Over the past couple of years, Sarah Scally, Maria Pruden and I have been co-writing comedy sketches. Once we had sufficient material, Maria approached a group of local actors who agreed to perform the sketches and Bridport Arts Centre offered to stage it. The premiere of Big Heads & Others was on Thursday 8 November 2018.
The first sketch we completed was called Killer Ladybugs – this was drafted during a workshop led by Christine Diment of Juno Theatre. The sketch clashes the invasive behaviours of harlequin ladybirds with Donald Trump’s America First policies. It was topical material at the time of his election yet two years later and (unfortunately for the world) the material remains fresh. This sketch was originally staged by Cast Iron Theatre in Brighton, so we were confident the writing was entertaining. Our actors Declan Duffy (Borderbug) and Lee Wyles (Ladybug) brought a new and exciting interpretation to the sketch.
Another sketch called Baby Love also had a previous outing, this time at the Salisbury Fringe where it was performed as a scripted reading. This gave us ideas on how to stage the sketch at Bridport where a woman (Lee Wyles) waits for the X54 bus and chats to Lauren (Sally Hunt) who is obsessed with her little one, Dasiy-Waisy.
Big Heads was the most experimental of the pieces and took our audience to Easter Island where they learnt what the famous statues were thinking. This was a static piece which relied on voice, silence and facial expression to convey meaning. Our actors Sally Hunt, Dewi Lambert and Declan Duffy performed this brilliantly and audience reaction confirmed it to be a popular sketch.
The three sketches were tied together with a linking piece that used physical theatre to tell the story of a hapless charity envelope collector (Declan Duffy) and his encounters with others.
The evening was held as a charity fundraiser for the Bridport Arts Centre. All tickets for the show were sold and we had a warm and receptive audience. Thank you to everyone who came along and laughed in all the right places. This was the first time Maria, Sarah and I had directed a performance and we were incredibly grateful to Lee, Sally, Declan and Dewi for their ideas and input. We also had additional roles to ensure the performance went well: Sarah was responsible for sound effects and lighting, Maria for narration and prompting, I was backstage assisting with costume changes and we all helped as stage hands.
Gail Aldwin, Sarah Scally, Maria Pruden
It was a splendid collaborative effort by performers and writers, one that we plan to repeat in 2019 with further comedy sketches.
Thanks to Peter Roe of Wessex Media for the fabulous photos.
the writer is a lonely hunter 