THREE CHAIRS & A HAT - Nia Williams

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, and in 2019 we introduced MELODY, a one-act musical with a cast of two creating a world of characters. Melody Smart is 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 has played in Oxford, Abingdon and Ross-on-Wye.
Due to the theatre closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, our West End debut at the Phoenix Arts Club on is postponed to 2021. If you’ve already booked a ticket, please contact the agency here and they will advise you on their refund policy. The Edinburgh Fringe 2020 has been cancelled. BUT we will be there at the same time and place in 2021—the Space on the Mile (Space 3) from 8 to 12 August.

And in the meantime …

Online@theSpaceUK is hosting a virtual fringe festival of 80-plus video performances. including four contributions from Three Chairs and a Hat. You can see our videos on the following launch dates, or click the titles to see a quick trailer now!

8 August
HAUNTED—a dramatised version of my short story about isolation and obsession. Do you believe in ghosts?

15 August
THE SINGING LESSON—Guy Brigg and Marilyn Moore as Evangeline Gibson and Melody Smart in an extract from Melody. Can one Zoom singing lesson help Melody rediscover her voice? Directed by Wayne T Brown.

15 August
LADY M—Susanne Hodgson is the life coach you ignore at your peril: a 21st-century Lady Macbeth, issuing online advice and confessions. Directed by Alice Evans.

22 August
PAMELA DRYSDALE’S LOCKDOWN—Three Chairs performer Jane Hainsworth demonstrates her writing talents for writing in this one-woman comedy of errors about the unintended consequences of Lockdown on a naughty weekend away.

PRESS AND AUDIENCE REACTIONS TO MELODY:

‘A really compelling piece of theatre’

‘Nia Williams is a gifted and imaginative storyteller’
‘Poignant, thought-provoking and utterly engrossing’
‘Amazing storytelling, clever lyrics and music’
‘Moving, funny, fascinating, absorbing’
‘Well written, well directed, well acted—loved it’ .

VERITY is a 90-minute musical about one woman’s ordinary disasters. After playing to full houses in Oxford in 2014 and again in 2018, Verity made her debut at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019, where audience feedback was wonderful and we were rewarded with a four-star review from The Mumble!
Here are some quotes from that review:
‘…a veritable modern masterpiece’ … ‘an extremely talented bunch’ … ‘Nia’s piano playing … pretty much perfect’ … ‘she rhymes like a rapper’… ‘A fabulous piece on so many levels’
And here are some audience reactions:
‘I loved it! Such great performances from everyone, and fab music.’
‘I really enjoyed the story, the fantastic singing and the slick presentation – very humorous, with some comical dance moves …’
‘A brilliant show—really enjoyed it’
‘It was absolutely bloody brilliant!’
Plans are simmering for more performances—watch this space!

For more details about Three Chairs and a Hat you can:
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