Tonight at 8.30
by Noël CowardA once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show you’re mad about the boy!
Monday 10th June to Friday 14th June 2024
From farces to fantasies, light comedy to iconic romance, satire to psychological exploration… Tonight at 8.30 offers a remarkable range of genres, locales and experiences!
TTC is delighted to present a unique opportunity to enjoy this sparkling showcase of theatrical gems from Noël Coward: the Master and Teddington-born & bred.
2024 marks both the 25th anniversary of Hampton Hill Theatre and the 125th birthday of our local playwright. We are celebrating all week, with a gala event on Saturday 15th June. Before that, we are staging rehearsed readings of all ten of Coward’s Tonight at 8.30 one-act plays: two contrasting plays each evening.
Coward wrote the ten-play cycle in 1935 as a vehicle for himself and his dear friend and long-term collaborator Gertrude Lawrence, with whom he’d scored such a hit when they played Elyot and Amanda in Private Lives five years earlier. There have been revivals of some of the individual pieces over the years (and, of course, Still Life became the iconic film Brief Encounter), but the complete cycle is rarely staged. Indeed, all ten have never been staged together since 1935…
So this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see rehearsed readings of them all, directed and performed by a galaxy of TTC talent, including those who helped create our beloved Hampton Hill Theatre 25 years ago.
In 1947, Gertrude Lawrence wrote to Coward: “Dearest Noël, wherever I go… all I hear is ‘Please revive Tonight at 8.30’.” Well, now we are!
Hampton Hill Theatre Main Auditorium - The evenings' pairs of performances with their commencement times are as follows:
Monday 10th June – We Were Dancing / Shadow Play – directed by Bob Dilley. Starts at 7.45pm
Tuesday 11th June – Fumed Oak / Family Album – directed by Mandy Stenhouse. Starts at 7.45pm
Wednesday 12th June – The Astonished Heart / Ways and Means – directed by Jenny Hobson. Starts at 7.45pm
Thursday 13th June – Hands Across the Sea / Still Life – directed by Rodney Figaro. Starts at 7.45pm
Friday 14th June – Red Peppers / Star Chamber – directed by Sally Halsey. NOTE: Starts at 8.30pm
With musical accompaniment (on relevant evenings) by Simon Douglas Lane
Tickets £10 per evening (one pair of rehearsed readings) - Booking fees apply
or £40 for all five evenings (all ten plays) - For this option pls call Box Office on 02084104546 and select Option 1, or email boxoffice@teddingtontheatreclub.org.uk
This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk on behalf of Samuel French Ltd.
Venue
Hampton Hill Theatre
90 High Street
Hampton Hill
TW12 1NZ
90 High Street
Hampton Hill
TW12 1NZ