A Matinée on Saturday 20th November
                &
Monday 22nd - Saturday 27th November

      "Absurd Person Singular"

        by Alan Ayckbourn
      Directed by Wendy Gomm

Three couples, three kitchens and three Christmas Eve parties.
Running through the wild comedy of behind the scenes disasters,
we watch the fortunes of the meek and mild Hopcroft's rise
to outstrip those of their bank manager and their architect friends.

Sidney   -  Richard Gomm
Jane      -  Mary Logan
Ronald   -  David Holt
Marion   -  Dianne Nicholls
Geoffrey -  Simon Blissett
Eva       -  Jenny Roberts

ACT 1. Sidney and Jane's Kitchen. Last Christmas.
ACT 2. Geoffrey and Eva's Kitchen. This Christmas.
ACT 3. Ronald and Marion's Kitchen. Next Christmas. 

Tickets: £ 7.00 from the T.I.C.
Budleigh Salterton Tourist Information Centre

The Cast and Director in Rehearsal

From the Exmouth Journal Thursday 21, October 2010  - Roger Simmonds

DIRECTORIAL DEBUT FOR WENDY

As the final play in a most successful year of comedy by famous playwrights,
Salterton Drama Club, is staging Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular
at the Salterton Playhouse next month, having previously presented it 10 years
ago in November 2000.
 In the director's chair for the first time for a full length play is Wendy Gomm.
Previously, Wendy has been involved in directing the popular Radio Budleigh
shows and an evening of one-act plays and is a well-established actress at the
Salterton Playhouse, most recently shining as the seductive Sandy in 'Party Piece'.
 Fay Hamilton made her directorial debut with Absurd Person Singular in 2000
and she began the present year of comedy at the Salterton Playhouse by directing
Oscar Wilde's play Lord Arthur Savile's Crime. The year progressed with
the quintessentially English playwright Noel Coward's Present Laughter and
then Party Piece by Richard Harris.
 Wendy is pleased to have chosen an experienced and capalbe cast with Mary Logan,
Richard Gomm, Jenny Roberts, Simon Blissett, David Holt and Dianne Nicholls as
three couples we meet on three separate Christmas Eves.
 By popular request, the Salterton Drama Club is adding a matinee as their opening
performance on Saturday November 20 at 2.30pm.
 After that, Absurd Person Singular runs at the Salterton Playhouse at 7.30pm.
from Monday November 22 to Saturday November 27. Tickets go on sale on Monday,
November 1, at the Budleigh Salterton Tourist Information Centre, Fore Street
- telephone 01395 445275

Jane & Sidney

Eva & Geoffrey

Marion & Ronald

Review - Exmouth Journal Thursday December 2, 2010
....
Strong cast does itself proud

Take a social climber, a philandering husband and a smug banker, add three wives in 
varying degrees of psychological turmoil, throw Christmas in the mix and you have 
all the ingredients for a classic Ayckbourn comedy.
Absurd Person Singular  is a demanding commentary on a changing group dynamic 
which sees one couple's rise to fortune coincide with another's fall from grace. The 
seasoned cast of Salterton Drama Club actors picked to tackle this play did themselves 
and Wendy Gomm, in her first foray at director, proud.
Playhouse regulars witnessed a strong cast of familiar faces take to the stage against 
the backdrop of three magnificent sets, each carefully constructed and dressed to reflect 
the order or chaos of the relevant couple's situation. Richard Gomm was the star of the 
piece - his role of socially ambitious  shopkeeper turned successful developer Sidney Hopcroft
was mastered with the confidence that comes with experience.
Richard captured brilliantly Sidney's pathetic desperation to impress the guests at his 
drinks party and his subsequent bad treatment of his socially inept wife Jane (Mary Logan) 
who is more of a homemaker that a hobnobber. Mary was suitably pitiful with wonderful 
expressions of panic as Jane's escapades as hostess saw her locked out of her own home 
in the pouring rain.
Wealthy banker Ronald Brewster-Wright was not an easy part to play, his was the most reserved 
character and David Holt portrayed well the subtle descent from quiet self-assurance to 
controlled desperation.
Dianne Nicholls played a marvellous Marion, wife to Ronald. Dianne seized the opportunities 
for strong characterisation and conveyed effectively a woman's descent, climaxing in the 
third act, to alcoholism. This robust characterisation served to mirror, and therefore emphasise, 
the extent of her husband's financial and social decline.
Womaniser Geoffrey's disregard for this wife Eva  makes him dislikeable and the audience blames 
her pill addiction on his philandering. Simon Blissett grasped well the initial arrogance of 
this architect and his despair tinged with irritation at Eva's suicidal state. 
The collapse of one of his buildings sees his reputation come crashing down too, to a point 
where Sidney, now a successful developer, is his only hope. Jenny Roberts was excellent as 
the unstable Eva, her repeated suicide attempts in the second act were unnervingly hilarious.
Eva's intervention in the third act, in which she tries to sell her husband's services to Sidney, 
marked well the couple's fall from grace. The change in the group's dynamic was captured succinctly 
and brilliantly by Richard in the play's final moments when attempting to spread a rather smug 
breed of festive cheer, he climbs on to the table and orders "Dance everyone, dance!". Great 
direction here by Wendy as Sidney's financial rise to power is mirrored by his physical elevation 
- he towers above his contemporaries and, in a sinister twist, his hands dance in the air like 
those of a control-hungry puppeteer.

Emma Silverthorne 

Updated 12 December 2010