The Poker Session
by  
Hugh Leonard

May 7, 8, 9, 10, 11  
1968

Directed by
George Porter

GP wrote: "The play is set in modern Dublin and is about  'What sent Billy mad'.  The poker session of the title is the framework for a mental strip poker session in which each character in turn suffers from, what one might tem, indecent exposure when the events of the past are dredged up. The play is about people and what makes them tick.  At the end nothing remains the same except, perhaps, Teddy ...."

Cast

A review of the time

"The Poker Session  "

The Wick Theatre Company's latest production, The Poker Session, by Hugh Leonard, is a psychological drama in the modern idiom.  The play, which is presented at the Barn Theatre, Southwick, on Tuesday and runs until tomorrow [Saturday] night, involves the audience in a seesaw of emotions exposing the pettiness and inhumanity of a Dublin suburban family circle.  It opens with Billy, the elder son, home again after a year in a lunatic asylum.  His friend Teddy, a voluntary inmate at the same institution, calls on his first day out to met the family during a poker session and to help reveal the root causes of Billy's temporary madness.  From this situation the comic, macabre, drama builds up, and the characters of brother Kevin, mother Mrs. Beavis, ex-girlfriend Irene and sister-in-law Fran are laid bare.  

Ray Hopper as Billy, Patrick Johnson as Teddy and David Creedon as Kevin turn in fine performances in demanding rôles.  Fran, played by Sue Brown, is suitably trivial, bringing out the comedy of her particular situation.  Pat Dodsworth Moss takes the difficult part of Irene, while Eileen Silverthorne gives a thoughtful interpretation as Mrs. Beavis.  The production by George Porter gives the actors admirable opportunities, and the setting by Vincent Joyce is unadorned but appropriate.  Lighting variations are handled imaginatively by Frank Hurrell, Bob Baker and Tom Bannister.         

Another review of the time

THESPIS

"This Poker Session deserves a full house "

If you wish to see the finest acted, best produced play that amateurs in the area have presented in many a long year, make the journey to the Barn Theatre, Southwick tonight or tomorrow at 7.45 to see Wick Theatre Company, directed by George Porter, in The Poker Session by Hugh Leonard.  It is said that the play is about "What sent Billy mad"  -  it is a probing after the manner of J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls but there the resemblance ends.  This play is incisive, it is gay in its tragedy, and it contains performances of great merit and quality.

Billy, newly discharged from a mental hospital, is portrayed by Ray Hopper and played with precision.  Here is indeed a man returning after a year away and seemingly cured.  It is only at the final curtain that the question "What sent Billy mad" is answered and looking back, everything drops into place.  

In the institution Billy made a  friend in Teddy, a voluntary patient who discharges himself at the same time, and arrives at the house.  Teddy is played by Patrick Johnson with such keenness and insight, and with a quaint twisted sympathy that is by turn alarming and amusing.  Delving in my memory this is a performance the like of which I cannot recall;  it is technically brilliant, strangely credible and perfectly timed.  

Of the rest of the household Eileen Silverthorne plays Mrs. Beavis, the widowed mother - a disappointed woman ruling her life by petty conventions.  David Creedon is Billy's brother Kevin, a weak and unprincipled man blustering his way through life.  This is another keenly-observed performance that does great credit to actor and producer.  Fran, his wife, bullied but holding her own, is well cast in Sue Brown.  Irene, who married Billy's other brother who was invited to the poker session but who failed to arrive, is another keenly individual performance, which nevertheless, fits perfectly into the picture and is played with skill by Pat Dodsworth Moss.

To all this must be added an excellent set designed by Vincent Joyce and constructed by Barrie Bowen with the help of the company, sound effects by Frank Hurrell and Terry Mase which are authentic and overall the pace and direction of the producer.

Take a word of advice and see this play.  If you ant to be sure of a seat, telephone Mrs. Margaret Ockenden at Southwick 4594.

The Private Ear
and 
The Public Eye

two plays by 
Peter Shaffer

November 5,6,7,8,9   
1968

Directed by
Ralph Dawes

RD wrote: "I was fortunate to be able to enter these two plays in the Southwick Festival where they were both successful.  Peter Shaffer, a writer with a keen sense of personality and character, has also the ability to convey humour and pathos in great depth.  To present them as a double bill, the original intention of the author, gives me a great deal of pleasure." 

Cast

Brighton Herald

P.B.

"Southwick's brilliant double bill "

Their production this week [Tuesday to Saturday] is the brilliant double bill The Private Ear and The Public Eye, by Peter Shaffer.  These two one-act plays of singular depth and feeling each have a cast of three.  In the first Raymond Hopper is a young man isolated by his own rather remote philosophies who makes a tragically funny/sad botch up of entertaining a girl to dinner in his bed sitter.  His mate [Ross Workman] helps out by cooking the meal and giving him a crash course in seduction, but being a kind of compulsive bird charmer he also chats up the girl, a reality of life which his host takes rather painfully.  Ross Workman and the girl [Dale Wood] complement the play, Raymond Hopper, on the other hand, embraces it with polished understanding and sincerity.

In The Pubic Eye Hopper is a private detective described by the wife of the piece [Pat Dodsworth Moss] at one point as 'goofy looking'.  As if at the turn of a switch, Hopper changes into this eccentric rôle from his sympathetic, whimsical part in The Private Ear.  Apart from anything this fellow is versatile.  And very funny.  In this play Jack Bingham and Miss Moss round off the triumph. 

Amateur drama review 

THESPIS

"Raymond shines in a double bill "

In The Private Ear and The Public Eye, Peter Shaffer has written two sad little plays with a wealth of humour.  The presentation of them by the Wick Theatre Company at the Barn Theatre, Southwick, with the final performances tonight and tomorrow does justice to the plays, and once again establishes Raymond Hopper as an actor of skill and sensitivity.  Particularly it is this extreme sensitivity to tiny facets of mood that make his performances so well worth seeing.  As Bob in The Private Ear, the shy young man entertaining a girl for the first time and as Julian Cristoforou, the unconventional private detective in The Public Ear he gives performances of charm, ability and technical skill.

In the first play, Ross Workman as Ted, the brash extrovert with cruelty in his kindness, is excellent, as also is Dale Wood as Doreen, the rather dim little girl for whom Bob falls so heavily.  This play, like the one which follows, is a team effort and all contribute equally to the successful whole.

In The Public Eye Charles Sidley, a chartered accountant [played by Jack Bingham] has engaged a private detective to check up on his wife Belinda [Pat Dodsworth Moss].  Jack Bingham is the insensitive conventional professional man absurd in his lack of perception, and is extremely well characterised.  Pat Dodsworth Moss plays a wife bewildered by the widening gulf between them and desperately seeking something without quite knowing what it is.  The three artists combine to present a coherent intelligent and, above all, sensitive piece of drama.

Production of both plays reflects great credit on Ralph Dawes who obviously worked in harmony with the casts.  The play were entered in the West Sussex Full Length Drama festival and will be adjudicated tonight by Miss Lyn Oxenford.  Tuesday's audience was thin on the ground which means that a lot of people missed an opportunity of dramatic entertainment approaching the best.

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