Lucy Potter is The Country Wife in The Henley Players’ latest show. Picture: Ioan Havard
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On stage... in Reading
February 25, 2010
If you think we live in a sex-crazed age now take a look at the 17th century.
Just about anything went on in the Charles II Restoration period, including the bawdy hormone-fuelled The Country Wife.
The play, written by one of Charles’s lover’s lovers, features an energetic young man out to bed everything in sight and with some success. The Henley Players will be reproducing the play next month at The Kenton Theatre.
The play’s director, Michael Huntington, says wives, mistresses, lovers and other challenges fall to the philandering hero.
“It’s little wonder that it was banned for nearly 200 years and, when it was done in the last century, it had to be in a theatre club rather than a public theatre.”
The play is so open and unabashed that it wasn’t performed in public until the year after the Lord Chamberlain’s post was abolished.
Michael is interpreting the play in the spirit it was intended: “I don’t want to give anything away but there was a lot of bedroom activity involved in this play so the cast is going for it with a will.”
The Country Wife will be at The Kenton Theatre, Henley, from Tuesday, March 16 to Saturday, March 20.
Tickets cost from £8, for more details, call the Kenton Theatre’s box office on (01491) 575698 or log on to www. kentontheatre.co.uk.
For more on the Henley Players, log on to www.henleyplayers.com.
Preparations are under way for the next Parenthesis concert. The mixed voice choir will perform a concert in St Andrews Church, Caversham Heights, on Saturday, March 27.
The evening’s solosists – Alison Underhay (soprano), Rebecca Gresson (mezzo soprano/alto), Gareth Moss (tenor) and John Lee (bass) – have all sung with the National Youth Choir and also perform with Chantage, the BBC Choir of the Year 2006.
The evening will feature a performance of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor as well as some additional solo numbers.
Tickets are already on sale. For more details, call (0118) 947 0478 or log on to www.parenthesis.org.uk.
A new comedy club is being launched in a Reading town centre venue early next month.
The LOL Comedy Show will be held on the first Sunday of each month, starting from March 7.
There will be five comics attempting to make you laugh out loud on the opening night – host Mr Cee, Cockney Bajan Prince Quincy, FHM comic of the year Marlon, Kane Brown and newcomer Axel.
Afterwards, there will be an R’n’B set featuring DJ BabiFlex until 1am.
It all takes place at Bar Risa on Friar Street from 7pm. For more details, call 07984 250018.
There's an exciting new jazz night being launched at the Jazz Cafe at the Madejski Stadium.
Jazz in Reading promises to bring big names from the jazz scene to the club on a regular basis.
Tomorrow night sees Theo Travis perform. Known as a gifted multi-instrumentalist and composer with astonishing range, virtuosity and soulfulness he will give an impressive performance. He will be backed by a local rhythm section.
Tickets cost £9 or £7 for concessions.
For more information call the box office on (0118) 968 1442 or log on to www.thejazzcafe.co.uk.
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