Tads Theatre Group - Amateur Dramatics in Toddington, Bedfordshire

Tads Theatre Group “Road”  by Jim Cartwright.

May 2009.

Directed and Produced by Chris McLoughlin.

Tads may only be a small Society – but I can’t fault them on their approach to amateur theatre – they tackle many and various different genres, always with enthusiasm, and with some very good performances.

“Road” to me was a strange and not very nice play, focusing as it does on the grimmer side of life, but Chris McLoughlin, in his directorial debut, got some excellent performances from his cast of Tads stalwarts.  I felt that the direction sometimes lacked the vision that a more experienced director might have brought to this play, but this was over-ridden by the performance level, and everyone has to start somewhere.

Dan Nicholls as ‘Scullery’ the central character who wove all the threads of the play together, gave a very upbeat performance, which contrasted well with the gritty and stark realism of some of the other parts.

I particularly liked the pairing of Chloe Palmer (Clare) and Rory Smith (Joey), they created a good relationship in what was a difficult scenario, very good acting from both these young people.  They also performed their other characters very well.

Ben Calder as the Brother showed how much he is improving with every performance, a strong character with lots of edge.

I always like Jordan Nicholls, he throws himself into his parts, and in the scene where he was a soldier, despite not saying anything, he was very funny.

The four older people in the cast Judy Palmer, Anne Fowler, Steve Pryer and Simon Giltrow, all took on two or more wildly different parts, showing once again what good actors they are, creating pathos and humour in equal amounts.

Katie Smith’s ‘Carol’ was very strident and so reminiscent of today’s youth, despite being set in the 1980’s.

Lighting and sound were both good, and the play had lots of pace, which was slowed slightly by the sometimes overlong scene changes.  There were some very poignant moments, and as I said before I did not like the play, but commend Tads for really making a good showing.  It was just a pity that they didn’t have a larger audience.

Nova Horley

NODA Representative