November 1981: She Stoops to Conquer

by Oliver Goldsmith - click to enlarge

The play centres around the desire of Hardcastle, a wealthy landowner in the country, for his daughter, Kate Hardcastle, to marry the well-educated Charles Marlow. Together with Marlow's father, Sir Charles Marlow, they arrange for the younger Marlow to visit the Hardcastle's house and court Kate.

March 1981: There's a Girl in my Soup

by Terence Frisby - Directed by Pamela Buxton - click to enlarge

Set in the glamorous world of the 1960s, the play tells the story of a smooth-talking TV chef Robert Danvers (allegedly based on Graham Kerr) who falls for a girl, Marion, half his age. She leaves her hippy boyfriend, Jimmy, to live with Danvers, but eventually returns to Jimmy, leaving Danvers bereft. It was in this play that the catchphrase, "My God, but you're lovely" was born, and these are the words with which the play ends, with Danvers looking into a mirror.

November 1979: My Fair Lady

Book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe - click to enlarge

A musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from Professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady.

April 1979: Inca of Perusalem

by George Bernard Shaw - click to enlarge

(Possibly a festival entry.) A comic one-act play written during World War I by George Bernard Shaw. The plot appears at first to be a fairy-tale like story about a fantastical "Inca", but it eventually becomes obvious that the Inca is Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

West Chiltington Dramatic Society