Wiltshire Times FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1978
There Was So Much To Enjoy In The Trowbridge Amateurs'
SEEING a stage performance of Edward German’s “Merrie England” for the first time since 1925, I found myself echoing the current TV Times advertisement catch-phrase “I never knew there was so much in it” after thoroughly enjoying the recent production at St. Augustine’s School by the Trowbridge Amateur Operatic Society. My first experience of it, as produced by the old Trowbridge Amateur Operatic Society on the stage of the old Picture Palace in April 1925, left a deep impression on the young schoolboy I then was, but memory plays selective tricks, and what I chiefly remember is the elaboration of the Elizabethan costumes, the comic antics of Walter Wilkins as played by the incomparable “Fitz”, the real live cat that accompanied Margot Church as “Jill All Alone” – and what I still think was the outstanding solo singing of all the principals, a group of leading townsmen and women who shone both individually and as a team throughout the society’s heyday in the 20s and 30s. From this year’s performance I did not get quite the same musical satisfaction from most of the soloists, but I was quite bowled over by the magnificence of the theatrical spectacle – a great achievement on such a relatively restricted stage – the brightness of the costumes, which gained from being less elaborate but clear and fresh in colour, the excellence of the acting by the characters main and subsidiary and by the chorus, and the impetuous pace of the whole production, with never a dragging moment. What came particularly as a mild surprise was the amount of complication in the main and sub-plots – so much folklore and rustic revelry, so much more to the part of the May Queen than I remembered, the whole amusing business of the St. George’s Day entertainment, and the amount of high-flown Elizabethan wit in the dialogue. The drunken antics of the citizens of Windsor rehearsing their masque, and the charming silliness of their performance of it, especially the dance of Egyptian maidens, will surely be long remembered with a chuckle by all who saw them. The choral singing and the Morris dancing were excellent. The society is evidently still building up its team of soloists with some who had leading roles in earlier productions taking minor parts next time, and vice-versa, and one may confidently expect all of them to improve their vocal powers with more and more experience. One thing is certain: the new Trowbridge Amateur Operatic Society is becoming a worthy successor to the old one and can be relied on for a week’s first-class musical-theatrical entertainment year by year. MJL |