The much-loved Rude Mechanical Theatre Company will be back on the green at Rushlake Green again this summer on Sunday 25th June with their new play, Miss Popplewell’s Garden. The company, which performs in small rural communities across Southern England, has a cast of professional actor/musicians and has been coming to the village annually since 1999, making their Commedia dell’Arte inspired performances a highlight of the Rushlake Green calendar.
You won’t want to miss them, so why not put the date in your diary:
Rude Mechanical Theatre Company
Miss Popplewell’s Garden
On the Village Green, Rushlake Green, 7.30 pm Sunday 25th June 2023
Bring your own chairs or rugs, and a picnic.
To book your tickets (they’re available now):
visit www.therudemechanicaltheatre.co.uk or ring 01323-501260.
The Rude Mechanicals sent us this sneak preview of the ‘Miss Popplewell’s Garden’ story:
It’s April 1940 and The Willows School for Girls, including Jocasta, Daphne and Dotty, will have to move lock, stock and the proverbial barrel from its idyllic home in Little Inkling, Sussex, to Buckinghamshire, where they will take refuge from the war. Lessons are suspended and they have two weeks left to have some fun and say goodbye to their friends. It’s a disaster for Daphne. All she wants is to be kissed before she’s seventeen, but now she may never see Gerald again! The girls decide to make one last raid on the old witch Miss Popplewell’s strawberry patch and, as Gerald lives next door to Apple Tree Cottage, Daphne may see him. He’s always watering his hollyhocks.
But an intruder gets in first, tramples all over Miss Popplewell’s borders, stamps his muddy boots all over her scullery floor, skulks into her larder and helps himself to a plate of scones! Still warm, they were! Who is the intruder? Is it the gypsies? A foreign agent? Even an escaped convict? The entire village goes into a panic. But they’re British! They must stick together. Rise to the occasion. In the meantime, will the girls get the strawberries? Will their kindly headmistress, Miss Tricklebank, confine them to their dorms? Will Daphne be kissed before she’s seventeen? You’ll have to be there to find out! A comedy of manners woven with poignancy and gently unearthing buried things from Miss Popplewell’s past.
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