Our play for July was “Breath of Spring” by Peter Coke.  The play is set in London in the 1950s.

Breath of Spring is a comic romp about five British pensioners who are unexpectedly revitalized when they happen into a life of crime.  Her fortune diminished, Dame Beatrice hosts middle-aged 'guests', plus Lily her maid, in her London home.  To repay Dame Beatrice for giving her a job despite her criminal past, Lily presents her with a mink stole which has been filched from the next flat.  Horrified, Dame Beatrice and the Brigadier, a former army officer, swing into action.  The Brigadier deploys his 'troops', including a vivid vocal coach and a dithery china restorer, to return the fur.  The whole campaign is so invigorating they decide to retain this excitement in their lives by pinching furs and giving the proceeds to charities.  Everything goes well until a loss is reported and Scotland Yard comes calling.  The maid is horrified to discover what has been going on behind her back but agrees to employ her talents to bail the amateurs out of trouble if they agree to never touch another fur.  She succeeds, the police leave, and life returns to its humdrum ways until someone remembers that it was only furs they had promised not to touch!

We had read this play several years ago, but it was just as enjoyable with a second reading – a real hoot.  It was a period piece with some interesting but very British characters representative of the era.

Joy Shirley

Due to the length of recent plays our group has needed time in the subsequent meeting to finish them.  Whilst this can be a little inconvenient our group covers it very well and the climax still brings the wonderful drama or humour or tears that emerges from the plays.

We finished an extremely funny play last session entitled “Breath of Spring” by Peter Coke. The play was West End hit in 1958, portraying Dame Beatrice and her lodgers – a posse of posh but impoverished “paying guests” who hit on a novel way of making money while discovering what jolly good fun it is to be criminals.  After finding how easy to snuffle a fur coat or two carelessly left unattended in shops and cafes, they set about their unlikely new career, selling off the stolen goods to donate the proceeds anonymously to assist similarly impoverished friends.  In the end, when a policeman turns up to report a fur coat was found in a local cafe all panic breaks out among the house guests.  After total confusion, excuses and the police convinced that these people are not the highly organised gang responsible for stealing and selling the fur coats things settle down and house members talked about relaxing holidays overseas.  A couple of guests chat about another fund raiser, others gather round.  The final line in the play is “Well, my idea is this.  We . . . . .”  Much laughter all round.

The next play we started was “Inheritance” by Hannie Rayson, written after two of her block buster successes - “Life after George” and “Hotel Sorrento”.  “Inheritance” has been described as a powerful new drama where duty contends with freedom, and the differences of race, gender and generation must be reconciled before the claims on “Allandale” and its families may be settled. Some key characters are the Myrtle twins, Dibs Hamilton and Girlie Delaney who are turning 80 in the very near future,  all members of both key families are descending upon the family home in the Mallee district of Victoria to see who will be the one to inherit the family property, “Allandale”, when the ageing Farley has gone. Already our group has had some enormous bouts of laughter at the various situations and as the plot thickens. We all are excited about continuing with this script.

Keith Rogers