Castle Hill Players have opened their 2025 season with Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy Improbable Fiction. As the author of over 90 plays Ayckbourn has certainly let the imaginative and creative spirit run free as we move from a regular meeting of a rather motley group of aspiring writing to some very improbable fiction.
We join the village of Pendon’s local writer’s group at the home of Arnold Hassock as the members start to arrive. Jem Rowe is excellent as Arnold who would love to write something other than instruction manuals. He tries to hold the group together & stop frictions becoming fights and then struggles to make sense of developments in the second half.
Lauren Asten-Smith plays the young Ilsa Wolby who arrives to look after Arnold’s elderly bedridden mother while the meeting is on. Anthea Brown plays Jess Bales, a struggling farmer who just can’t seem to get anything of the gothic romance in her head down on paper. Timid Grace Sims, played by Vanessa Henderson, escapes her unhappy marriage writing & illustrating children’s stories. Vivvi Dickens, played by Will Shipp pours out novel after novel but can’t get them published. Then there is Clem Pepp, rather a nerd, played by Wills Burke who has a hankering for sci-fi but manages to confuse everyone with his incorrect use of English words. The final member of the group is ex-schoolteacher Brevis Winterton played with much gusto by Brendan Iddles who is attempting to write a musical.
The meeting progresses, personalities rub against each other and tensions increase over criticisms of others’ works. The meeting eventually ends, and the members start to depart when suddenly a storm erupts, we are thrust into entirely different worlds for the second act of the show.
The director, Dave Went, draws the very versatile actors together and they combine so well playing a range of highly different characters in some very different genres of fiction with quick changes in scenes.
The set, designed by Abby Bishop, provides a great backdrop for the different settings of the play. Lighting design by Mark Dawson, and sound design George Cartledge, are particularly important and effective in the second act to delineate the different scenes.
For some light-hearted fun head out to the Pavilion Theatre, Castle Hill Showground, for this production which runs until 1st March.
Photos: Chris Lundie
