Humpty Dumpty - February 2008
Written by James Hayward & Lynne Mortimer
| Date: | 14th to 16th February 2008 |
| Venue: | Chantry High School |
| Press Review: | Click here |
| Humpty's Local Connection | Click here |
| Gallery: | Click here |
Cast - In order of appearanceFairy Souffle - Heather Gardner The Chorus & DancersKay Barton, Shannon Bedford, Emma Blowers |
CrewOrchestraKeyboard - Jo King Production TeamDirector - Lisa Hardy |
Acknowledgements
All Hallows Church, Landseer Road Methodist Church, Andrews Reprographics
Barnes Catering (Anglia) Ltd - Costume Storage, EAM Printers
Laburnum Farm - Workshop Space, Signs Express
Sponsors
This production has been part sponsored by BT.
Thank you
Thank you to everyone who gave so generously to our exit collection for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. We raised a total of £ 681.25.
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What the press said
Ipswich Evening Star, Tuesday 19th February 2008 - Tom Potter
Players' Humpty panto all it's cracked up to be
Panto season may be over, but it didn't stop Humpty Dumpty and his friends from entertaining audiences at Chantry High School.
The adaptation of the famous nursery rhyme was performed by the Landseer Players and starred regular cast member Neville Woolnough in the lead role and Keith Starling as the dame.
The play was set in the land of Egnogia and told the story of Humpty, an unwitting tool in an evil duke's plan to win the kingdom by poisoning his brother.
Despite encountering one or two problems with the sound on the first night, everything went well and the production was enjoyed by the audience members.
Jean Kristensen, Players' committee and chorus member, said: "We rely on a great technical team to help out and we just hope it goes all right on the night. Everyone seemed to like the performance and we had everyone in from youngsters to pensioners. Sharna Simmons, who played the witch, was even approached to sign autographs."
The production was full of variety with everything from Elvis impersonations to a tap dancing pantomime horse.
Any profit made from the show, and any of the Players' productions, was given to charity. This year there was also a collection for breast cancer charities after a member of the crew was affected by the illness.
The Players specialise in the art of pantomime and have been appearing in Chantry since 2006, having previously made their home at Suffolk College.
The amateur dramatics group boast an 80 member cast and won the best pantomime award for Snow White in the 2005 East Suffolk Theatre Amateur Awards.
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Humpty's local connections
East Anglian Daily Times, February 2008 - Lynne Mortimer
In a quest for a new pantomime to write for Ipswich company Landseer Players in 2008 we - that's me any co-writer James Hayward - decided to stay close to home.
Several of the popular pantos are based on traditional fairy stories by the French writer Charles Perrault (Cinderella) or by the prolific Brothers Grimm (Snow White). The Arabian Nights also yield a number of tales including Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin and Ali Baba. Add these to Dick Whittington, based on a real-life Mayor of London and Robinson Crusoe, based on Defoe's book about the castaway Alexander Selkirk and you'll find a raft (no pun intented) of panto plots.
But when you've been writing and re-writing for more than 30 years, you need to look around for some of the less well-known titles.
Most people will know the rhyme - Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall etc - and the popular idea that he was an egg.
Colchester, of course, knows better as, the legend has it, Humpty Dumpty was a large cannon used during the English Civil War in the Siege of Colchester in 1648. It is said that the cannon was placed on the wall next to St Mary's Church but a month into the siege the Royalist fort inside the walls was blown to pieces and Humpty Dumpty was destroyed (had a great fall). Attempts by the Kings men to resurrect the cannon failed because it was so heavy.
Unfortunately, these rather unromantic origina do not feature in the pantomime but, selecting a suitable "baddie" also became a matter of local consideration. It seemed a role prefectly suited to the Grand Old Duke of York.
One version of the story goes that the eponymous Duke of York in the rhyme was marching his men uphill from the Ipswich barracks. The exact location of the hill is a metter of debate. Some say it is Woodbridge Road hill, others that it might be Berner's Street hill. Others say that the soldiers were in Woodbridge. What we cennot be sure of is the Duke's motive for marching them up and down in the first place.
Yer more others have mooted that it originates from the Battle of Wakefield in the Wars of the Roses but, for the purposes of this pantomime, all accents are local and historical content means nothing. This is just as well as two centuries seperate the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War!
In this historically uninformed pantomime, the Duke of York gets Humpty Dumpty - newly hatched from an egg - to help him steel the throne from his brother King Egbert of Eggnog. His wicked plot is foiled and everyone lives hapilly ever after.
The Landseer Players pantomime has been performed in the February half-term week for 25 years.
The company was formed by members of Landseer Road Methodist Church and All Hallows Church in Ipswich. Originally, the production was based in All Hallows' church hall. It later moved to Orwell Junior School in Robeck Road but then went 'on the road'.
It settled at Suffolk College but when it was scheduled for demolition to make way for the new building on the university campus, the pantomime moved to Chantry High School, its home for the past few years.
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