Acting by Nick Card.

Newbury Dramatic Society

Presents Acting

20th and 21st March 2019

The Croft Hall

Hungerford

Berkshire, RG17 OHY.

Nick Card led act one through the programme section titled “Words and Wit”. The three separate pieces Card had written. First an introduction about himself and getting to know the audience appeared more of a formality to those who had come to support him. Then the tale of Tom in ” Toms last call” set during his last day working at the call centre, a very interesting dialogue. Ending the act with a selection of poems he had written.

The third set was comedy performed by seasoned compere comedian Mike Brook, who is an active member of the dramatic society. Some of the jokes were well used and older. However, where the delivery tended to be anecdotal it worked well and raised a few laughs.

Act two was the main production, Card’s play Acting. The scene is set after the Mother of the grieving family of four sisters has died and they are discussing the funeral arrangements with their Father. Along with the more important topic, how the inheritance was going to be divided. Cast pictured below in discussion over inheritance.

It soon descended into a snuff theatre play. Where the actors are being led by the voice coming through the loudspeaker. As each act within the play is performed another actor dies.

There was the addition of actors dotted throughout the audience who are placed to participate in an attempt to raise fear within the general audience. At times they were in slight danger of overacting. This technique will work well although it needs to be subtle and toned down. However, the Mum of one of the actresses bursting onto the stage to save her Daughter added a realistic edge to the play.

The Doctor who wasn’t a real Doctor played by Steven Culpeper pictured below, had some extremely funny entrances onto the stage as you saw the stagehand push him on quite often as he was reluctant to enter. His new technique for assessing a dead body was to kick it, brilliant comedy.

NERD was an intriguing title used by the hoax snuff link that translates into “nobody ever really dies”. As with many new themes in modern writing, it socially comments about the desire to get as many social media hits as possible regardless of consequences.

It’s an enjoyable new twist on Theatre and anything that moves an audience out of their comfort zone is worth watching in my opinion. This would only work in smaller venues as the effect could easily be lost on larger audiences.
Nick Card’s talents for writing span across several genres. This will hopefully boost his confidence after Newbury dramatic Society has performed this entertaining play. He shows a flair for writing well-crafted work and I look forward to seeing future productions.