Christmas Budleigh 2009: Pickwick - the musical
Imperial Productions is proud to announce their Christmas show in Budleigh Salterton this year:
Pickwick - the musical
Book by Wolf Mankowitz; Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse; Music by Cyril Ornadel
Based on Charles Dickens’ Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.
With its colourful Victorian setting, lively good humour, vivid characters and essential warmth, Pickwick has captured the imagination of British audiences for over forty years.
This semi-staged concert production will be directed by David Phipps-Davis, assisted by Jenny Perry (who also choreographs), with musical direction from Edmund Connolly, assisted by Zoe Humphries. Lighting will be by Dan Young and the stage manager is Roland Trice.
Due to the semi-staged nature of the production, actors do not necessarily need to be the correct age for any particular role, but the closer to the authors’ intentions the better. There will be no costume or scenery.
The show runs at Budleigh Salterton Public Hall, Budleigh Salterton, Devon for two performances only, both on Saturday 5th December 2009 (at 14.30 and 19.30). Ticket booking information will be sent out to Imperial Patrons soon, and the remaining tickets will be on sale in November from Budleigh Tourist Information.
For more information, especially if you're thinking of joining us for the first time, check out our Beginners Guide to Christmas Budleigh.
Ticket Sales
Tickets for both the matinee and the evening performance are priced at £9.
Tickets for Pickwick are now on sale through our box office, Budleigh Salterton Tourist Information Centre. Please telephone 01395 445 275 to make your booking. Please book as early as possible to avoid disappointment!
How to Find Us
The address of the venue is:
The Public Hall
Station Road
Budleigh Salterton
Devon
EX9 6RJ
The town of Budleigh Salterton is in South West England, found near Exeter in East Devon just 10 miles from junction 30 of the M5. Click here for a map of the area. The Public Hall is close to the town centre, adjacent to the green on station road. As well as ample car parking, the hall is served directly by local bus routes from nearby Exmouth and Sidmouth.
Full Synopsis
Outside the forbidding gates of the Fleet Prison, London traders shout their wares and compare their “booming business” with the prison warden, Turnkey. The warden boasts that trade is always good for him with his cells constantly full. Inside, however, the debtors wail in misery at their misfortune.
Enter Mr. Pickwick, a gentleman who is to be incarcerated over a matter of principle. His belongings are carried in by his servant Sam Weller. Sam organizes a decent room for his master and arranges to stay on himself, although he cannot comprehend why Pickwick does not use his wits to avoid the situation. After all, Sam himself is always using his gift of the gab.
Sam and his master recall happier times, when they first met on Christmas Eve at the George and Vulture coaching station, in Rochester. In flashback, we are in the courtyard of the coaching station as the Pickwick Club – Snodgrass, Tupman, Winkle and Pickwick – enter the inn. A prosperous gentleman, Mr. Wardle, his two daughters and sister arrive and are introduced to the pseudo-scientific club by its members. Snodgrass, Tupman and Winkle take an interest in the ladies; so that Mr. Pickwick is forced to remind them that a central principle of the club is that its members remain uninvolved bachelors. Mr. Jingle, a threadbare gentleman and opportunist rogue, introduces himself to the members. Later that evening, in the ballroom of the inn, there is much ardent pursuit of the ladies by Jingle and the two younger Pickwickians.
Sam Weller, a street-wise boot-black at the inn, meets Mr. Pickwick and smooth-talks his way into the position of gentleman’s gentleman. In a conversation with the inn’s manageress, Mrs. Bardell, Pickwick thinks he is asking for the services of Sam, but, unknown to him, the lady misinterprets it as a proposal of marriage.
The company meets in a field by a frozen river. Sam suddenly appears with a writ from solicitors charging his master with a breach of promise. The writ has been served by Mrs. Bardell, who sees herself as jilted. End of Act One.
Sam and Mr. Pickwick travel to Eatanswill to look for Jingle, who has run off with Rachel, Mr. Wardle’s rich sister. In the town square are electioneering platforms for the Slumkeyite and Fizkinite parties. In the process of finding Jingle, Pickwick is mistaken for candidate Slumkey. Bustled up on to a platform, he takes advantage to point out his own brand of brotherly politics and tells us what it would be like “If I Ruled the World.”
The Pickwickians accompany their leader to the solicitors’ office to try to disentangle him from the mess he finds himself in. Inside the office, we are introduced to the dreadful legal duo of Dodson and Fogg. Using the law very much to their own ends, they know all the scams and loopholes. The scene fades to that of the courtroom. When Pickwick is found guilty and refuses to pay his £750 fine, the court is outraged and insists that they cannot be wrong. Here, the flashback ends and we are returned to Fleet Prison, where Pickwick comes across both Jingle and Mrs. Bardell, both imprisoned for their own debts. Enter Tupman, Snodgrass and Winkle, who have married the Wardle ladies to raise the cash to pay off Pickwick’s debt. Initially angry at being released against his will, Pickwick eventually relents and in turn good-heartedly pays the debts of Sam, Jingle and Mrs. Bardell. Released, Pickwick dissolves the club, but remaining an optimist and humanist to the last, as he leaves Fleet Prison with his friends, Pickwick reprises his glowing vision of a happy world united under his charitable reign. The End.