Comedy Double Bill
(The Guest Lecturer / Departure)
by
A. R. Gurney / Stephen Smith
SYNOPSIS
The Guest Lecturer:
Mona runs a financially strapped regional theatre and takes “diabolical steps” to keep the venue going.
Departure:
Stranded in an airport lounge during the inevitable delay of a holiday flight to Spain, Rosemary - "I`m a one-parent family, you see" - and her carbon-copy, not-very-bright daughter, Mandy, draw the reluctant Dennis and Shelia Tippit into a conversation. Sheila has suggested a holiday to try to right her ailing marriage; Rosemary is looking for a husband fore Mandy. The comic tone of the play shifts continually between Rosemary`s malapropisms and Dennis` grimly humorous bigotry with the close of the play finding Rosemary unmoved by the chaos she has caused and Dennis near to a nervous breakdown !
A very popular comedy, still frequently performed today, in which the humour masks deep seated problems. A play about communication skills in which a very optimistic mother and daughter meet a very pessimistic man and his depressed wife. Based on the author`s experiences of being stuck at Gatwick airport in the eighties. Can be set in the late eighties or updated.
DIRECTOR
Paul Bilton (The Guest Lecturer)
Martin Russel (Departure)