Chichester students bring The Drowsy Chaperone to the stage

Ben Head and Bethany Irvine are among the cast as the triple-threat second-years at the University of Chichester take to the stage with The Drowsy Chaperone from Thursday, November 12-Saturday, November 14 at 7.30pm, with a matinee performance at 2.30pm on Saturday, November 14.

Ben will be playing Man In Chair, a lonely, enthusiastic musical-theatre narrator who plays his favourite 1928 cast recording in his apartment. Bethany will be playing the drowsy chaperone of the title, starlet Janet’s loud, melodramatic and frequently intoxicated confidante and chaperone, as well as her maid of honour.

Both are loving not just the show, but also their time in Chichester.

Ben, aged 19, said: “Musical theatre is a self-expressive art. It is something that has always been a pleasure. It has never felt forced, and Chichester really appealed to me as being in conjunction with the university. It's supportive people and a supportive course, and I had the privilege of knowing a lot of people from the area that were raving about the course here. My main thing was the pleasure and the enjoyment and would I be able to get that enjoyment but all the students have just seemed so happy and so successful. The physical demands are a whole other level but I've never been at the point of struggling with feeling compliant or burn-out. I have really enjoyed it.”

Bethany, age 20, from near Colchester, has loved it too: “It is something I've always wanted to do. I knew from a very young age. When I was 11, I performed in a musical for the first time and I just fell in love with the whole world of it and knew that was where I wanted to be. I think it's partly because it's an escape but it's also about expressing yourself through a different character and really working out how you can show the emotions of that other character. It's an amazing world to be in. I knew someone that had come to Chichester and just raved so much about it. I came to look at the course when I was in my first year of A levels and I just fell in love with the place. It has been great and so much more. I've made friends for life here and I've learned so much. It has been great doing the course and getting to know the first years and the third years and just being part of the environment here.”

As Ben explains, the piece was written in 1997, initially created as a show for a stag party by two prominent theatre artists but it was then expanded into a fringe show, becoming a full show.

In it, Ben plays a self-isolated narrator “who is the only accurate and true to life thing in it. His character is essentially a narrator but an unreliable narrator. All he has to go on as an available aid is a vinyl record, and what happens is his perception of the show.”

In the show Bethany is the drowsy chaperone of the title: “She is not the best chaperone. She gets drunk!”

When she finishes in Chichester, Bethany would love to do a master's degree in acting before embarking on a career which would combine straight plays and also musicals. Ben also aims to do a master's degree after Chichester but to split his ambitions in two directions, between teaching and pursuing a performance career.

Next up from the students in the double bill of performances is The Mystery Of Edwin Drood a week later from Thursday, November 19-Saturday, November 21, again at 7.30pm each evening plus a 2.30pm matinee performance on Saturday, November 21.