the law.

So back to the play…it was very good, the acting spot on and I enjoyed it even thought there were a few missed lines, which is normal for the first ‘book down’ rehearsal. It’s an interesting play and I would thoroughly recommend you get yourself a ticket, as from what I saw it’s going to be a fantastic.

Well done to all involved and I look forward to seeing it at the Tivoli. Break a leg!