Tonight at 8.30

Auditorium, Hampton Hill Theatre, 7.45 pm

From farces to fantasies, light comedy to iconic romance, satire to psychological exploration…  Tonight at 8.30 offers a remarkable range of genres, locales and experiences! 

TTC is delighted to present a unique opportunity to enjoy this sparkling showcase of theatrical gems from Noël Coward: the Master and Teddington-born & bred.

2024 marks both the 25th anniversary of Hampton Hill Theatre and the 125th birthday of our local playwright.  Teddington Theatre Club is celebrating all week, with a gala event on Saturday 15th June.  Before that, we are staging rehearsed readings of all ten of Coward’s Tonight at 8.30 one-act plays: two contrasting plays each evening.

Coward wrote the ten-play cycle in 1935 as a vehicle for himself and his dear friend and long-term collaborator Gertrude Lawrence, with whom he’d scored such a hit when they played Elyot and Amanda in Private Lives five years earlier.  There have been revivals of some of the individual pieces over the years (and, of course, Still Life became the iconic film Brief Encounter), but the complete cycle is rarely staged.  Indeed, all ten have never been staged together since 1935…

So this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see rehearsed readings of them all, directed and performed by a galaxy of TTC talent, including those who helped create our beloved Hampton Hill Theatre 25 years ago.

In 1947, Gertrude Lawrence wrote to Coward: “Dearest Noël, wherever I go… all I hear is ‘Please revive Tonight at 8.30’.”  Well, now we are!

Monday 10th June – We Were Dancing / Shadow Play – directed by Bob Dilley

Tuesday 11th June – Fumed Oak / Family Album – directed by Mandy Stenhouse

Wednesday 12th June – The Astonished Heart / Ways and Means – directed by Jenny Hobson

Thursday 13th June – Hands Across the Sea / Still Life – directed by Rodney Figaro

Friday 14th June – Red Peppers / Star Chamber – directed by Sally Halsey

With musical accompaniment (on relevant evenings) by Simon Douglas Lane

Tickets:  £10 per evening (one pair of rehearsed readings) or £40 for all five evenings (all ten plays)

This amateur production of Tonight at 8.30 is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk