FOREST PLAYERS
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engaging and challenging local drama
Tickets available soon.
The Fall and Rise of
Gordon Grimshaw
by Sandy Truman
Or how NOT to become famous!
Gordon and Marion are downsizing from Bagshot to Finchurch-on-Sea. Gordon has been forced to leave his job, his beloved bowls club and all their comfortable oversized furniture in order to embrace long walks by the sea and constant togetherness with his wife, in the quiet autumn of their lives.
Marion wants him to lose weight, his trophies are consigned to the cupboard under the stairs, and he thinks his life is over.
But he hasn’t reckoned on their bizarre new neighbours; kamikaze seagulls; brushes with the long arm of the law; half-marathons and getting reeled into amateur dramatics!
Out of this chaos, and the ruins of his old life, comes new beginnings, new opportunities and new friends - maybe even a new career!
The play is set in May in the late 80’s, in a smart area outside London, at the home of Charles and Vivien Brookes. He is a very senior civil servant, and she is reputed to be of substantial means. The occasion is their twentieth wedding anniversary to which eight guests have been invited, but when the first couple arrive there is no sign of their hostess and catering staff, and the host is in no fit state to entertain anybody.. As the play develops great efforts are made to cover up, for various reasons, the probable truth, and whispers and insinuations imply unsavoury rumours about the hosts and some of the guests.
The police eventually arrive to investigate a fairly routine matter involving one of the guests and the host, but an indiscretion by another guest leads to an unbelievably staged explanation, and a twist at the end leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
The play is written with Neil Simon's wonderful flair; it has great pace, and superb one-liners.
