From Portsmouth to Peterborough, from Leicester to Lancaster, we restored some of dearest Jane’s more esoteric works to the
Great British public. There was the mouthwatering musical Willoughby Wonka (replete with poorly-paid Oompa Loompas), the spine-chilling Mr Darcy & Mr Hyde (the Gothic horror thankfully diffused by replacing the potion with God’s milk), and the incomparable experience of Something Nasty in the Woodhouse (let’s just say we’ll never look at B&Q, soup or hats the same way
ever again).
To our splendid audiences, our sincerest thanks. You were truly wonderful, and we can’t wait to see you again next year,
suggestions at the ready!
In the mean time, you can catch us back at the Savoy Theatre in London’s West End, with extra December shows to celebrate the Christmas season!
“We were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my cousin’s maid betrayed us.”
SENSE & SENSIBILITY
Unlike poor Colonel Brandon, who never made it across the border, we have leapt into our curricles and hotfooted it past Gretna and all the way to Edinburgh. We have the express intention of spending the season amongst the high society here, and what a bustle we find!
For it is the Edinburgh Fringe, no less, and already our adventures in our Udderbelly home have begun. So far we have plucked from our top hats the delightful trio of ‘Sarcasm & Satire’, ‘Boldark’ and ‘The Red Ribbon’, and we wait in frenzied anticipation to see what wonders the remaining three weeks will hold.
Do join us, dear reader, do!
If you are of a saucier disposition, and yet possessed of a warm and charitable heart, you may also spare a thought for our one-off debauched spectacular Crosstentatious – in which (though we blush to utter it) the men dress as ladies, and the ladies as men! For shame! Ribald as these coarse entertainments are, it is all in aid of Waverley Care, and a finer cause one nary encounters.
So if you are possessed of a hardy constitution, and have not your reputation to risk, you may invite yourself to the vulgar and boorish outrage on the 17th August right here.
For now, then, we bid you farewell. Or as the Scots would say (they are so very quaint, dear reader), ’cheerio the nou!’
“With such an husband, her misery was considered certain.“
AUSTEN PREDICTS MELANIA TRUMP BY A MERE 200 YEARS IN PRIDE & PREJUDICE…
The Troupe As A Whole spent a joyous Christmas devoting themselves to the serious businesses of carousing, making merry, and teasing their family members. We are pleased to report that the season was a profitable one: Ms Cooke-Hodgson received a new set of amusingly shaped novelty spatulas from her uncle, and Mr Murray a gift subscription to Tinder (meaning he will have a parcel of firewood delivered to his home each month). As a group, Austentatious are looking forward to returning to the London stage – January’s show was a roaring success, and there are tickets on sale now for February – and are currently finalising their plans for an exciting new mystery venture, which they hope to announce before long!
Mr. Dickson has announced his New Year’s Resolution, which is to find a woman with more than fifteen thousand a year and marry her. The rest of the group has told him that there cannot be more than five women in the country with such incomes, but he has insisted that ‘Any woman should consider herself lucky to receive a dose of Dickson’s Old Peculiar’. We have insisted we do not know what he is talking about.
Mr. Roberts, for his part, insists that his New Year’s Resolution is to be gentle and kind to all those around him, and to obey the Fifteen Moral Scruples laid out in the works of Saint Ethelberg. This is despite the fact that Miss Bagshawe, the butcher’s daughter, swears blind she saw him making very hurtful comments to Palanquin, the milliner’s dog, and stealing an apple pie from the open window of the impoverished widow Miss Anstruther. He denied it, but his fireplace is full of pastry crumbs.
Mr. Morpurgo has been telling everyone he has seen an Unidentified Flying Object in the town. He claims that in late December, at about dusk, he saw a cigar-shaped object whirring across the sky away from him, and felt it scattered some hot fragments in its wake as it fled. This, he insists, is proof, although he was sitting in the town square just outside Wilkins’ Cigar Emporium, around the time of day Wilkins throws out his unused stock.
Mr. Murray has developed a mania for all manner of things beginning with ‘O’, and has become something of a dreadful bore on the subject. otters, orcas, ocelots and opals. He insists these pointless nuggets of trivia shall come in handy one day, perhaps in a theatrical performance; frankly, we have our doubts, and would be far happier if he were consigned to an asylum for the terminally dull.
Ms Cooke-Hodgson has invented a new vegetable she claims she intends to cook with. The carrsnip, a cross between a carrot and parsnip, is a most magnificent vegetable, with all the colour of the one and the shape of the other. She insists that in future, Christmas dinners shall have no need of a Carrot Section and separate Parsnip Zone, and that her new vegetable will have swept all before it. We hope she is right, as she has spent her whole inheritance on the idea.
Ms Parris has been penning rude songs about the Prince Regent, and performing them for selective crowds of young people in the town. Some of the songs are mild, and simply based on amusing misunderstandings of the word ‘plum’, but others are very rude indeed, seem almost designed to provoke litigation, and if Miss Parris is not careful she will be seized by the King’s Guardsmen and left in a cell until she’s realllllllly sorry.
Ms Gittins has been on a tour her management have termed ‘The Balls of the Continent’. From Vienna to Amsterdam and at every town in between, she has been performing her improvisations with great success and no little genius, adeptly adapting her performance to the whims of the crowd. It is believed she has a retinue of fans who would either kill or die for a single glance from her, which she finds very tiresome.
Ms Lloyd has taken a new protégé under her wing. She and her young companion are seldom seen apart; they go everywhere together, and are indeed quite inseparable. They gossip together, and are surely quite the most natural and delightful pair of souls to be found in the whole village.
“…have a cheerful, and at times even a merry, Christmas.” JANE AUSTEN, 1808
On Friday 27th November, we return to Scotland for one night only as part of Edinburgh’s Christmas 2015! Join us in the wintery warmth of the Spiegeltent on St. Andrew Square at 9.30pm for a very special evening of festive merriment.
Tickets are available in advance online or on 0844 545 8252. You may also buy them directly from the box offices on St. Andrew Square, in East Princes Street Gardens and at the magical-sounding Santa Land.
We have written a letter to St. Nicholas, asking him to deliver us only the most eligible of guests, so we await your arrival with breathless anticipation! You will find us waiting hopefully between the wassail bowl and the kissing bough…