• Crestwell
• Alice
• Mrs Dora Moxton (Moxie)
• Felicity, Lady Marshwood
• Lady Cynthia Hayling
• The Hon Peter Ingleton
• Admiral Sir John Hayling
• Nigel, Lord Marshwood
• Miranda Frayle
• Don Lucas

• Director
• Stage Management Team
• S
• S
• Lighting Design
• Sound Design
• Lighting & Sound
• s
• Continuity
• wardrobe
• Set Design
• programme/Poster design

• Alan Lade
• Clare Forshaw
• Sue Shephard
• Ann Mabey
• Mary Young
• Roland Boorman
• John Hamilton
• Lee Powney
• Jenny Humphries
• Peter Barnes

• Derek Watts
• Phil Armstrong, Milli Palmer-Wright, Phil Jenner, Ray & Debbie Cox
• Gary English
• Alan Lade
• Ian Baldwin with Kate Watts & Robert Hargreaves
• Penny Cockell
• Helena Bell, & the cast
• Alan Lade
• Alan lade with derek Watts

SEAFORD SCENE Review by Andrea Hargreaves

I usually see Seaford Little Theatre's productions mid­week so the downside to attending the 70th anniversary year Gala Night was having to wait. By Saturday morning I was collaring people to ask them what it was like.
'Brilliant,' said a friend. They've really got into their stride and I have to say it was better than one or two plays I've seen at ... ' and here he named a theatre at a coastal town not too many miles from Seaford. So I was primed to expect something rather special.

And it was. The cast did Noel Coward proud, delivering his acerbically funny lines with clarity, and, whether this was due to Derek Watts' accomplished direction or to the actors themselves, resisting the urge to play for laughs. If there was a fault here it lay with the audience, many of whom did not respond to the satirical lines with out-loud appreciation until the second act; maybe they were tittering inwardly or perhaps a glass of wine in the interval did the trick. Whatever, this long play about snobbery and Hollywood versus the aristocracy, kept its sparkle from start to finish, with great delivery and timing from most of the large cast.

As the curtains opened, Alan Lacie's country house library/living room set brought a gasp from the audience. The leading roles of Felicity, Countess of Marshwood, dowager of the ancestral pile, and Moxie the lady's maid, taken by the experienced Ann Mabey and Sue Shephard, were both excellently played. Mabey managed to maintain throughout the strangulated vowels of the upper classes prevalent in the immediate post-war years by apparently holding her neck rigid and making her head shake almost imperceptibly as she spoke - brilliant - while Shephard, with some very funny lines, conveyed her part with dignity as well as humour - not an easy act to pull off.

The drama begins when Moxie learns that Felicity's son Nigel, the Earl (agreeably pompously played by Lee Powney), is to marry film star Miranda (Jenny Humphries in glamorous command of the stage). Moxie is compelled to confess that Miranda is her younger sister. Horrified at the impropriety of being a servant in the house where her sister would be mistress she decides to leave, which throws Felicity into agonies. Moxie is persuaded to stay when the butler (Alan Lade with an immaculate performance) suggests she become Felicity's companion. Meanwhile her erstwhile Hollywood lover (Peter Barnes in laid-back mode) arrives to further try the sensibilities of the house. I particularly enjoyed Roland Boorman's interpretation of Felicity's cousin with just the teensiest bit of camp to add texture. Clare Forshaw made the most of her housemaid's part, and John Hamilton and Mary Young were funny as Admiral Sir John and Lady Hayling.

When you're celebrating 70 years, what better choice than this play, which did so much in 1951 to highlight the need for the social changes which have come about since. Excellent