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REVIEW
A TAPESTRY OF TEACHERS
Would you send your daughter to Kyte's School for Girls? Not after the
revelations of the inspector who comes calling the day before autumn term is due
to start. He wants to close the school because it is outmoded, insanitary,
unsafe and has at least two teachers who are beyond retirement age.
The crisis which this creates is the theme of After September, by Jimmy Chinn -
Helm Players' spring production, presented in the Church Hall from May 17-19. In
a series of agonised discussions in the staff room, the story gradually unfolds.
The nine spinster teachers - one calls them 'a lot of silly old women shut up
together' - share their frustrations, their disappointments and their anger when
they see their cloistered life threatened. The school is their life and they
can't face a future without it.
They are even more shocked when they find that the crisis has been contrived by
the head teacher, Miss Kyte (Pauline Standley). She had reluctantly inherited
the school from her mother and desperately wants to get rid of it. But it is the
deputy head, Miss Bickerstaff (April Wright) who makes a passionate appeal to
the head and gains the support of her colleagues for her fund-raising plan to
save the school. Although unqualified, Miss Bickerstaff is also matron, school
secretary, accountant and occasional teacher.
It is the excellent characterisation of the teachers, ably supported by the
inspector (Graham Charlish) and the cheeky tea lady and erstwhile cook (Joyce
Patterson), which gave this production its strength.
The teachers are devoted to their jobs, but not all of them are happy. As the
head tells them: 'You are teachers. You have not been put here to be happy.'
We laughed, and maybe shed a tear or two, with the fearsome Miss Fisher ('Bunny'
Crome), known as Molly Maths; with Miss Kershaw (Miora Anderton), the hearty and
enthusiastic PE teacher; with Miss McBain (Trish Cragg), shocked that she has to
share sleeping accommodation with an equally shocked Miss Pink (Vivian White).
Then there is Miss Cross (Barbara Wilson), whose knitting bag conceals the
bottle of gin she hides in the well; Miss D'Vere (Linda Hunt)
- 'Where are my cigarettes?'; and Miss
Duke (Sonia Fulcher) who uses her classroom technique to restore order in the
staff room.
This was a rich and satisfying mix of which the director, Martin Miller, can be
justly proud.
With a set which oozed school staff room and excellent technical back-up, stage
management, wardrobe and the dozen other functions, it added up to a production
that would satisfy the most eagle-eyed of inspectors.
DENNIS TOMLINSON
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