THE WICKHAMBROOK PANTOMIME THIS YEAR IS
GOLDILOCKS and the
THREE BEARS
Tickets are now available from Jackie Fieldsend on 01440 820108 - £6.50 and £5 for children and concessions. Goldilocks and the three bears is on from Saturday 19th Jan until Saturday 26th. Both Saturdays have matinees at 2.30 p.m. and evening performances at 7.30 and the Sunday matinee is at 4 o'clock. The other evening performances are from Tuesday until Saturday at 7.30.
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Adults -
Do You Want to Have Some Fun?
Can you spare a little time to take part in an event,
namely an ‘Olde Thyme Variety Show’
on Saturday 8th September 2007
Can you sing, dance, juggle,
put one foot infront of the other,
tell jokes, anything?!?!
Very little commitment required.
If so please come along to a meeting
on 16th May
in the United Reformed Church
at 7.30pm
or contact Peter on 01787 278719
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Wickhambrook Players would
welcome new members. The more members we have the more festivals and
plays we can perform which make for a varied and exciting year. We
cannot stress enough how pleased we would be to see you.
There are so many ways in which you can join in. There is something
for everyone - you don't have to act if you don't want to. |
The age range of the Players
is great owing to the fact that we have our Juniors Players, Youth
Section and the Adults. You are therefore literally never too old
- nor too young to be a Wickhambrook Player.
We are known as the Wickhambrook Players so that people know where
we are based. If you want to become a member but do not live in Wickhambrook
then you are more than welcome.
Our club is for people interested in all aspects of the theatre, so
if you are too old, don't know what you want to do, don't know if
you can do it and live in Cheveley, Ashley, Stradishall or anywhere
else, then COME AND FIND OUT - you won't regret it and we guarantee
you'll have a good time with interesting, fun people.
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| Membership |
Adults  £10 |
children £5
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We have beginners as members and also people
with invaluable experience and this is one of the aspect that makes
us such a varied and interesting club to belong to.
We urgently need young female actresses - novices and experienced
- as we have parts waiting to be played. Do you realise how important
you can be to the group? Even if you don't know what you want to do
but just want to join in - then give us a call - you will be surprised
by the long list of varied jobs you can choose from. |
Here is just a
taste of what we are hoping to do next year
| EVENTS |
START WORK |
WHEN SHOWN |
| Pantomime |
October |
January |
| The Festival Season - Cambridge |
January |
April |
| The Haverhill Festival |
April |
July - Wickhambrook Carnival Week |
| Junior Production - Musical |
May |
July |
| The Newmarket Festival |
July |
September |
| Cheese & Wine |
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November (also show festivals play) |
| Murder Mystery with Christmas Theme |
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Christmas - play performed within audience |
| OTHER EVENTS - In previous years
we have been to Hunstanton, which has a beautiful old theatre
by the sea, and participated in the countrywide showing of Sandcastles,
sponsored by BT. |
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| We have over 60 -70 people involved in
this year's Pantomime Aladdin but we need more for the events coming
up next year. We would love to enter the Cambridge Festival but have
never had enough people in the past. We try to split up the work involved
in the Festivals and because of the timescales involved (Cambridge
is in April) it is hard work to get ready so quickly following the
Pantomime in January. Let's hope enough of you believe us that we
NEED YOU and join us to make this a year to remember. |
| The Players is made up of many people as
mentioned above but the main committee members are: |
| COMMITTEE
MEMBERS |
Chairman |
Jo Stokes |
Vice Chairman |
Jim Fieldsend |
Honorary Treasurer |
Jeff Goodacre |
Honorary Secretary |
Peter Bayman |
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| The same play is used for the Festival
Season and is also shown in the village at the very successful Cheese
& Wine evening that is also our club annual social event. |
| We have previously won the Best Production and
Best Actress Awards and were nominated for the Best Actor Award for
our festival play which was shown at the Newmarket Festival. We have
always done well and received good write-ups for our Festival Plays.
We would hope to win the Haverhill Festival this year as that gives
you automatic entry into the "Winner of Winners" All England
Festival. |
| If you are interested in joining the Players
then please contact us |
| Chairman |
Jo Stokes |
01440 821495
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| The History of The Players |
Following many years of successes in running
activities which had enhanced village life and engendered a community
spirit which was the envy of surrounding villages, in 1995/96 the
Wickhambrook Community Association found itself with insufficient
support to form a committee and, over several months during late 1996
and early 1997, it was wound up in the Spring of 1997. For the previous
15 years or so its activities had included an annual pre-Christmas
seasonal celebration which had started as a simple family show with
readings of extracts of popular literature, favourite carols and humorous
turns, all in festive atmosphere, and had developed through staged
enactments of well known scenes such as Mol and Ratty stumbling and
lost in the Wild Wood, through a 2-performance village panto, into
a full blown January pantomime production with, most recently, 9 of
10 performances, a charity night, commercial sponsors and a cast of
– well at least dozens.
By 1997 the annual pantomime had become something of a tradition with
a regular supporting audience and on expectation, then being handed
down to new ‘young audience’, of an annual treat to go
to the Wickhambrook Panto. It was too much for the board-treading
‘luvvies’ and ‘wannabes’ in the village to
let it all slip away with the demise of the CA. The imminent loss
sparked the idea to form an AmDram group before the properties and
enthusiasms of the Community Association and its remaining activists
were dispersed and lost for good. At a hurriedly call meeting in the
W.I. Hall on Sunday 9th February 1997 – the record shows that
20 enthusiasts attended – by unanimous decision an amateur dramatic
society was formed there and then in order to maintain the ‘traditional’
panto and, taking advantage of the freedom from the Community Association's
wider community responsibilities and accountables, to pursue purely
‘AmDram’ activities with staged dramatic productions.
The first Committee Meeting was held on the 18th February 1997 - and
so much has happened since……..
The Community Association had staged Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Mother
Goose, Sinbad, Sleeping Beauty, Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Jack
and the Beanstalk, and finally, Ali Baba, in January 1997. The Wickhambrook
Players inherited the ’stage properties’ of the closing
CA plus a start up fund which had already been earmarked for the next
production and despite the relatively late start (it takes more than
12 months to produce each panto), Cinderella was successfully staged
in January 1998. Next came Babes in the Wood and Snow White in 2000.
The Players have moved into light farces, and home-grown entries for
Drama Festivals – with awards and nominations-for-wards for
best actor, best overall production, best youth actress, best set
and adjudicators special awards, with a membership which started at
33 in February 1997 and which now exceeds 20 (not including countless
casual helpers) in 3 sections, ‘juniors’, ‘Youths’
(teens) and ‘Adults’, the club is a significant contributor
to communities within and beyond Wickhambrook. We are members of the
National Operative and Dramatic Association (NODA) and have close
friendly links with flourishing AmDram groups from Newmarket and Ipswich.
The former Community Association would be pleased with what we have
done with their investment in community life and their faith in ‘the
new club’ which inherited perhaps their greatest success. Years
packed with activity and yet, in the near future we hope to catch
up with still more of the ideas which have exceeded our capabilities
to date. A ‘full-blown’ drama production of perhaps 2
hours duration, a rip roaring high speed comedy (in the manner of
‘Noises Off’) and a 3-day Drama festival, all perhaps
on the Wickhambrook stage. These are some of the ideas simply waiting
for their time in our calendar. Plus of course the 40-minute entries
for the established Festival circuit, ’ the players ‘at
home’ evening (the Cheese and Wine, the fund raising ‘Race
Nights’, the newly undertaken charity activity and endless committee
meetings…. There are activities in ‘the Players’
for everyone, from bar working to board walking, from casual stage
crew to committed serious committee. And of course there’s always
‘probably the best pantomime in Suffolk’ when Wickhambrook’s
village hall takes on a very special atmosphere. |
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