Ben Apfelbaum

TABLE MANNERS : PYMBLE PLAYERS PERFORM A CLASSIC AYCKBOURN COMEDY

TABLE MANNERS  premiered in 1973 in England. It is a very middle class English story, and it is very funny. The one-liners keep the story upbeat despite some unlikeable characters and the misery of the dutiful daughter who has spent years caring for the bed-ridden mother.

Playwright Alan Ackbourn, age 84, has written 89 plays. He is mostly known for these farces. TABLE MANNERS is one part of the trilogy, ‘Norman Conquests’.  Regarded as a comic masterpiece, Table Manners has won numerous awards.

The Pymble Players have done a wonderful job of producing this farce, not the easiest of genres to get right but this community theatre group has succeeded.

Fifty years ago, TABLE MANNERS would have had a very different impact than it does today. The difficult issues presented seem very distant now. Women working and couples deciding not to have children were hot topics half a century ago and the play would have stirred debates that are now long gone.

Annie has arranged to spend an illicit weekend with her sister Ruth’s husband Norman. As it happens, the seduction never takes place. That only encourages Norman to try his luck with Sarah who is Annie’s brother Reg’s  wife.

Sarah is played by Heather Pitt. Norman, the wayward seducer, is Justin Corcoran. Tom, the autistic visiting vet, is Greg Thornton. Annie, the dutiful daughter, is played by Samantha Lemon. Ruth is Diane Howden, and Reg is Baz Evans.  The players are all well cast by the director, Gavin Critchley. The set is detailed and authentic. What an amazing effort by the set designer Ian Auckland and the eight-person team that built it.

The Pymble Players production of Alan Ayckbourn’s TABLE MANNERS is playing at its theatre located at 55A Mona Vale Road Pymble. It is on the corner of Bromley Avenue. The entrance is via Bromley Avenue.

https://pymbleplayers.com.au/

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborland. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, united states, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication.