amdram.co.uk

• Jun 2nd 2010 7:45 pm to Jun 5th 2010 10:00 pm

Strange Orchestra, Rodney Ackland’s ‘lost’ drama of life and love in pre-war Chelsea, will be staged by Balham’s award-winning Southside players.

The play is a witty and moving portrait of life in Fitzrovia in the early 1930s. Dreadfully dissolute Vera runs her large and untidy flat as a boarding house. Her three adult children and assorted lodgers – young, poor and uncertain of their jobs – squabble hysterically, try to write novels, make love and dance to the tune of a gramophone.

Into this Bohemian household wanders the charismatic Peter, a self-styled artist destined to destroy the happiness of two women with devastating charm and the behaviour of a complete cad…

Ackland’s beautifully written tragi-comedy, directed by John Gielgud in 1932, was his first major success and a direct, subversive challenge to the ‘anyone for tennis’ drawing-room school of West End theatre. Southside’s production is a rare chance to see this unjustly neglected classic.

Performances Wednesday 2 to Saturday 5 June

7.45pm (Saturday 5pm)

Chestnut Grove Theatre at Chestnut Grove School

Boundaries Road Balham SW12 8JZ

Tickets £10 (Concessions Wed\Sat £6)

online at www.southsideplayers.org.uk or Box Office 07914 657524