by Michael Green

13th-15th July 2006
Broadbent Theatre, Wickenby

People have told us that our plays tend towards the tragic, the serious and the suicidal. With this in mind Jez Ashberry chose four short plays in the ‘Coarse Acting’ series by Michael Green for our summer 2006 production.

The essence of Coarse Acting is theatre done badly for a variety of reasons: it could be bad actors, forgotten lines, unreliable props, dodgy sets, ill-judged costumes or a combination of all the above.

Our selection was ‘Streuth!’ (a country house murder mystery), ‘The Cherry Sisters’ (a tragedy indebted to Chekhov), ‘Stalag 69’ (a wartime POW drama) and ‘Il Fornicazione’ (an opera).

It goes without saying that it looks easy to do theatre badly, but it is in fact terribly difficult. I hope we carried it off successfully. We staged the entire evening as a fictitious theatre group, the hapless Chapel Hill Amateur Playgoers Society, and tried to be true to the conceit throughout, from the chaotic efforts on stage to the hopeless interval pianist and the disastrous attempt at bingo at half time.

We also found building and striking four different sets on a small, dark stage quite challenging – not least because the set for Stalag 69 had to be built upside down to begin with and then turned through 180 degrees, only to collapse entirely during the course of the play.

The Lincolnshire Echo’s critic enjoyed ‘some great Acorn Antique-esque moments’ and particularly praised the ‘very funny’ Stalag 69, while the Market Rasen Mail enjoyed ‘the hilarious piano interval music’ and lamented ‘this play deserved a bigger audience’!

by H E Bates

9th-11th March 2006
Broadbent Theatre, Wickenby

It was a long time coming, but after negotiating a series of difficulties and one last-minute cancellation, director Vicky Ashberry finally succeeded in getting H E Bates’ feel-good tale of the carefree Larkin family onto the stage.

We had originally planned to perform ‘The Darling Buds of May’ in May 2005, when the warm weather, Pimms and ice cream would all have been part of the summertime experience.

But owing to events beyond our control we had to postpone the original production, re-assemble the cast (with one significant alteration) and do it all over again ten months later.

When we staged the show in March 2006 the Broadbent Theatre was as chilly as the weather outside, so it was a great credit to the cast, crew and director that the production managed to evoke the languid atmosphere of midsummer even while the audience kept their coats on!

This production was another first for us in two ways: it was the first time we had used the Broadbent Theatre (and we will be going back) and it was the first time we have sold out a venue every night. Around 300 people saw the show, a tremendous total which confirms the fact that our audiences are getting bigger and our reputation is slowly spreading.

According to the Market Rasen Mail ‘the whole production was just “perfick”, setting a high standard… for local theatregoers.’ The Lincolnshire Echo critic was less enthusiastic about the production but admitted that ‘the play was a hit with the audience’.

by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall

27th-29th October 2005
Millennium Festival Studio Theatre, Central Methodist Church, Lincoln

Keith Waterhouse’s well known tale of Billy Fisher, the feckless dreamer who escapes from his humdrum life by inventing fantasies and telling lies, was the choice for our autumn 2005 production.

After a successful debut at the Lincoln Drill Hall with ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ financial restraints meant a return to the Millennium Festival Studio Theatre in the Central Methodist Church, but we were pleasantly surprised by the size of the audiences we attracted (190 over three nights).

The production was directed by Su Toogood and featured some stalwart Common Ground members, including Jason Hippisley as Billy, Vicky Ashberry as Billy’s mother and a star turn by Sheryl Tribe who aged up about 50 years to play Grandma!

Sadly the Lincoln Chronicle were unable to see the play – the first production of ours they’ve missed! – but the Lincolnshire Echo described the show as a ‘true success’ and said that the suffocating atmosphere of Billy’s home in a northern town in 1960 was ‘well captured’.

by Mary Elliot Nelson and Ian B Smith
Adapted from an original short story by Philip Van Doren Stern

16th and 17th December 2004
Lincoln Drill Hall

18th and 19th December 2004
Nettleham Village Hall

Arguably the most popular Christmas movie of all time, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ began life as a short story penned by a hopeful writer and has now been adapted as a play for the theatre. Ian Smith chose this stage version of Frank Capra’s movie masterpiece when he made his directorial debut – an ambitious choice but one which was fully justified.

The production broke new ground in a number of ways: it was Common Ground’s first appearance at the Drill Hall, Lincoln’s new community arts venue; it was the first time we had staged a play at two different venues (we took it to Nettleham Village Hall for two evening performances and a matinee); with 22 actors it was the largest cast we had assembled; and it was our most ambitious production yet in terms of the size of the budget and the technical challenges of the set and the sound and lighting cues.

In the end we pulled it off, though not before what was left of the director’s hair turned grey. The show was well received, attracted over 400 spectators during a run of five performances – easily a record for Common Ground Theatre Company – made a small profit and significantly raised the profile of the company.

The Lincolnshire Echo praised the ‘strong performances’ which ‘brought to life the feel-good story’ while the Lincoln Chronicle rated the show as ‘a production which took time to thaw but warmed into a spirited re-telling of a Christmas classic’.

A spectacular evening of Music Hall gaiety

14th, 15th, 21st & 22nd May 2004
Millennium Festival Studio Theatre, Central Methodist Church, Lincoln

Although there had been some light-hearted moments it began to dawn on us at the end of 2003 that much of what we had staged since our inception tended towards the more serious side of drama. Death and destruction had been experienced more than once, and a fictional suicide played a part in at least two of our productions.

We therefore made a conscious decision to stage something lighter for our spring 2004 production – and in the process to take a completely different tack, just to show off our versatility. We decided to plug a gap in the market by staging a Victorian music hall show featuring a live orchestra, singers, dancers, period costumes and an eloquent master of ceremonies. Moreover, we wanted to create a total Victorian experience into which the audience could really immerse itself. To that end we provided front of house staff in costumes (including two young girls selling flowers) and Victorian style ices and soft drinks in the interval, we sang the National Anthem at the end of each show and even drank a toast each evening to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

It was almost certainly our most ambitious production to date; when we embarked on the project we had no band, no musical director and only a handful of singers and dancers. But by casting the net far and wide and unearthing some unexpected gems from within our own society we staged a show which was extremely well received by audiences and critics and a great financial success. Our total audience for six performances was 321 – easily a record for Common Ground Theatre Company.

Some performances will live long in the memory, not least Ian Smith’s incompetent Turkish strongman and Jane Walker’s impeccable soprano voice, but everyone involved really rose to the occasion.

The Lincoln Chronicle called it ‘an evening which no astute afficionado of such effusively ebullient and energetically effervescent entertainment could possibly fail to enjoy’, while the Market Rasen Mail hailed ‘a remarkable recreation of a golden age’, ‘a brave venture… which pays off with some style.’

Here’s the playbill which we presented: