Hello again from Barnsley.  We had another great evening at the Lamproom although the audience was again rather small.  They don’t know what they are missing!

Service Players, winners of MADF’s One Act Play Festival, Isle of Man presented  “Is This Seat Taken?” with great verve and good comic timing but also with warmth, conveying the feelings of their characters with sensitivity. The whole gamut of emotions, anger, frustration, sympathy and love were portrayed with unaffected naturalness which made the characters totally believable in their desire to act out their overlapping role playing with conviction.  This provided a wonderful spectrum of contrasts amidst this comedy of confusion. The adjudicator seemed full of praise for the performance and also highlighted the authenticity of the good stage set (chairs and tables loaned by The Empress Hotel, Douglas, Isle of Man and the bar originally built by David Daugherty and Lindsay Riordan for Service Players’ production of ‘Allo ‘Allo).  A most enjoyable experience for all concerned.

The second half of the evening was a reading of the winning play of the new playwriting competition – A Frank Exchange by Nicholas Marsh.  Without giving too much of the plot away (for those who may be lucky enough to see a fully staged version in the future) this was set in WW2 Amsterdam in the office of a German Officer in charge of finding collaborators and in the home of his Dutch secretary.  The interplay of emotions and the buildup to the somewhat startling ending was very well conveyed.  We were fortunate to be able to speak with the author after the reading and were able to convey our appreciation of an extremely well written and interesting play.

Tomorrow we will be entertained by the relatively local team from Wakefield and are looking forward to that.

• Karen & Michael Goodman