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Jody Collyer Jody is looking forward to tonight’s performance, having never played a main part before. She enjoys making new friends at Youth Group.

Nicola Taylor Nicola sees her role tonight as a real challenge, and her character as very different from her every day life.

Charlotte Whiting Charlotte loves the classic film hit Titanic… so will she be a Kate Wins-let tonight? Charlotte enjoys the youth group, acting and being with her friends .

Cast Profile Mrs Worthington’s Daughters

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Cast Profile Mrs Worthington’s Daughters

Anthony Roche A bit like his favourite film, the Simple Life, Anthony is enjoying having just a ‘few lines’ he says, in tonight's show. Bless him!

Richard Taylor Richard enjoys acting and seeing friends at Youth Group.

Christine Rye Rather like her favourite film, Bridget Jones Diary, we see Christine this evening, narrat-ing our story.

Damon Haughton One of our regular youth group members, Damon also starred in last years Youth Group performance, Our Day Out.

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Cast Profile Mrs Worthington’s Daughters

Pfion Vince enjoys acting, meeting new people and is happy that she joined, especially as she thought it was something she would never try. Well done for giving it a go!

Ethan Flynn starred in our Christmas show. He obviously sets his sights on bigger things though – his favourite actor is Tom Cruise…now there’s a big star to aim for!

Jenny Jones is another fan of British film. Jenny’s favourite is Love Actually and her favourite actress, is Dame Judy Dench. Jenny says that her character shows ‘the evil side in me’… oooohhhhh!

Nadine King enjoys youth group, where she gets a chance to be with all of her friends from school.

Thomas Wensley is looking forward to this part – having never seen paparazzi before, he says he has enjoyed be-ing one of them

Keeley Clancy, like all the girls, is a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio. She also enjoys that romantic British film, Notting Hill.

Peyton Taylor also starred in our Christmas show. She says that her paparazzi character is ‘just like me – nosey and aggressive!’

Anthony Wilkes enjoys being one of tonight’s ‘bad guys’ because he reckons bad guys are the best! He’s a fan of The Doctor – David Tennant and Harry Potter!

Sophie Lapworth sees her role tonight as a foot on the stage… and hopes for something bigger and better in the next show! Now there’s ambition for you!

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Directors Cut Views from Directors Pat Atkins and Heather Evans

Mrs Worthington’s Daughters was a play that Pat saw at last years Festival and thought it an interesting subject for today’s young people to relate to. It could also help them to realise that in today’s materialistic world, fame and fortune isn’t all its cracked up to be by the press and media. The play demands many different things for each of the characters, particularly for the 2 main girls whose characters change as the play progresses. For the paparazzi it is perfecting the art of working as a team to portray the role of the media in firstly an encouraging way and then becoming more and more menacing and eventually aiding the downfall of the girl.

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Mrs Worthington’s Daughters By Mark Rees

Directed by Pat Atkins and Heather Evans

Cast Melanie Nicola Taylor

Tracy Jody Collyer

Pandora Charlotte Whiting

The Agent Anthony Roach

Jake Richard Taylor

Chorus 1 Christine Rye

Chorus 2 Damon Haughton

Paparazzi Pfion Vince

Thomas Wensley Ethan Flynn Jenny Jones Nadine King Keeley Clancy Peyton Taylor Sophie Lapworth Anthony Wilkes

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Cast Edie Heather Evans

Harry Adrian Laing

Old Edie Pat Atkins

Manager Bill Heslop

Crew

Continuity Jackie Brighouse

Lighting Stephen Hocking

Stage Manager Kirsten Shelton

Set Design Adrian Laing

Set Construction Wheatsheaf Wednesdays

In Room Five Hundred and Four By Jimmie Chinn

Directed by Bill Heslop

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Cast Profiles In Room Five Hundred and Four

Adrian Laing You might be fooled into thinking that Adrian has been absent from our stage in recent plays, having not been in the Pantomime, the Christmas Show or Summer End, but you’d be wrong. Adrian has bean a key to the fantastic sets we have seen in recent productions.

Who could forget our manic two-flats-in-one, that made Run for your Wife such a believable farce? Then in just a couple of weeks, Adrian and his ‘merry men’ turned the set around to create the Old People’s Home that was Summer End… complete with Fire Exit! The feat of building a castle alongside director Joe Lawless, helped create a spectacular pantomime set for out January production. So Adrian is forgiven for having a few months away from the acting scene.

Heather Evans Quite how Heather has managed to get married between playing the Evil Queen in the Wheatsheaf’s Pantomime in January, and preparing for tonight’s performance is nothing short of a miracle! She has though, as always, managed to learn those lines in a remarkably short period of time, and brings a rather softer character to the stage, than the evil queen we last saw!

Heather has had a fantastic 12 months in the theatre, directing and starring in Bazaar and Rummage, starring in Our Day Out, Summer End and the Pantomime, Silly Billy and the Giant Rabbit. She has also taken on leadership of the Youth Group, with Pat Atkins, and together they have directed tonight’s other performance by our younger actors.

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Cast Profiles In Room Five Hundred and Four

Bill Heslop Bill chose a cameo role for himself tonight, having already seen the show and now directing it, he knew how he wanted his character to come across. Bill looks a lot different on stage tonight than he did a few weeks ago, when he played our fabulous Dame Fanny Rook in our Pantomime. We hope you enjoyed his performance! We’re not too sure though whether he looks better with all that makeup on and false eyelashes…or not! He certainly had us all laughing, and his family too when they came to watch him.

Pat Atkins Pat has also been busy preparing the Youth Group for tonight’s other performance, but found some time to learn her lines for this year’s Festival play. As a previous winner of ‘Best Actress’ we hope Pat continues her good form. Pat’s last performance as one of the ‘endearing’ old souls in Summer End was truly magical. The wig, the little slippers, her mannerisms….pure genius. Pat also had a busy year in 20006 too, co-directing the Youth Group’s performance of Our Day Out and also appearing as one of the leads in Bazaar and Rummage.

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All England Festival Tonight's performance of ‘In Room Five Hundred and Four’ is being entered into the Warwickshire Round of the All England Festival to be held at Abbey Theatre, just off Queens Road, Nuneaton on Friday 16

th March starting at 7:30 and Saturday 17

th March at 2:00

and 7:00. The play is one of a number entered by amateur groups in the area, each hoping to be good enough to make it through to the next round. The plays are adjudicated independently, and the results to be given at the end of the Saturday evenings performanc-es. If the Wheatsheaf were to be successful, we would go through to the Divisional Final, English Final and then to British Final. Maybe even Hollywood may call??!! We have won the Warwickshire round on several occasions and also came as runner up. We have also won other trophies over the years for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Set Design and Best Director. If our memories serve us correctly - we have made it to the English Final but we haven’t won…at least we don’t have a trophy hiding out the back, if we did! Tonight’s play is directed by Bill Heslop who also saw the performance in a round of the Festival, over ten years ago. He was instantly captured and decided to buy the script and perform it at the Wheatsheaf. It seems that other plays distracted him over the years, and Bill finally dusted off the cover in time to bring it along for you tonight. We hope you enjoy it, and wish us luck in the Festival…perhaps come along and support us too, if you wish.

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Coming Soon...

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Our People

This section is our focus on some of ‘our people’. It can be theatre members, friends or someone from our audience. Those of you who watched our pantomime in January will remember the fantastic atmosphere we shared in the theatre. The room filled with children’s laughter, ice cream and sweets! Amongst the chaos at the box office, Joanne found a couple of new visitors to the Wheatsheaf — but they weren’t quite new. They’d been here before…

Malcolm (Mick) and Merinda Gerling hadn’t been back in our building since the early 1960’s… and they found themselves back for the pantomime, Silly Billy and the Giant Rabbit. Quite appropriate that it was about catching a rabbit, Mr Gerling had started his butchers apprenticeship here in 1957! I bet the Co-op sold rabbit then, too!

For those new to the theatre, you may not know that it was once one of the Coventry Co Op fleet of stores. Our theatre and the hairdressers next door were a Co-op store, complete with its own separate butchers and grocery department. Mick served part of his apprenticeship here from 1957 to 1960, before moving on to work in most of the Coventry Co-op’s other 50 or more stores. It was his first job upon leaving school. His wife, Merinda, also worked here after having their first child in 1960, and she worked for a couple of years in the grocery department. She must have been kept busy in those days, Mick was telling us how as a part of her training she also had to bag up the sugar, cut the blocks of cheese and serve the customers. None of that scanning of bar codes like they do today! Our current bar area was the butchers department, and Mick remembers that their counter was roughly in the same location as the bar… so next time you ask for a pint of beer, remember we don’t serve pork scratchings anymore – just crisps!

It was lovely to see new people like Mick and Merinda back in the theatre after such a long time away, and it’s thanks to their friends, who also come along to our shows, that the Gerling’s came to the first performance of 2007 at all. Many thanks to them, and we hope to see more of you in the future.