Outdoor Theatre – Sheet
The Rude Mechanicals back in Sheet in July
The very popular Rude Mechanical Theatre will be coming back to Sheet Recreation Ground again this summer. The show will be on Sunday 16th July at 7.30pm. You won’t want to miss it if you have seen them before. They have a brand new play with live music called ‘The Commercial Traveller’. Funny, romantic and moving, it demonstrates the gritty determination to overcome an apparently unassailable problem through absolute love.
It is London, 1924, and rich and powerful tycoon and former East End barrow boy, Sir Arthur Cattermole, is not happy. His son, Gerald, whom he has spent his hard earned brass on to go to Eton, is in love with the girl next door, the beautiful Isabelle and daughter of hard up doctor, Cornelius Truss.
Love is a bunch of roses! Money is the thing!
So he sends Gerald to Africa to look after his cocoa business. The young lovers, of course, are heartbroken. The days pass like falling leaves and after a year no letters have come from Gerald. Isabelle is convinced he doesn’t love her anymore, or has found someone else, so decides she will become a nun and live in Bexhill-on-Sea. But the widowed doctor’s housekeeper, Elsie, who has virtually mothered Isabelle, has a plan. She knows a kind, good, gentle man, a commercial traveller, who will marry Isabelle and once married Sir Arthur will have no reason to keep Gerald away. Of course, Isabelle will have none of it at first, but Elsie persuades her mistress to trust her – that this complex knot of impossibilities will be unravelled. She will eventually be happy.
Then shockingly Elsie disappears into the London fog and is apparently found dead. Her devoted husband, Albert, Sir Arthur’s butler, is devastated. A month passes and the commercial traveller, Cecil Cornford, does indeed turn up and marries Isabelle – and then, apparently too late to marry her himself, Gerald returns from Africa incognito. His letters had been intercepted and he does still love her. Albert sets about unpicking the knot and bit by bit it is unravelled.
Come dressed for an English summer! Open from 6.00pm for picnics. Bring your own low-backed chairs or a rug to sit on.
Tickets are available from 14 Village Street, Sheet (01730-268536), and online from the company’s website – www.therudemechanicaltheatre.co.uk.
For more information ring 01323-501260 & check out the website for other venues. There are 50 right across Southern England.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-FLYER TO YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY & COLLEAGUES – if you think they would like to come.