Job well done by top cast (From Swindon Advertiser)

Job well done by top cast

4:23pm Tuesday 4th October 2011 in Reviews

Letter To the General, Swindon Arts Centre, Old Town.

The Phoenix Players again produced a play that held the audience in the palm of their hands.

A Letter From The General, by Maurice McLoughlin, is extremely well written, with a story that takes place in a Mission Station in the Far East in 1950.

As always the characters were well cast and all were believable even down to the Irish accents of the five nuns played by Joanna Perry, Clare Brown, the excellent Melanie Roberts, Reverend Mother, Marlene Poole and Sister Magdalen played by Daphne Breakspear.

Nicky Ashdown was superb as the Consul’s wife, Ruth Stilton, with Chris Coleman looking every inch the British Consul. What a wonderful Father Schiller Dennis Breakspear made.

Nicholas Gratton played the very nasty Captain Lee as only he could, scaring the living daylights out of my daughter when he thumped the table or raised his voice. Is there any part this wonderful actor cannot play? I don’t think so! Direction by Sandra Gilbert was excellent as was the set design by Dennis Breakspear.

Costumes were authentic for the era. Actually I would expect nothing less from this company.

You could have heard a pin drop in the audience while the characters engaged us all and drew us into the plot. A job well done. Ros Hollands