Auditions were held Wednesday 26th March 2003 7:30pm at the hut. Please have a look at the cast list.
According to the Mike Harding Website the play was Commissioned by Oldham Coliseum published on Monday 19th May 1997. It is described as a family comedy set at Christmas. A fuller description from the manuscript describes it thus: It's Christmas. Relatives you hardly ever see and who are now very different from you arrive at the house for the festivities. No-one receives a present that is at all appropriate. Culinary disasters abound. Long buried resentments rear their ugly head as the alcohol flows and tongues are loosened, and the plumbing goes wrong. If any of this reminds you of your typical family Christmas, then you will find Comfort and Joy, Mike Harding's comedy, painfully but amusingly familiar - until the very end, anyway... how many of you have been abducted by aliens?
Mike Harding was born in Crumpsall, Manchester in 1944, into a working-class Irish-Catholic family.
His father was killed returning from a bombing mission just 4 weeks before Mike was born. This had a profound effect on his childhood and later life, and provided the inspiration for his haunting song, 'Bombers' Moon'. Much of the inspiration for his writing comes from his early years growing up in post-war Manchester.
After a chequered early career as dustman, bus conductor, road digger and carpet-fitter, Mike took a degree in Education, paying his way by working at night in Folk Clubs. Finally, the lure of the bright lights proved too much and he became a full-time entertainer instead of a teacher. His success as a live entertainer began in 1967 when, during a gig at Leeds University with The Edison Bell Spasm Band, he began to tell jokes to fill in the awkward pauses while the band tuned up. The patter became part of the act and when the jokes dried up he delved into his store of real-life stories for which he has become famous.
In 1975 the record 'The Rochdale Cowboy' flung him from folk music into the mainstream of live entertainment. Since then he has earned acclaim in all fields of his work including national concert tours, television and radio appearances, travel writing, comedy writing, poetry, playwriting, short story writing and photography.
Other accomplishments include an outstanding performance in his first ever acting role as Vladimir, in Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton and a record-breaking role as Bottom in A midsummer Night's Dream at Dent Village Hall 1995.
He still has ambitions to be a film star and would like to appear in Coronation Street as the natural son of Albert Tatlock the outcome of a night of passion between the whiskered lollipop man and a lady air raid warden during the Salford Blitz.
His previous plays include Fur Coat and No Knickers, One Night Stand and Not with a Bang, all of which premiered at Oldham Coliseum.
Last Tango in Whitby premiered at Nottingham Playhouse and proved to be as successful as Fur Coat and No Knickers.
|
|