Bingo play to be performed at social club

Jul 1 2009 by Chris Ward, The Journal

AN over-60s drama group will be hoping for a full house when they stage their latest play, called Bingo!

The play is set in the concert room of a social club at the start of a session.

And a performance of the play on Sunday will be held – appropriately enough – in the concert room of a social club.

Real life will shade into drama at the Crescent Club in Cullercoats, North Tyneside, when the free showing begins at 8.15pm. The club is opening the concert room, which is normally closed on Sunday evenings, especially for the play and is entering into the spirit of the night by laying on a real bingo session at 7.45pm.

Club secretary Phil Harrison said: “We might have another game of bingo after the play if the demand is there.

“We think it will be the first time a play has been performed in the club. It is certainly something different and I hope it will be well attended.”

The play has been written by Kitty Fitzgerald, from Cullercoats, who has worked with the over-60s community wing of North Tyneside-based Cloud Nine Theatre Productions. The idea for the play, which is the group’s fifth production, came from group discussion sessions at the Linskill Centre in North Shields.

Kitty said: “Quite a few of the members of the group go to social clubs, which are a part of North East culture and they had their stories about club experiences.

“It is fantastic that it is going to be performed in the Crescent Club concert room and I am really looking forward to it.” The play focuses on the interplay between characters in the concert room, including a couple meeting for their first date fixed up on an internet site.

The action also features the concert room “turn” of a drag artist, played by Cloud Nine artistic director Peter Mortimer.

Peter said: “There are a lot of little stories going on in what is warm, good-humoured play. The concert room of the Crescent Club will be the perfect setting and I think the cast will respond to the atmosphere.”

There will also be daily performances of Bingo! from today to Saturday at 12.30pm in Wallsend Library in the High Street as a lead up to the start of the Wallsend Festival this weekend.

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