Image Credits:-
Many thanks to The Chameleons for kind permission to use their photos. Other images created in Book Brush using images from The Chameleons.
As ever, it was a joy to go back to Ritchie Hall to see The Chameleon Theatre Company stage their latest production, Curtain Up by Peter Quilter. Janet and I went on the opening night, Thursday 24th September 2026. A brief outline of the plot follows.
What I will say is if I had the chance to see this show again, I would have gone again. It’s a good story. It isn’t a laugh out loud play, to my mind, but is touching at times, amusing and you can relate to the characters. You so want things to somehow work out for them.
Plot
The strapline for this reads One old theatre, five new owners, one headline act!
Of course, the sparks are going to fly here when you think two of these characters are the ex-wife and the current wife, now widow, of Michael, who is responsible for this bequest. Who on earth would leave five people an old theatre! It is an odd thing to leave.
All of the characters are also at a loss as to why he has done this, knowing full well the ex-wife and the woman he left her for do not get on at all. Caught in the middle of that are the third and fourth characters, the daughter/stepdaughter and Michael’s mother respectively.
Plenty of room for misunderstandings, deliberate or otherwise, then.
Now the play could have been over quickly if the five characters decided to sell the old theatre and split the proceeds between them. No. They decided they were going to do whatever it took to bring the theatre back to life again, feeling it was what Michael would have wanted.
So the five had to work together to clean, to redecorate, to get everything working again. Naturally that didn’t go as smoothly as they would have liked though it led to some wonderfully catty moments between Pam and Jackie, the ex and the widow.
The one thing that did unite those two was the thought bringing the theatre back would’ve been what their love would’ve wanted, besides which neither wanted to let Theresa down, who was the keenest of the lot to get things up and running again.
Would they succeed? Could they succeed? And could they ever get a huge star, now based in the States but who had links to their area, to perform a special one-off show which the five knew would bring in enough revenue to secure the theatre’s future? Also, could they fit in the bingo which they know is a hit with the locals?
The Cast
Theresa (the daughter/stepdaughter) played by Hannah Carter
Pam (the ex wife) played by Sarah Bowditch
Sharon (Michael’s secretary with vivid green hair, short skirt, leather jacket etc) played by Jane Russell
Betty (Michael’s mother) played by Sian Hayden
Jackie (the current wife/widow) played by Amanda Jacobs
Director: Lorraine Biddlecombe
Production Assistant: Merle Dodsworth
As ever, the scene setting was wonderfully done. It must have felt a bit odd, I would have thought, to “stage” a theatre on a theatre stage. Just how do you make a theatre look like one without either going over the top with it or not doing enough to convince the audience the stage had been set up.
But The Chameleons got the balance right here. As ever, it is a question of suggestion and enough props on stage to suggest the derelict building which is how our five characters find the place when they come to view their inheritance.
The play was in two acts – the first being set in the derelict theatre’s foyer and the second was set on the stage.
Performance
The cast were excellent. The story hinges on how well the five characters interact with each other. It is that which makes the story believable enough to make you want to see if these characters can pull this off, can they bring the theatre back, and can they stage the special show which could save the theatre.
There has to be enough empathy created for the audience to get behind the women and that was done so well. There was no problem in believing in the relationships between these women. They came across as the kind of women you could meet.
For me, the lynch pin was Sharon, Michael’s former secretary. She seemed to have a gift for reassuring Theresa and bringing the others together to get on with what had to be done to give them a chance of making this work.
What was so touching was towards the finale the ex-wife, Pam, had to “break”. It was that which led to an understanding between her and Jackie, which would make their relationship become, at least, civil, and would help Theresa, caught in the middle of them as daughter/stepdaughter, so much too.
You had the strong feeling after the play ended relationships would be reset, would be better than they had been because the women had to work together, and maybe, just maybe, that was the real reason Michael left them such a strange bequest after all.
Conclusion
This was a touching, warmhearted and funny story, well performed. What was fun was when the cast got to “perform” their special show, the audience for it was us – yes, the ones in Ritchie Hall. We represented the imaginery audience here. We were “acting” without knowing it!
Next Chameleons Production – The Pantomime
Now it’s October, it’s time to think about pantomime season. Oh yes it is! And The Chameleons are well ahead on this. Their next show will be Dick Whittington, which they will stage from Friday 22nd January to Saturday 29th January 2027. Their pantomimes are always great fun so if you want to get to this, make sure you book early.
Hope to see you there – oh yes I do!
Looking even further ahead, they’ll be staging Queue at the Bakers, which is written by local author, Keith Moore. That will be in May 2027.
Related Posts:-
The Chameleon Theatre Company – Review – Camelot The Pantomime
Celebrating 60 Years of Drama with The Chameleons – A Look Back at the Open Evening
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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