Hi I’m Tracey Rontree and I’m playing Helene Hanff, the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road. Just a small part then … not! This is my 3rd play with Saddleworth Players and it is a great honour to be invited back to play this mammoth part. Helene is a dream to play. She’s quirky, charming, endearing, a little eccentric and feisty. She falls in love with the bookshop, Marks & Company, address 84 […]
‘84 Charing Cross Road’ is an entertaining, evocative and moving collection of letters sent by the author Helene Hanff, from her home in New York, to the staff of Marks & Co, an antiquarian bookshop in London. Their correspondence spanned 20 years and resulted in a valued friendship. The play was adapted into a film in 1987 and starred Ann Bancroft and Antony Hopkins. Our cast includes: Tracey Rontree as Helene Hanff, who was last […]
When I performed my solo play Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope at Millgate Arts Centre last autumn, I immediately knew it was a venue I’d come back to. It’s a beautiful space, with an intimacy perfect for solo work. Tim and Michael are wonderfully supportive, and best of all the audience is engaged, enthusiastic and lively. My kind of place. I’m returning on Friday 1st November with my solo play The Silence of Snow: The Life […]
I’d been looking forward to the opening night of My Cousin Rachel for weeks. My mother Nancy was a founder member of Saddleworth Players and no one would have been prouder than Nancy to know the theatre she and her friends had put so much love, care and time into for decades was not only thriving but attracting audience members from far and wide. And this was no ordinary opening night. Although the weather was foul, we’d […]
Hello, I’m Neil and I’ve been asked to play Seecombe, the long-devoted servant to the Ashley Family. “It seems only yesterday when all was well at Barton. Phillip Ashley was a mite not two years old when he first came to Barton, and this has been my privilege and my pleasure to see him come of age. The news of Mr Ambrose Ashely’s sudden death in Florence, Italy, means that Mr Phillip is now our […]
We were all knocked sideways by the death of my old friend Ambrose Ashley, hundreds of miles away in Italy. I’m guardian to Philip, the young heir to the Ashley estate and he went haring off to Florence when he received word of his cousin’s serious illness. Ambrose had only recently met his cousin Rachel out there, a great beauty, by all accounts, and married her in weeks. Naturally we were all agog to meet […]
Hi! I’m Sam and I’m playing the part of Philip in My Cousin Rachel, the first play of the new season here at Millgate. It’s my fifth play here with Saddleworth Players, the most recent of which was Incorruptible in June. I’m so excited to be treading the boards for the first play in front of the new seats in the auditorium! One of the great aspects of this play is the “did she, didn’t […]
Hi, my name is Kerry. This is my first play with The Saddleworth Players and what a play to jump in with! I’m really enjoying playing Louise, the excitable girl-next- door who is forgotten by Philip when the mature and exotic Mrs. Ashley comes to stay at Barton Manor. Louise is sweet and innocent to begin with, but her jealousy of Rachel Ashley brings out the worst in her character; she is taken in by […]
In looking back over our last Season, I realised that all the plays had been costume dramas, taking us from Medieval France, 17th Century London, the 1930s, to the 1950s. We are very fortunate in having a huge (and packed) costume store which provides most of what we need, with some hectic bouts of sewing to supplement it. When we first looked at My Cousin Rachel, we were unsure where to place it in time. […]
Hi, I’m Verity and I’ll be playing Rachel Ashley in our first play of the Season ‘My Cousin Rachel’ by Diana Morgan. It’s a gothic drama based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, and I’m thrilled that we are bringing it to the stage. Daphne du Maurier is one of my all time favourite writers. Her prose is beautifully crafted but she is also gifted in bringing complex characters to life, and gently bringing […]