Playgoers celebrating 90 years with new production in Peterborough
As well as rehearsing its next production, Cranford, which they will be performing in the Key Studio, local amateur theatre company Peterborough Playgoers are celebrating the 90th Anniversary of their creation this year, and to add to the celebrations, the company recently won two awards at the recent NODA awards lunch at The Forum at Stevenage.
Cranford, being performed from June 18-21, is a play written by Laura Turner based on the novel by Elisabeth Gaskell, and many of you may remember when it was serialised on BBC television on Sunday afternoons in 2009 with a stellar cast that included Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Julia McKenzie, Eileen Atkins among many others.
It is the story of the ladies in a small town in the 1830s who like to think they rule the town with their social rules on how to behave, but the Industrial Revolution, and in particular the railway, is threatening to disrupt their genteel
way of life.
The comedy may be gentle but it is still laugh out loud funny at times when these prim ladies get themselves into all sorts of scrapes.
Playgoers Secretary/Treasurer Jennie Dighton, who is playing the role of Miss Matty Jenkyns, the role played by Judi Dench on the BBC, said: “These ladies have their own very specific set of rules by which they try to lead their lives but outside influences are creeping in which they try to resist.
"It is the clash of the two worlds which gives rise to the humour in many cases.”
Jennie was the director of the last two productions, Relatively Speaking and Cat’s Cradle, which were both staged in the Key Studio in 2024. Both plays were nominated for the Best Drama Award in Region 4 at the NODA East awards lunch on May 2, and to their absolute delight, Cat’s Cradle won the award.
Relatively Speaking was also nominated for the best Technical Award for its reversible set which changed from a London bedsit to a suburban garden under the very noses of the audience in under five minutes.
Jennie was delighted that the society also won this award, because of the amount of work put in by David and Sue Edwards to devising and building both that set and the one for Cat’s Cradle.
“David is a marvel,” said Jennie. “I go to him with a sketch and say, I’d like it to look something like this, and he comes up with these amazing sets!”
The society was formed in 1935 and will be celebrating its 90th Anniversary with a Gala Dinner at Milton Golf Club on Saturday, September 27 and Jennie would like any former members with whom they may have lost touch, to get in touch with her via the Playgoers website if they are interested in being included in the celebrations.