Aldeburgh Classic Theatre
mariannefellowes@hotmail.co.uk
2023 Performances
Rain or shine, we look forward to welcoming everyone to our 2023 Summer Theatre season at Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall and Southwold Arts Centre.
Timeless Comedy -
Private Lives by Noël Coward
In Private Lives, passion, laughter, romance, anger, and love set the stage for an epic battle of the sexes as divorced couple, Amanda and Elyot, find themselves unwittingly thrown together in Coward’s classic comedy of manners. Unknowingly booking adjoining rooms while on honeymoon with their respective new spouses, Amanda and Elyot are forced to face their true feelings. With haste, and under the cover of darkness, they flee their honeymoon hotel for Amanda’s secluded Paris flat. Their reconvened Private Life is heaven – until all hell breaks loose! Fast-paced, witty, and passionate, Noel Coward’s most famous and successful classic comedy is also, still, a delightful, contemporary romp.
Ex-spouses Paul and Polly Butler write murder mysteries together. They act out the crimes in Paul's apartment: poisoned chocolates and lethal martinis, alibis and fingerprints, bodies in a trunk and bodies all tied up, daggers, guns and even an axe all contribute to the hilarity. To begin with, nobody gets hurt, but their egos take some hits as they find that their marriage was mixed up with their work. The comic twists come thick and fast as they attempt to outdo and surprise each other and they learn that marriage, like murder, is in the details. The final witty complication is a real murder which no one sees coming. This murderously funny comedy-thriller is by the author of Accommodations.
Comedy Thriller -
Marriage is Murder by Nick Hall
Farce Masterpiece
- Ken Ludwig’s A Fox on the Fairway
A tribute from Ken Ludwig (Lend Me A Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo) to the great English farces of the 1930s and 1940s, A Fox on the Fairway takes audiences on a hilarious roller-coaster ride, which pulls the rug out from underneath the stuffy denizens of a private country club. Filled with mistaken identities, slamming doors, and over-the-top romantic shenanigans, it's a furiously paced comedy that recalls both the very best of English Farce and the Marx Brothers' classics. A charmingly madcap adventure about love, life, and, occasionally, man's eternal passion for...golf!
Alan Ayckbourn’s all-time funniest!
– Relatively Speaking
Greg and Ginny are living together, but Greg is becoming suspicious. He wonders about Ginny's plan 'to visit her parents' and decides to follow her, leading us all into a tangled web of hilarious mistaken identities right up to the very last sentence. This is the play that made the author a household name. Why? It’s quite simply his most complete comedy, with the plot of a fully-formed farce, plus eccentrically comic but real characters that only Ayckbourn can write. It opened in the West End at The Duke of York’s on 29th March 1967. The night before, Alan Ayckbourn had been a virtual unknown in London; by the next morning he was a star. The play made impressions elsewhere too: on 2nd May, a telegram arrived from Noël Coward. “Dear Alan Ayckbourn, all my congratulations on a beautifully constructed and very, very funny comedy. I enjoyed every moment of it - Noël Coward.” Speaking of the piece in later years, Ayckbourn recalls: "He [Stephen Joseph] asked me for a play which would make people laugh when their seaside summer holidays were spoiled by the rain and they came into the theatre to get dry”.
Baba Yaga
Join Vasilisa as she travels through the murky depths of the deep, dark forest in search of the wise woman, Baba Yaga. Find out what happens when Vasilisa learns to listen and trust herself.
‘Wish, Dare, Inspire’ present this new, enchanting, mini-musical specially for children and families by writer Sky Carver and composer Katie Bell, in which love and forgiveness will always conquer. Based on European folk lore, there will be an introduction where we will learn one of the songs, and a Q&A at the end of the show for the children to meet the characters and ask questions, as well as to have an opportunity to explore the set if they would like.