I.E. wrote “Ladies and Gentlemen, We present for you tonight, sketches old and sketches new, and we hope that for two hours we can sit back and forget, together, our responsibilities. If we can lay low your own Sacred Cows we hope you forgive us as you laugh at others’.
By request we include just one sketch we have performed before.”
Review #1: In F’ra Dig
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: February 8 1963 issue – page 5
Reviewer: J.C.
Text Header: “Little Dig Here and There in Revue”
Text: Content
It was gay, satirical and at times completely crazy. Described as “an intimate revue,” it was called In F’ra Dig and full responsibility for it lies with Wick Theatre Company, which brought it to the stage on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Barn Theatre, Southwick.
The title was certainly suitable. There was a little dig here … at television newscasters, at the disguise-is-better-than-disgust policy of beauty salons, at psychiatrists , at artist’s models, and even at Indian squaws. There was a little dig there … at the girl behind the Information Desk, at a certain radio programme about “an everyday story of country folks”, at magazine cover girls, at students and at sailors. In fact, there was just about a little dig everywhere. In just under three hours, the company bounced through 28 sketches – not including several five-second, deliciously nonsensical stop-gaps performed by Jacqueline Mase and Neil Pocket.
The opening number, a musical review of recent events arranged by Betty Elliott, one of the members, was well put over by Ralph Dawes, Sally Goldsmith, Ray Hopper, Clodagh and Sheelagh O ‘Farrell, John Perrett and Nicholas Sweet. Sheelagh and Fay Sturt were engaging and witty in a sketch about a busier-than-busy information desk. Jean proclaimed the advantages – and disadvantages – of being a model for every artist in the world, and Sally, Ray, John and Nicholas sang about their love of winter sports, come broken legs, arms and backs. Ornamental Oriental rejects were the subject of a sketch by Ray and Jean, and the story of an erring Indian squaw with papoose problems was told by Sally, Clodagh, Sheelagh and Jean.
Ian Elliott was producer, John Mansfield was musical director and Oliver Goldsmith played drums.
[Web Ed note: Ray Hopper recalls that the script for the evening had to be submitted, under the existing censorship laws, to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. He is the “proud owner of a badly written script with the licence to perform stamped on both sides”.]
Review #2: In F’ra Dig
Publication: Brighton & Hove Gazette
Publication Data:
Reviewer: THESPIS
Text Header: “Talent and hard work”
Text: Content
THE Wick Theatre Company’s latest revue, called In Fra Dig, had 28 items in the programme which represented an enormous amount of work. The stage settings was attractive, with a full-length venetian blind for the total width of the stage.
There was a first-class display of talent, but the members had not tween items when the stage does not permit of setting one scene behind another. The dead patches between items robbed the show of the essential slickness, and this was a great pity, particularly as the difficulty solved the important problem when presenting a show of this kind, the problem of bridging the gap be- could have been, at least partly, overcome by continuing the music through the hiatus between items.
[web ed; this is exactly as published! The type-setting gremlins certainly got at this! The piece reads more fluently with a little reorganisation;
“There was a first-class display of talent, but the members had not solved the important problem when presenting a show of this kind, the problem of bridging the gap between items when the stage does not permit of setting one scene behind another. The dead patches between items robbed the show of the essential slickness, and this was a great pity, particularly as the difficulty could have been, at least partly, overcome by continuing the music through the hiatus between items.”]
But there the criticism ends. Some items came over better than others and particularly the smartly up-to-the-minute opening and closing numbers written by Betty Elliott. One of the hardest workers was Sheelagh O’Farrell who topped the poll with twelve appearances and was, perhaps, at her best in Peter Seeger’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”
THREE SOLOS
Jean Porter, too, was in many of the sketches and songs, and of her three solo items, I am not sure whether I best enjoyed her as “the oldest artist’s model of them all” or the much psycho-analysed young lady in Alan Melville’s brilliant “Self Analysis”. Ray Hopper was wistfully in love “with the girl on the hand-painted tie” and appeared to good effect in a number of the sketches, notably “Mummerset” where with Ralph Dawes, Sally Goldsmith, Clodagh O’Farrell, Sheelagh O’Farrell, John Perrett, Jean Porter and Nicholas sweet, we were given an impression of the one millionth edition of “T*e A*ch*rs”.
Others, who took many parts in this show were Jacqueline Mase, Fay Sturt and Neil Pocket. Direction was by Ian Elliott and the music was provided by John Mansfield at the piano with Olive Goldsmith on drums.
