Some of the pictures are very hard to get a good scan of. If you have any photos, please contact the webmaster through the Contact link. What we have tried to do is capture the feel of the play - not necessarily the ability to identify individual actors.
SEE HOW THEY RUN
The play is set in 1943 in the living room of the Vicarage at the fictitious village of Merton-cum-Middlewick (merging various actual village names, such as Merton and Middlewick, both in Oxfordshire, along with the old British usage of 'cum', meaning 'alongside' in the middle of a village name, as in Chorlton-cum-Hardy).
The lead character is Penelope Toop, former actress and now wife of the local vicar, The Rev. Lionel Toop. The Toops employ Ida, a Cockney maid. Miss Skillon, a churchgoer of the parish and a scold, arrives on bicycle to gossip with the vicar and to complain about the latest 'outrages' that Penelope has caused. The vicar then leaves for the night, and an old friend of Penelope's, Lance-Corporal Clive Winton, stops by on a quick visit. In order to dodge army regulations, he changes from his uniform into Lionel's second-best suit, complete with a clerical 'dog-collar' in order to see a production of "Private Lives" (a Noël Coward play in which they had appeared together in their acting days), while pretending to be the visiting vicar Arthur Humphrey who is due to preach the Sunday sermon the next day.
Just before they set out, Penelope and Clive re-enact one of their scenes from "Private Lives" and manage to knock Mrs Skillon (who has come back unannounced) unconscious. Miss Skillon, wrongly thinking she has seen Penelope committing adultery with Winton, gets drunk on a bottle of cooking sherry and Ida hides her in the broom cupboard. Then Toop, arriving back, is taken prisoner by an escaping prisoner from a nearby camp, who takes his clothes as a disguise. To add to the confusion, both the real Humphrey, as well as Penelope's uncle, The Bishop of Lax, unexpectedly show up early. Chaos quickly ensues. culminating in a cycle of running figures, most of them dressed as clergy, plus a well-trained dog.
A Farce in Three Acts Directed by Bobby K. Cox
CAST (In Order of Appearance)
IDA (a maid) Shirley A. Reed
MISS SKILLON Kathryn Kelly
THE REVEREND LIONEL TOOP Nike Hindman
PENELOPE TOOP (his wife) Cindy Borsch
CORPORAL CLIVE WINTON Tim Davis
THE INTRUDER Dick Russell
THE BISHOP OF LAX Jim Sherrick
THE REVEREND ARTHUR HUMPHREY Joe Larson
SERGEANT TOWERS Carl Siepker
SYNOPSIS OF SCENES
The action takes place in the hall at the vicarage Merton-Cum-Middlewick
Act I An afternoon in September
Act II The same night
Act III A few minutes later
Produced by special arrangement with Samuel French
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SET CONSTRUCTION Russ Kelley
Cast Members
..Friends of F.A.C.E.
LIGHTS Russ Kelley
MAKE-UP Wendy Dust
PUBLICITY Cindy Borsch
PROGRAMS Nancy SI ingerland
..Charlene Irwin
PHOTOGRAPHY Carol Hindman
F.A.C.E. WISHES TO THANK FOR THEIR GENEROSITY
Effingham Daily News
Effingham American Legion
Effingham Knights of Columbus
WCRA-WCRC
Helen Mathes Library World Color Press