amdram.co.uk

• Mar 15th 2010 to Mar 20th 2010

Back To Skool For Adults

Keighley Playhouse goes back to school for their next production…

Keighley Playhouse engages in a touching, moving and unique play about the growing pains of Albert Nuttall and his school chums as well as his teachers in the forthcoming production of Albert Make Us Laugh.

Albert is eleven – some would say he is slow in coming forward and at first glance you would probably agree. Some would even observe that Albert is ‘not quite a full shilling’, or as we would refer today, ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’ – but Albert is special as well as being very gifted. He is a poet and a visionary who, as he grows into manhood, inspires unexpected depths of emotion in other people, notably his classmate Primrose who has glorious future  aspirations to become as an actress and the lost, lonely young schoolteacher, Miss Partington.

Director Geoff Whitley said, “What Albert seems to lack in coordination, he definitely makes up for in his off-kilter sharpness.” Geoff went on to say, “The Keighley Playhouse production of Albert Make Us Laugh is a funny, touching uplifting story and it’s entirely acted out by adults. It’s engaging and theatrically innovative, as one has come to expect from the ever-popular Jimmie Chinn. It may well remind you of your own schooldays. You will not be sorry you laughed!”

The author, Jimmie Chinn based his own experiences on Albert Make Us Laugh while growing up in school in the north of England. He taught and was a housemaster at a comprehensive school before becoming a full-time writer in 1984.

Reporting to the study the cast consists of David Poole (Journey’s End), Gilly Rogers (Mr Wonderful), Jill Whitehouse (On Golden Pond), Julia Roberts (Woman In White), Nikki Barrett (Boeing Boeing), Ann Styles (A Perfect Wedding), Kevin Moore (A Kick In The Baubles), Steven Clark (A Kick In The Baubles), Barbara Ramsden (Woman In White) and Howard Clements (Moon Over Buffalo).