Kaleidoscope Theatre Company was set up in 1997 and in the summer of that year produced a variety show called “A Little Bit of Everything” which embraced music, dance and drama. As the group grew more ambitious productions were performed including Lionel Bart’s “Oliver” in the spring of 2001, followed by “Slice of Saturday Night” a musical set in a nightclub in the 1960s. In subsequent years a variety of shows across varied genres were produced including “Dracula the Musical”, “Blood Brothers”, “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”.

In 2009 Kaleidoscope took another change of direction and moved into black comedy with the show ‘Natural Causes’. Vincent is a professional suicide merchant who has been contracted by Walter Bryce and mistakenly assumes that the potion is intended for Walter’s consumption. It then transpires that the potion is intended for Walter’s wife; however there are several thwarted attempts to poison various characters, often resulting in multiple poisonings of a rubber plant!

2008 saw a move away from farce as Kaleidoscope produced “The Graduate”, the stage version of the icon 1960s film with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. The recently graduated college boy Benjamin Braddock revolts against his life in suburban hell and when his parents’ friend Mrs Robinson strips naked in front of him and offers to teach him the things he never learnt at school, it seems an affair with an ‘older woman’ could give him the adult education he’s been looking for.

In 2007 tackled another farce, recently translated from French called “Don’t Dress for Dinner”. A similar plot of farcical adultery at breakneck speed was theme. The lead character, Bernard, had hoped for a quiet weekend in the country with his chic Parisian mistress Suzy. He arranged for a cordon bleu cook, packed his wife Jacqueline off to her mother’s, and has invited his best friend Robert over as a suitable alibi. This seeming foolproof plan falls apart to reveal hilarious confusion as Bernard and Robert improvise at breakneck speed!

The following year (2006) saw a classic farce in the form of Ray Cooney’s “Run for Your Wife”. The farce centred around John Smith, a London cabbie with his own taxi, a wife in Streatham, a wife in Wimbledon – and a knife-edge schedule! John Smith had been a successful, if tired, bigamist for three years, until he is taken to hospital with mild concussion. The ensuing complications, aided by an unwilling lodger named Stanley, see John bravely trying to cope with a succession of well-meaning but prying policemen, two increasingly irate wives, among others, until he manfully confessed the truth.

In the summer of 2005 Kaleidoscope produced ‘Allo ‘Allo, this was to herald a successful move into comedy and farce. This stage version of the TV series by the same name followed the adventures of René, the hapless café owner in war-torn occupied France, as he and his wife, Edith, struggled to keep for themselves a priceless portrait stolen by the Nazis and endeavoured to repatriate two British airmen with the help of the Resistance.

If you have enjoyed our shows we would welcome any suggestions for future productions.