GILL  GRUBB, director, introduces Bell, Book And Candle

This is a lovely romantic comedy, a bit of romantic froth - and why not?  It’s nearly Christmas. 

Expatriate Van Druten set his play at Christmas in New York City in 1950. In 1954 he brought his leading couple, Lilli Palmer and Rex Harrison, over to London and set the play in Knightsbridge.  We are performing this English version.

Gillian Holroyd is a young witch who has taken a fancy to her upstairs neighbour, Tony Henderson.  Now everybody knows that witches excel at pleasures of the flesh, but they are  immune to  human weaknesses such as falling in love.  Pleasure is one thing, sentiment is quite another.  Our witch casts a spell on hapless Tony, so that his friends and family are entirely forgotten;  he is bewitched, bothered and bewildered, besotted and bowled over by Gillian.  

These humans are frail and so susceptible.   But something goes seriously wrong.  Gillian finds that the potent magic of love is infectious as she falls ill with a passion for Tony.

This would be enough to get her the sack from any decent coven.  A witch who sinks so low as to show a human emotion loses her magical powers.  She can longer cast spells, read people’s minds, fly on a broomstick or do any of  the things any proper witch does all the time.  What is worse, she seems happy with this new state of starry-eyed powerlessness.  Her aunt and her brother, both witches, are in despair.  Her cat, Pyewacket, is utterly disgusted and marches off.

Gillian finds that, without supernatural assistance, the path of true love does not run smoothly. However, it is Christmas and so we cannot possibly have a tragedy on our hands.

Bell, Book And Candle inspired a whole genre of comedy on TV and film, principally the American sitcom Bewitched.  This crossed the Atlantic and ran for several series in the 1960s and 70s.  Samantha, a witch, married Darrin, a mortal.  Darrin knew his wife to be a witch - although he was perhaps unaware that she was several hundred years old - but was not prepared for the perpetual contempt and antagonism of Samantha’s mother, another witch called Endora. Unlike the Gillian of our play, Samantha did not forfeit her magic on falling in love; she had only to twitch her nose and another spell was cast.

Returning to our stage after too long an absence, Fiona McGahren plays Gillian.  Richard Tame comes from The Full Monty, fully dressed, in the part of Tony.  Our small ensemble is completed by David Puckridge, last seen in The Real Inspector Hound, Gary Heron, another returnee after too long an absence, and a new face: Brenda Joyce.

We offer you romance, nostalgia and supernatural nonsense.  What more could you want at Christmas?

BILL  BRAY  introduces the author

John Van Druten had a British mother and Dutch father and was born in London in 1901. He  originally planned a career in law, which he practiced and taught for a time while writing the plays Young Woodley (1925), There's Always Juliet (1932), and The Distaff Side (1934) which were moderately successful in pre-war London prior to his emigration to America. Van Druten's best received American works were The Voice of the Turtle (1943), I Remember Mama (1944),  Bell ,Book and Candle (1950), and  I Am A Camera (1951). He was at his best as a witty, urbane observer of modern society.

The Voice of the Turtle was filmed with Ronald Reagan in his pre-presidential days; I Remember Mama gave a young Marlon Brando his debut on Broadway. In the New York production of Bell, Book and Candle the leading role was played by Rex Harrison, before My Fair Lady took over his life, and the leading lady was Lilli Palmer, Rex's wife at that time.

I Am A Camera, taken from Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories, tales of  his experiences in 1930s Berlin, was  subsequently adapted by Joe Masteroff and  became the musical Cabaret with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb.