Jazz Concert      featuring The Martin Hart Trio with Vasilis Xenopoulos on tenor saxophone      all tickets £12
 Saturday  25th January 2020
  • Ken McCarthy         Piano
  • Nick Pugh                 Double Base
  • Martin Hart              Drums

Preview evening date to be announced

 

'Things we do for Love'               tickets £12/£10
28 April – 2 May 2020
by Alan Ayckbourn
directed by Steve Atkins

Regarded by critics as being one of Ayckbourn’s finest plays, ‘Things We Do For Love’ is a painfully funny, technically ingenious and very physical (in all senses) play with many screamingly funny moments. Premiered in 1997, ‘Things’ hit the West End in’98, with a national tour in 2014.
The action is set in a Victorian house in Fulham owned by Barbara, with her ground floor living room occupying most of the stage.
 We also see a bit of the basement flat underneath, inhabited by Gilbert the postman, and the floor of the flat upstairs which Barbara is letting to her old school-friend Nikki, newly engaged to Hamish. Barbara and Hamish’s initial loathing of each other soon swings 180 degrees, and the fall-out from this fuels a hilarious second act as they are overcome with guilt and their old animosity flares up again. Ayckbourn in his prime is able to wring so much laughter from so much pain.

Jazz Concert      featuring The Martin Hart Trio with Alan Barnes on saxophone and clarinet  all tickets £12
 Saturday  16th May 2020
  • Ken McCarthy         Piano
  • Nick Pugh                 Double Base
  • Martin Hart              Drums

'Talking Heads'  (Part Two)                 tickets £12/£10
30th June to 4th July 2020
A second helping of the ever-popular Alan Bennett monologues
directed by Carol and John Burbedge

Bennett sealed his reputation as the master of observation with this series of ground-breaking monologues, originally screened on BBC TV, and then Radio 4, International Theatre and the A Level syllabus. "His finest achievement - indeed masterpiece wouldn't be too strong a word" (The Daily Telegraph)                                                              

‘A Cream Cracker under the Settee’ We meet Doris, an old lady who has had a fall while dusting where her home-help Zulema has missed and then looks back over her life and marriage as she reflects on her predicament and dusk begins to fall.                 
‘A Chip in the Sugar’ Graham lives with his widowed ‘Mam’ Vera. Vera has taken up with an old flame who is proposing marriage to her and eviction from his parents’ house to a hostel for Graham. Will it be ‘all change’ or a return to stultifying normality for him?                                                                   
 ‘Her Big Chance’ Lesley is an aspiring actress, who, after a series of unpromising extra roles on TV shows such as Crossroads, is offered what she believes to be her big break as the adventurous Travis in a new film.  But it’s for the West German market, and the director has requirements for Travis that Lesley is uncomfortable with; how far should she go in pursuit of her dream?


'Teechers'                                       tickets £12/£10
29 September – 3 October 2020
by John Godber’
 directed by Rebecca Moir

In the 1980s, Hull Truck Theatre became a global success story, and ‘Teechers’, written by its Artistic Director John Godber , was one of the plays that made it so.  ‘Teechers’ had a revival and tour in 2010 as Godber left Hull Truck after 26 years.  John Godber’s ‘Teechers’ is GCSE material.
It is a play within a play in which three students put on a performance to their teachers, acting out their time in secondary school – particularly their time with Mr Jeff Nixon, who has ignited their love for drama and the belief that all children should be treated equally. Fast-moving, inventive and highly entertaining, Teechers brings to life an array of terrifying teachers and hopeless pupils through the unique eyes of Salty, Gail and Hobby; three senior students about to leave school for good, using contemporary chart music for relevance.
Towards the end of the play the three kids learn that Mr. Nixon may be leaving to teach at a ‘superior’ school, and they start to understand how much he has helped them.
 
Jazz Concert      featuring The Martin Hart Trio        All tickets £12
 Saturday  17th October 2020
  • Ken McCarthy         Piano
  • Nick Pugh                 Double Base
  • Martin Hart              Drums

'Yerma'                                            tickets £12/£10
1st Dec to 5th December 2020
The classic by Federico Garcia Lorca
directed by Frank Kaye

“Drama is poetry that gets up from the written page and takes on human form.” The final play in Woodley’s 2020 season is ‘Yerma’ by Federico Garcia Lorca and is a brilliant example of Lorca’s philosophy, which Frank first staged in a radically reduced form at Royal Holloway as part of his drama course.
We now have the opportunity to stage in full this amazing statement of woman’s desire to have a baby. The key difference is the inclusion of Yerma’s husband, whose willing acceptance of Yerma’s infertility drives her to distraction. Her very name means “barren” in Spanish and we are taken on a glorious ride through the emotions and opinions of her society in this musically and poetically framed piece. . The play will be performed with the two key protagonists, Yerma and her husband, Juan, along with an array of villagers who will double many of the parts to result in a cast of maybe six or seven.
          Out in the fields
          for our baby we’ll make
          a little log cabin
          to keep us all safe.
So begins this incredible piece of drama with a musical, poetic form that is maintained throughout   The dramatic genius that is Lorca was cut short by a Franco firing squad in 1936, but though we lost the man we did not lose his work.




PLEASE NOTE THIS PRODUCTION IS PRESENTED BY
COLD TURKEY ENTERTAINMENT
Any further inquiries  and tickets must be via the links below and not to the normal Woodley Theatre box office or BOOK TICKET box

A Double Bill of Cuthbert Masterstroke
(Featuring ‘Cuthbert Masterstroke in A Double Bill’)
by Andrew J Smith
performed by Cold Turkey Entertainment
April 15th & 16th 2020 at the Oakwood Centre
Cuthbert Masterstroke is just your average, ordinary detective. No wait, it’s much worse than that. Cuthbert Masterstroke is a bit of an idiot. In his first week as a private detective, he hasn’t had a lot to deal with. But just as he is about to get a shiny new door, everything begins to go wrong. People are dying, and bricks are involved. Could this have something to do with the brick thrower of Brick Lane? It is up to him (or the police) to find out in “The Many Faces of Cuthbert Masterstroke”.
In “Cuthbert Masterstroke in ‘A Double Bill’”, Cuthbert pays a visit to the Upper Class Detective’s Annual Gathering. Surely nothing could go wrong, especially not a body turning up unexpectedly. After remembering that he’s a detective, Cuthbert decides to investigate – but what does the parrot have to do with it?
Tickets are £10 and can be obtained online at www.ticketsource.co.uk/cold-turkey-entertainment, by emailing andrew@coldturkeyentertainment.co.uk or by phoning 07512 734757.
Cold Turkey Entertainment were newly founded in 2019 and aim to provide entertainment in many forms of media – we also have a series of audio shorts set featuring the same characters as the play releasing monthly available now, go to our website www.coldturkeyentertainment.co.uk for details.