Our Review from SceneOne:
Castle Players Village Hall, Lytchett Matravers - Michelle Barter - 29 October 2026
I’d picked up my copy of the programme and had a flip through before the event kicked off to discover a ‘whole new world’ created for this play. Gone was the Castle Players and instead, wandering about selling raffle tickets was the secretary (Charlie, played by Louise Donovan) of Old Farleigh Amateur Repertory Theatre Society, hereafter known as The Old F.A.R.T.S, behind the bar other members on the committee could be found dishing out the drinks. The programme itself even propped up the show within a show theme with fake adverts and a mock tag line and cast of the show that, after some debate, was called ‘This Is Our Moment’ which describes itself as: Destined to become one of the greatest musicals ever written. The musical itself being written by one of the members of the committee, this mirrors the reality of the show being written and directed by Steve O’Neill who completely set himself up to take on this task because licencing an actual musical costs thousands. A task I’m sure he sweated over as did his counter onstage artist Robin or Derek or Dan, actual name Phil McMullen, sleepless night both I imagine.
Naturally this is all very tongue in cheek because in reality, the old F.A.R.T.S are discussing the prospect of doing a musical even though everyone knows they just do plays! The show gets straight down to it (barring any technical demons that love to appear on opening night) with a recognisable pop song, but the lyrics have been cleverly changed to suit the situation at hand and I completely agree that rehearsing a musical sounds chaotic and neurotic. There are some lovely harmonies from the cast on the whole as they act as an ensemble as well as taking solo parts. All were strong singers and on the whole clear as a bell. There was one point where it was more difficult to hear and that’s because of the full mask being worn at the time, half masks with face mic’s work better for the sound quality really, but that was my only niggle.
The musical sets out to do that difficult thing in theatre where you’re acting about acting and this was done with a clear storyline. It’s difficult to try and herd the bunch of amateurs who are supposed to be doing this as a hobby whilst being stressed about opening night, having to cope with egos bigger than the stage itself (Jay/Florence, played by Kim Burdon Thompson), having cast members (Sarah, played by Becki Dawson) deciding to go off on holiday right at a crucial point in rehearsal; excellent use of video work there for that scene, and actually writing the whole musical yourselves anyway because you just can’t afford an actual musical. As I’ve just directed a play and sit on a committee for another am-dram group I hold all kinds of sympathy for them! The set was black box style with a simple roll on roll off table, a couple of chairs dotted about and a backdrop of projected images creating the illusion of where the scene is, set such as Farnleigh’s Village Hall; simple, but it worked. There was doubling of characters by all members of the cast as you have the group and committee plus then your ‘actors’ for the musical itself. This was done with costume, so you gained some sense of separation from their dual roles.
I’m in quite a pickle with the names as the programme is within a programme and names are within names but the script doesn’t actually refer to the character names that many times; but, in fact, you were all brilliant and I enjoyed watching someone else struggle to put a show out there and sing about how difficult it really is, you’ll laugh until you live it!
Go and see the Castle Players, a bunch of old farts, attempt to put on ‘The Greatest Show(man)’ and give in to the chaos, you won’t regret it.