Arundel Players bring Laurie Lee’s Cider With Rosie to the stage for the Arundel Festival

Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com 
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
Deborah Addicott is playing the mother in the Arundel Players’ production of Laurie Lee’s Cider With Rosie for the Arundel Festival.

Performances run from Saturday, August 17 to Saturday, August 24 at 7.30pm at The Priory Playhouse Theatre, London Road, Arundel, BN18 9AT (tickets on 07523 417926 and https://www.ticketsource.co.uk).

The piece offers an autobiographical play about Laurie's childhood and his coming of age beginning just as WWI is ending. Laurie's mother, accompanied by her six children, arrives at their cottage home in Gloucestershire. The piece then follows their life and adventures in a village populated with a rich selection of true English eccentrics – a show full of gentle humour and some poignant moments.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“It's a lovely story and the mother is a lovely character to play,” Deborah says. “She started off in service actually. She was a young girl in service and then when her gran died she went to work in an inn which her granddad owned. She loves children but she's actually a bit flighty. She is almost muddle-headed and she has these outbursts. One moment she is loving the children and the next she is shouting at them. There are times when she just finds it all a little bit too much but she has a really nice character and is a lovely character to play. She loves telling stories to the children that they have heard loads of times before, and these are little snippets of her life in service and when she worked for her granddad and how she met her husband. Her husband's disappeared and we never find out what has happened to him. When Laurie was three, his father scarpered off. He did send a little bit of money but it is not a lot to survive on but she still keeps thinking that he's going to come back. The little time that she spent with the father is something that she feeds on for the rest of her life but he never does come back. It doesn't say what happened but she's looking after his children and his children from his first marriage but I think at the end of the day it's the hope that he will come back that keeps her going.

Deborah Addicott (pic by Rosey Purchase)Deborah Addicott (pic by Rosey Purchase)
Deborah Addicott (pic by Rosey Purchase)

“You have got Laurie starting school and you've got all these eccentric village characters coming into the piece as well and then you've got the two grannies that live next door to each other and they are absolutely at war with each other, brooms in hand knocking the ceiling. You've got all these great characters weaving their way through the story. There are 13 or 14 of us in the cast and most of the cast of are playing different characters. You've got the grannies who are playing other characters as well. I think we've got slightly more characters than other productions but it is quite an empty stage on which the chairs get moved around.

“I have been with the Arundel Players since 2005 and it is so lovely to be able to have a proper stage to rehearse on right from the start.

"You can almost rehearse any evening and it is just so beautifully located. It is a big theatre in miniature!”

Follow us
©National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.Cookie SettingsTerms and ConditionsPrivacy notice