Edward Alderton Theatre | Charley's Aunt


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'Charley's Aunt' | 27th July - 3rd August 2019

Author Brandon Thomas| Directed by Keith Neville

This great classic farce was first presented at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds in February 1892. Since then it has been revived all over the world and continues to delight audiences today. It has even been made into a musical by Frank Loesser
under the title “Where’s Charley?” and filmed twice. In my production I will update it to the 1920’s (easier to dress and also to create the right settings). However I will remain true to the text. As with farce it has many twists and turns and so I will just give a brief summary of the plot.

Two Oxford undergraduates, Jack Chesney and Charley Wykeham are in love, respectively, with Kitty Verdun and Amy Spettigue. Meanwhile Charley’s aunt Donna Lucia d’Alvadorez, a rich widow from Brazil, where the nuts come from, is about to visit him in Oxford.

Keen to declare their love for the girls before they go off to Scotland with Kitty’s guardian Stephen Spettigue they are thwarted when Jack’s impoverished father Sir Francis Chesney arrives. The boys hatch a plan for him to “romance” the widow Donna Lucia so that Sir Francis will marry her and inherit her money. Everything is going to plan until a telegram arrives saying that Donna Lucia is delayed. When a friend of Jack and Charley’s, Lord Fancourt Babberley arrives for lunch and to tell his friends that he too is in love with a young girl, Ela Delahay whom he met in Monte Carlo, the boys persuade him to dress up and impersonate Donna Lucia. He just happens to have a fancy dress costume to fit the part. As “Babbs” starts to impersonate Donna Lucia , in true farce style the real Donna Lucia turns up. After that all mayhem breaks loose as mistaken identity and intentions abounds.

The play is very stylized with upper middle class accents and has to be played sincerely with timing being a very important ingredient.

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Cast:

Colonel Sir Francis Chesney.................................Eric Whiting

Charley Wykeham..............................................Callum McFarland

Jack Chesney.....................................................David George

Amy Spettigue...................................................Hannah Murphy

Kitty Verdun......................................................Holly Foster

Lord Fancourt Babberley......................................Matt Webb

Donna Lucia d'Alvadorez......................................Viv Stapleton

Stephen Spettigue..............................................Tom Masters

Ella Delahay.......................................................Georgina Lithco

Brassett.............................................................Kevin Onley