The Dramateurs, a local amateur dramatic group based in Galashiels, are performing Alan Ayckbourn’s near-the-knuckle, touching and unconventional comedy GamePlan at the town’s Volunteer Hall on November 15, 16 and 17.
GamePlan, the darkest of the British playwright’s trilogy called Damsels In Distress (FlatSpin and RolePlay being parts two and three), is about a teenage girl who tries to support herself and her mother through prostitution.
“This daring play will have you both laughing and feeling uneasy as they take on a somewhat taboo subject,” writes the Dramateurs’ Louise Dunford. “The surrounding events will result in an intense yet heart-warming comedy.”
The play is set in a gleaming riverside flat in the brave new world of London’s Docklands – the home of the Saxons. Lynette Saxon and her husband did well on the internet market: hence the apartment and the good school for their daughter, Sorrel.
But then the business failed, and the husband ran off with Lynette’s business partner.
Lynette now works as an office cleaner, smokes heavily and is racked by a cough that is clearly partly nervous.
The flat may have to be sold. It is at this point that Sorrel takes action.
Sorrel’s idea, proving she has inherited both her father’s entrepreneurial genes and his lack of judgment, is to keep herself, and her mother, financially afloat by setting up as a part-time hooker.
The play is at its funniest when Sorrel, helped by her cheerful but dim friend Kelly, sets up her business and receives her first client: an elderly, bald widower, who pontificates about decency and gets all tearful about poor Marjorie, while Sorrel tries in vain to attract his attention with what she thinks are erotic gestures.
“Just when you wonder what will happen in this terrible situation,” Louise continued, “the play becomes a farce about body disposal, police questioning and media intrusion.
“This really is a great play by Alan Ayckbourn that will certainly offer something different as well as entertaining to the public!”
The play starts at 7.30pm, and tickets cost £6 from Fountain News, on the door, or email lynseymcevoy@hotmail.com to book.