Daisy Pulls it Off is Players’ Arundel Festival production this year

It's 1927 and Daisy Meredith is the first scholarship girl from an elementary school to be allowed access to the hallowed halls of Grangewood School for Young Ladies. Enthusiastic and plucky to the last, Daisy finds herself struggling against unspeakable snobs Sybil and Monica and their ghastly schemes to get her expelled. Ably assisted by her new best friend, madcap and self-styled poet Trixie Martin, Daisy finds herself caught up in a series of irresistible adventures including the search for missing treasure. Can they work out the mysterious clues and save the school from closure?

Dawn, who has directed the show twice before, is loving every moment, working on a piece which is just right for our post-pandemic times, she feels.

As Dawn, who became Arundel Players’ chairman last year, says: “It has been tough and we've certainly suffered as a company since the pandemic. Definitely people have been more wary about coming out and it takes quite a lot for people to trust being out with other people. But also all our expenses have gone sky high. It's not just the households. Everything has gone up for us as well. It has just gone through the roof.”

Another challenge is the difficulty of finding volunteers to help with productions, whether backstage or front of house or lighting: “In every aspect of our theatre we are struggling to get people to help. As for actors I think it really depends on the play that you are doing. When we auditioned for Daisy I had so many people turn up. It just makes it really important that you choose carefully the plays that you do. We have just done a fantastic play called Kindertransport which was brilliantly directed and brilliantly acted but it didn't sell out. It was quite a hard watch.”

The conclusion is that for the moment at least it is important to give people bright upbeat pieces they want to see, and Daisy Pulls It Off certainly falls into that category: “You've got to give people something that they will enjoy, something that's a bit of escapism, something that will make people forget about everything else for a couple of hours. And Daisy certainly ticks all the boxes. It is fun, all jolly hockey sticks and laughs, and it's so lovely to be working with young people which is something I love doing. I came across the play 22 years ago when I first directed it for Arundel, and then I also did it for Brighton Little Theatre and that's great because I know that it's such a popular play. I think after all those years I've forgotten how I did it but really you've just got to treat it as a new thing. You got a whole new cast and you’ve just got to completely start again. Sometimes I suddenly remember things I did before but really you've got to start totally afresh, and I've got such lovely girls that I'm working with.”