by George Bernard Shaw

17th-19th July 2007
Drill Hall, Lincoln

We continued our run of ambitious productions at the Lincoln Drill Hall with ‘Pygmalion’, George Bernard Shaw’s well known tale of how a professor of phonetics transforms a cockney flowergirl into a genteel young lady in order to win a bet.

Su Toogood took on this challenging play and by scouring the city for the best acting talent assembled a very strong cast featuring a number of actors appearing in a Common Ground production for the first time – among them Aggi Gunstone (Eliza Doolittle), Tim Bradford (Colonel Pickering) and Irene North (Mrs Higgins).

Just as impressive as the cast was the stylish and ingenious set designed by Roy Simpson which lent elegant simplicity to the production, taking its inspiration from original drawings by Felix Topolski.

‘Pygmalion’ broke a number of records for Common Ground Theatre Company: it attracted our largest ever audience (almost 500 over three nights) and produced our largest ever profit; in fact, it would be more accurate to say that it was one of very few productions which made any money at all!

Writing in the Lincolnshire Echo Charlotte Orson described Aggi Gunstone’s portrayal of Eliza Doolittle as ‘feisty’ and admired the ‘strong cast, stunning costumes and stylish set’. The second half of the play was, she said, ‘quite captivating’.

by William Shakespeare

26th-28th April 2007
Drill Hall, Lincoln

Our most ambitious production to date was also our first collaboration with another theatre company: in April 2007 we joined forces with the Lincoln Shakespeare Company to stage Julius Caesar.

Our production was inspired by the American TV drama series The West Wing – in our Roman republic besuited senators (male and female) dashed here and there with a mobile phone in one hand and a take-away coffee cup in the other. Caesar himself was shot at close range by a fusillade of handguns; Mark Antony delivered his set-piece ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen!’ speech to an audience of journalists in front of a huge screen relaying his speech live; and our Act V battle scene was a mixture of sound and lighting effects and on-screen TV news footage by reporters in the field.

By combining the acting talents of two companies and by attracting actors from elsewhere we were able to field a very strong cast, including LSC regulars Chas Rodgers and Pete Came as Brutus and Caesar respectively, Richard Wood and Lindsey Slapp as Mark Antony and Cassius and Jo Hollingworth as Brutus’ wife Portia.

We also ended up with a cast of over 30 augmented by ten excitable but enthusiastic extras from the drama course at Lincoln College.

Writing in the Lincolnshire Echo Charlotte Orson saw parallels with Blair, Bush and the war in Iraq (which hadn’t occurred to us, if we’re honest) and described the production as ‘a triumph’.

by Mike Leigh

7th-9th December 2006
Broadbent Theatre, Wickenby

Maurice Raphael made his debut as a Common Ground director with a production of Mike Leigh’s quintessential 1970s tragi-comedy ‘Abigail’s Party’.

Again we returned to the Broadbent Theatre in Wickenby, where the show attracted reasonable audiences despite the inclement weather of opening night.

And again we were pleased to welcome new faces onto the stage: this show was a Common Ground first for Wendy Tenbeth, who was convincingly monstrous as Beverly, the hostess from hell, and Katie Greathead, who played Angela with marvellous naivety.

It was also good to see Martin Noble in a starring role at last!

Writing in the Market Rasen Mail Jo Hollingworth reported that the show ‘was oozing with 70’s kitsch and the audience lapped it up… at times you really felt like a voyeur at this cringe worthy social event.’

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’.