What’s on Next

There will be an information evening in West Meon Village Hall on Sunday 1st February at 7.30. Everyone is welcome to attend and scripts will be available to be borrowed. Auditions will be the following Sunday (8th February), again at 7.30 in the village hall. Rehearsals will then start immediately, days of the week to be confirmed.

There are seven acting roles, and we will also be looking for back stage and front of house help.

Blithe Spirit is a comedy, written in 1941 during the Blitz to cheer people up and establish the indomitable spirit of the English theatre. The war is never mentioned, so it is usually set in the 30s.The basic story is as follows:

Charles Condomine is a writer who is preparing to write a novel involving a fraudulent medium. To gain insights and information for the book, he and his current wife, Ruth, have invited an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati to conduct a séance after dinner. They have also invited the local doctor, Dr Bradman, and his wife to make up the numbers. Madame Arcati accidentally summons up the ghost of Condomine’s first wife, Elvira, who died young. Only Charles can see and hear her, and Ruth thinks he has gone mad when he claims that she is there with them. Elvira sets about trying to wreck his marriage to Ruth, eventually trying to kill him so that he can join her in the spirit world. Unfortunately, she succeeds only in killing Ruth and Charles then finds himself under attack from two vengeful ghosts and having to appeal to Madame Arcati to sort the situation out, which she does with only partial success.

The acting roles are as follows (stated ages are fairly fluid):

Charles Condomine

Acting age 40+. He is often played as something of a stuffed shirt. We gather from Elvira that theirs wasn’t a particularly exciting marriage, but he did love her and is rather tickled to encounter her again, not really appreciating how much this puts Ruth’s nose out of joint. His current marriage to Ruth is also rather unexciting, but stable. They have both been married before and have no children.

Ruth Condomine

Acting age 30+. Charles’s second wife. She is living a comfortable life with Charles, but she is a bit insecure when it comes to Elvira. Even before Elvira returns as a ghost, Ruth worries about whether it matters to Charles that she is less physically attractive than Elvira and she tries to badger him into admitting that she is more help to him with his work than Elvira was. When Charles insists that Elvira has returned, she becomes exasperated with him. When she receives proof, she is very unsettled and then become very jealous as Charles and Elvira start to spend more and more time together.

Elvira Condomine

Acting age 20 to 30. Elvira was Charles Condomine’s first wife. She died young of an illness and is now a spirit accidentally conjured up by Madame Arcati. She is much flightier than Ruth; she can be jealous, devious and scheming and is quite badly behaved when Charles is the only person who can see her.

Dr Bradman

Acting age 50 to 60. The local doctor. He is sceptical about the séance but prepared to play along. He is a sensible and caring doctor and a figure of some standing in the community.

Mrs Bradman

Acting age 50 to 60. The doctor’s wife. She is a sympathetic, motherly character with an interest in local gossip who finds the séance exciting, though she doesn’t really believe in it.

Madame Arcati

Acting age 40+. There is no reason why Madame Arcati couldn’t be any age, though Charles and Dr Bradman sometimes refer to her as ‘the old girl’ so it would be easier not to have her very young. She is an eccentric medium who communicates with the spirit world through her spirit guide, a child called Daphne. She is totally sincere about her ability to communicate with the dead, and of course, she does succeed, though not in the way she hoped. Her reaction to the news of Elvira’s arrival is excitement rather than dismay.

Edith

Acting age teens to early 20s. Edith is the Condomine’s maid. She is a local girl who has not been in service long. In fact, she has only recently joined the household and Ruth is training her, with only partial success. She has a habit of doing everything at 90 miles an hour and is quite clumsy and prone to drop things. This is a great comedy role and, in fact, it turns out that Edith is key to the whole problem with the ghosts.

Helena Gomm