OUTSIDE EDGE - The Market Theatre

Striking a set and clearing up afterwards is not nearly so much fun as putting a play on and this fact was reflected in the number of folk who turned up to do these tasks on Sunday morning – seven out of a possible nineteen people from the cast and back-stage crew. Despite this we managed the chore by lunchtime with good humour.
Outside Edge by Richard Harris was a great financial success for our Society and was a hit with the audiences although not my choice of play. It is a comedy with a cricketing theme and husband Jim as stage manager and set designer had to produce a run-down cricket pavilion. I had to find five sets of ‘whites’ and an inappropriate dress for the cast.
I bought the cricketing clothes at a bargain price from an online sports retailer although what we are going to do with them now I don’t know (anyone want five pairs of polyester trousers in various sizes and two sweaters?) The inappropriate dress for Sharon I made.
Your very own Fennie is in one of these pictures.

We had full houses on the last three nights, which caused a bit of a panic as we had to turn several people away who had hoped to get tickets at the door. This is very hard to do and it rarely happens that we sell all the tickets, but we have to be careful not to infringe our license by selling more tickets than we have seats for.
The assistance stage manager (prompt) was kept busy on the final night as at one critical point a certain actor missed a line, which affected subsequent action and the dialogue had to be back-tracked. Those of us within hearing exchanged startled glances as we realised that things were going awry but quick wits saved the day and Sharon managed to escape the ladies loos. (You need to know the plot).

We are now beginning to plan the next show. I hope to direct ART, a play by Yasmina Reza, sometime in August. This play won several awards and had very successful runs in London and New York.
I have two of the characters cast (Fennie being one of them) but am scouting around for the third. Any offers considered.

Where I Live

I live in Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan. We have been in the Vale in 3 different houses since 1967. Our first house was a Wesleyan Chapel situated in a small village. It was being lived in at the time by the Welsh/Italian artist Andrew Vicari. We bought it and finished converting it to a family home where we lived for nearly 20 years.

After the children had left home we decided to build our own home (husband is Architect) and planned to move into a smaller house in Cardiff to enable us to do this. We had a small plot in Heredfordshire, but without planning permission. Our plans did not work out. The recession caught up with us and we lost a lot of money so we sold the land and stayed put in Cardiff for 13 years where we were, in fact, rather content.

During the year 2000 we got back on our feet again and could afford to move to Cowbridge where a good deal of our social life already took place (Drama, Bridge etc).

Our present house is one of two attached Edwardian villas on the main street. They were built in 1906 on the site of a larger, much older house.

View into the dining room showing prints on walls
and costume on dummy. Conservatory beyond.
























Without altering the character too much we made a few structural alterations – an en-suite bathroom/dressing room, knocked the two reception rooms into one, added a conservatory, new kitchen and finally converted the attic into an office.
I am particularly proud of my hand stenciled paper in the living room and our collection of prints and water colours done by Jim.
Jim's prints of Vale of Glamorgan and my
stencilled wallpaper (gold oak leaves)
























In various places of the house are some of my costumes on dressmakers dummies.
The bust in the picture above was used in a shop display to model bras - it is now a lamp.
The punk head is called Sam and we bought him at Winchester Art College's Graduation Show.
On one wall in our bedroom is what I call ‘my Wedding wall’ – photos of family weddings throughout the decades and in the conservatory a similar ‘Baby Wall’ – our grandchildren.

My mother, self and my two sisters

But which one is me? Clue I smocked the dress.

Left - a view down the garden and below - Algy's
Garden (where Staffie is buried)















We are fortunate to have a reasonable sized garden which I redesigned and developed almost from scratch – only the old Bramley apple tree and a heather bed are left from the original. It is divided loosely into ‘rooms’ which include a gravel garden, a pond etc. We love it and think that we are privileged to be able to live here.

Cowbridge is generally thought of as an expensive place to live and is regarded as one of the ‘gems’ of the Vale.
Cowbridge has a webcam: www.cowbridge.co.uk/shopping/cowbridge-web-camera if you want to see a view of the High Street.
We know a lot of people here and are well settled into the community. I belong to two bridge clubs, U3A, (University of the 3rd Age) , and am on the committee for ‘Cowbridge in Bloom’.

The courtyard of 'The Bear' for 'Cowbridge in Bloom' competition
Jim has recently joined Rotary and we both belong to the Town Twinning Group and our local Amateur Dramatic Society – this since 1972. I am the wardrobe mistress and Jim the set builder/scene painter/stage manager. He was also Chairman for ten years. Our lives are not dull and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cast and set from Arms and the Man by Bernard Shaw - directed by Jim and costumes by me