Monday 28 November 2011

Friday farce

actors take a bow
Well, we promised to let you know how Maurice the protagonist in Friday night's farce got on. And the news is that he got on very well indeed. Ably hampered by his good friends at the bar/auberge "Chez Pauline" he managed to impress his very shrewish wife. Firstly by playing the hero during a hold up by some nasty masked men and secondly by becoming embroiled in foiling the smuggling of several suitaces of dope. Chaos was nicely resolved by the two madcap undercover police agents.  All in all it was a enjoyable Friday night out in the village. 

Charnizay church at night
The only thing which marred the whole was the heating! The radiators were on red hot and it was stifling. In fact, at the end, there was a slight stampede for the door. Not because the acting had been poor -- it was of a good standard, but because people were keen to get some fresh air!

Afterwards there was cider and medeira cake courtesy of the mairie and the 'actors' joined the audience. 

We'd parked near the church and took a quick snap of it looking lovely in the floodlights before driving home. On the way back we noticed that the temperature had gone up. In the morning it had been a chilly 4C with fog; in afternoon it had even dropped slightly,  but at 11pm it was a comparatively balmy 7C and the fog had thinned to wisps.

There was a good turnout on Friday and we hope they had as good an audience at Saturday's performance.

10 comments:

the fly in the web said...

Sounds super and brings back good memories...though we, the cast, used to be 'encouraged' with tin cups of mulled wine from a galvanised bucket in the intervals.
Mark you, the central heating wasn't going full pelt in our venues....
Lovely photograph of the church.

Susan said...

Careful...one of the golden rules of expat life is never to join the local am-dram society.

Perpetua said...

Oh that does look like fun, though shame about the overheating! I love the refreshments provided after village events, like the wine and cake in the salles des Fetes after a Fete de la Musique comcert.

About Paris said...

We're envious of your ability to understand such an event -one day - along time in the future perhaps.

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Fly - LOL was it a big bucket?? No interval here. 3 Acts straight through [1hr 50 mins] with refreshments as 'reward' after.

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Susan - I shall zay this only once: ze evidence of ze am-dram [lots of it] is safely buried in old photo albums. :-)

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Perpetua - we went prepared for chilly village halls as we know them in the UK! Instead we found tropical temps! M le maire was doing an excellent job of pouring out the cider.

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Jim & Pauline - it was a farce which always makes following a bit easier.

The Broad said...

Sounds wonderful to me... don't you just hate it though when you've the wrong clothes for the situation! Seems to be happening a lot to me recently!

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Broad - So true. We drank our cider standing outside with a view of the church.