Notes

A favourite of guest director, David Burchell, Separate Tables is a well known story, having been the basis for a very successful film in which David Niven won an Oscar for his protrayal of Major Pollock. The stage and film versions are, however, somewhat different in that the stage version is played as two quite disctinct storylines, separated by a period of some 18 months, whilst in the film version, the two stories are intertwined to run concurrently.

Staging this play at Fairlight posed significant challenges in the set design and construction department, with two very different scenes (and a total of four scene changes) and a lot of furniture to be accommodated in a relatively confined space. Those familiar with the layout at Fairlight Village Hall will appreciate that there is precious little storage capacity in the wings, and so our set designers had to be very creative to fit everything in, with some clever devices employed to faciliate a rapid transformation in-between scenes.

The play was well cast, with some strong performances especially in the leading roles. David was entirely justified (and probably relieved) to be able to look back on the result as a job well done.