Soham Grammarians - Busman's Honeymoon, an Old Boys' production 1957

SOHAM GRAMMAR SCHOOL
OLD BOYS

PRESENT

Busman's Honeymoon

A Detective Comedy
by
Dorothy L. Sayers & M. St. Clare Byrne

on

MONDAY & TUESDAY, DEC. 16th & 17th
At 7-45 p.m.

At The Grammar School, Soham

Admission by Programme - 2/6

ADMIT MONDAY / TUESDAY
via Gwyn Murfet

 

Characters in the order of appearance:

Mr. Puffett H. PAPWORTH
Bunter S. SAUNDERS
Mrs. Ruddle B. GRAVES
Harriet (Lady Peter Wimsey) J. HARVEY
Lord Peter Wimsey L. FLEET
Miss Twitterton J. WALLER
Frank Crutchley D. MURFITT
Rev. Simon Goodacre W. PARR
Mr. Macbride D. POLLARD
Constable Sellon M. WHITEHEAD
Superintendent Kirk W. CONSTABLE
George C. GRAVES
Bill C. WALLER

SCENE
The Living-room at Talboy's

ACT I.
A Wednesday morning in October

ACT II.
1-30 p.m. the same day

ACT III.
SCENE 1. Thursday evening
SCENE II. Friday morning

The Play produced by C. R. Waller, Esq.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The Old Boys' Club wishes to sincerely thank
all those who have helped in any way in the production
of this play and to all those who have supported by
attending performances.

In his talk at the SG 2006 Dinner Mr Rex Waller regaled us with a story about this production:

"One other thing. We did a play with the staff. Now, you all remember old Stuart Saunders, we were doing Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers, and Stuart, who did a bit of Latin and a bit of RI was an absolutely marvellous actor, except
(a) he wasn’t very good at learning his lines
and (b) he liked to pop into the lav before going on stage.

Dear old Stuart was absolutely perfect so what we decided to do was to paste his lines on bits of scenery so that all he had to do was to walk from one to the other, and there he’d be. It worked, he was word perfect.

But what we had to do in those days was to take the scenery down each evening so that the place could be used as an Assembly Hall the next morning, E Armitage laid that down. But Saturdays another gang came and put the scenery up.

And so on the Saturday performance we started, but they hadn’t got the scenery up in the right order and dear old Stuart – why bother to learn your lines when they are provided for you – when he went to the first bit of scenery, his words were from the last act, not the first. Somehow or other we managed to get through!

The funny thing was that on the way home, on the news, it was the 9 o’clock news, Dorothy L Sayers had died! [17 Dec 1957 - Ed]

If you can add to this page - photos, anecdotes, or a review of this production - please contact the editor
page created 23 Oct 2009