THREE CHAIRS & A HAT

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love West End glitz as much as anyone. My infatuation with musical theatre started in earnest at the age of 12, watching Fred & Ginger movies and Busby Berkeley extravaganzas on the TV. A good, old-fashioned, no-expense-spared show can still make my heart beat faster. But when it comes to staging my own work, my passion is for creating stories and situations using only the bare minimum of set, props and costumes, along with maximum imagination.

Just as well, too: my budget doesn’t stretch to anything more. So Three Chairs and a Hat seems a fitting way to describe the small-scale musicals I’ve written and staged, with the help of a massively talented group of performers and backstage magicians.

 

The Three Chairs and a Hat team have so far staged Verity, Daddy’s Girls, and my verse play built around the music of Kurt Weill, Smoke & Mirrors.

 

For 2019 we bring you a new one-act musical with a cast of two creating a world of characters. MELODY is about a cheerful hotel receptionist who wins a singing lesson in the staff raffle—and finds her carefully constructed life unravelling to reveal secrets, passions, and more than a few buttered digestives. MELODY premiered to a full house at the Crisis Café, Old Fire Station in April. This was some of the audience feedback: ‘Amazing storytelling, clever lyrics and music—utterly drawn in!’ … ‘Moving, funny, fascinating, absorbing’ … ‘Well written, well directed, well acted—loved it’ . Future Oxford dates include 9 June at the Jam Factory and 23 June at the Jericho Tavern—tickets from www.ticketsoxford.com; and on 21 September MELODY travels to Ross-on-Wye’s Phoenix Theatre; watch this space for details.