Theatre and drama group based in Marlborough, Wiltshire

The Marlborough Players organise and arrange the following activities:

• Public performances of plays
• Play readings
• Theatrical skills training

We hold performances and meetings in Marlborough on a regular basis. 

New members are welcome to all of our events. For more information, please email info@marlboroughplayers.co.uk. 

  
AUDITIONS (click for poster)

Marlborough Players’ autumn production will be ‘A Day in the Death of Joe Egg’ by Peter Nichols. It will be performed on 11-14 November. Our director will be Sue Baxter, who also directed our last production, ‘The Philanthropist'.

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is an immensely rich and beautifully crafted play: side-splittingly funny, but also tender, honest and very human. It was included in the National Theatre's list of the 100 most significant plays of the twentieth century (as was The Philanthropist) and went on to Broadway with Albert Finney as Bri. A film was subsequently made with Janet Suzman as Sheila and Alan Bates as Bri.

Nichols's semi-autobiographical tragicomedy (he and his wife were parents of a severely handicapped daughter) takes the most potentially depressing of subjects – a marriage under strain because of a severely brain-damaged child – and blasts away all the hushed solemnity, sentimentality, euphemism and false dignity that might have afflicted its dramatic treatment.

… the piece is hilariously, if uncomfortably, funny - and dazzlingly inventive. The action begins with Bri, a teacher, addressing the audience as if we were a classroom full of naughty children; Shelia and he relive their dealings with the medical profession in satirical revue sketches; and all five adult characters step out of the drama to speak to the audience directly. The mix of vaudevillian humour, deep emotion and wild experimentation may sound implausible but it works superbly: a thrilling testament to Nichols's daring as a dramatist.
Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph

We shall be looking for all aspects of backstage help as well as anyone willing to audition for any of the following roles:

Brian - a teacher, early 30s, ‘but looks younger’

Sheila - his wife, slightly older than Brian

Freddie - friend of Brian and Sheila, who seems older than them

Pam - Freddie’s wife, 30s

Grace - Brian’s mother

Rehearsals will begin in early September and will take place three times per week.

Anyone who would like to get involved, whether acting or behind the scenes, is most welcome to attend the AUDITIONS, all to be held in the ground floor Skittle Alley at the back of the Bear Hotel, High Street, Marlborough on the following dates:

Sunday 28th June: 7.30-9.30pm
Tuesday 30th June: 7.30-9.30pm

Please contact info@marlboroughplayers.co.uk if you have any queries or think you might be coming along to the auditions.