Welcome to Compton Little Theatre

CLT QUIZ NIGHT 2025 and AGM

Jo Ayshford and Rhona Wilkie will be holding a Quiz Night at Compton Village Hall on Friday 28 March to raise funds for Compton Little Theatre. Tickets are £12 each, which includes

supper. There will be a pay bar. Doors open 7pm for a 7.30pm start. Teams are a maximum of six. Email rhonawilkie@hotmail.co.uk to enter a team, book tickets and provide any dietary requirements. Jo and Rhona hope to see you soon for another fun and highly competitive night.

CLT's annual gathering will be held on Tuesday 29 April at 7.30pm in Pucks Oak Barn, GU3 1EG. All are welcome to this social event. CLT also wants to hear your ideas about the shape and future of the theatre group. More details to follow in the April issue of Compton News. To stay up-to-date with news, events, social activities, auditions and performance dates, join CLT’s mailing list by emailing committee@comptonlittletheatre.org.uk.

Established in 1982

Welcome to Compton Little Theatre, based in Compton Village, Surrey.  We are a friendly, family based group with high standards in all aspects of our very professional productions.  We were established in 1982 by a group of enthusiastic actors, many of whom are still involved in some shape or form.

We aim for three productions a year, a musical or panto in January, a Summer play and a comedy dinner/drama in the Autumn.

We are always looking for new talent in any area; acting, directing, costumes, make-up, back stage crew, front of house.  So take a look around and contact us or visit our website www.comptonlittletheatre.org.uk

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Review of Panto ‘Red Riding Hood’

Red Riding Hood

Society:          Compton Little Theatre

Production:  Red Riding Hood by Frazer Woodhams and Fred Pollard

Director:        Mandy Scully

Venue:            Compton Village Halll

Date:               Friday 17th January, 2025

This was a jolly, rather adult-themed, version of this well-loved story. When I say adult-themed, I refer not to the rather good place name based thread of jokes that permeated the whole show, and were rather saucy, but to the fact that the dastardly baddie,  Vivian Thorne, played so well by Gemma Taylor, was a dreadful property developer with absolutely no scruples, who wished to plonk huge housing estates in and around the idyllic village (which even entailed demolishing the beloved pub, The Pickled Pig!), and included expelling Granny from her cute cottage in the woods by fair means or foul, and cutting down much of the forest, for one of her horrid developments. She even acquired, on-line of course, a wolf (from Portland, Oregon) to hasten Granny’s departure. All this must have been a bit over the heads of the children in the audience, but they were in the minority the night we attended, and our Compton audience appreciated the opportunity to loudly boo the dreadful Vivian!

As always with CLT we were treated to some beautiful sets: the charming village (was it Rosewood?), Granny’s delightfully cosy cottage, and a woodland scene, all painted by the talented Pat Williams. This always really contributes to the enjoyment of the Compton panto.

The initial scene gave us the sorry sight of Freddie Fumble, cub leader, all trussed up thanks to her unruly cubs, who seemed to make a habit of disappearing, and of learning their knots rather too well! The 6 cubs were delightful, of course, Compton’s juniors always hit the spot. Freddie Fumble was well played by Amy Aiello, pretty hopeless and hapless as a cub leader, but a good supporter of Red and Charlie later on.

We met cheery Charlie Dazzle, with his Big Tie, a great friend of Red Riding Hood, and yet, later….Then we were introduced to his mum, the outrageous Dolly Dazzle, perfectly played by Keith Miller, who ran an amazing beauty salon, where poor Charlie had to work on the most basic of tasks. Charlie wanted to get a proper job, so then found himself employed by – oh no! – the horrid Vivian Thorne. Henry Moore made a super Charlie, all bouncy, naive, cheerful, and yet working for the other side! What a predicament he found himself in! The first task he had to do for his new boss was fetch her a coffee – but what a coffee! An extreme feat of memory was necessary, to our surprise he managed it, but as we later found out, his mother’s coffee order had been just as challenging, so it was no great deal for him.

Red was a feisty, thoroughly modern young woman with ambitions to be a journalist on a big national newspaper one day. Of course, she was clad in a beautifully pretty red outfit. Millie Ayshford was brilliant in this role, it seemed to be made for her.

Hustle and Dodger (Fred Pollard and Frazer Woodhams, the writers of the piece) were the two wheeler dealer types in sheepskin coats and trilby hats, very Arthur Daley. And very funny with their stream of jokes about, was it, Hustle’s wife in various locations around the world. Must have taken a while to think all those up!

We then met dear, sweet Granny in her wonderfully cosy cottage, and her amazing wig – I think she’d taken her curlers out, but I’m not sure! She was sweet, but she was also tough, not at all afraid once she she heard from Red about Vivian’s terrible plan to get her out of her cottage and demolish it. A good performance from Jo Viner. And by Winston the cat, who met a sorry end, I believe.

Lighting was very good throughout, often accompanied by eerily ominous music in the woodland scenes.

There were many fun sections, for example when our cub mistress Freddie pulled all kinds of useful items from her rucksack, that included a full-sized garden spade, and a sun umbrella, while she was searching for a length of rope – the items, bigger and bigger, just went on coming.

At one stage, Dolly Dazzle, in an extremely dazzling outfit and wig, complete with feather boa, was accompanied in a glamorous song by all the rustic villagers also wearing feather boas.

Dodger and Hustle tried to muscle in on Dolly’s business with a suitcase full of cosmetic items of their own, which gave an opportunity for a rather satisfying custard pie episode.

Dodger and Hustle opened the second half, from the rear of the auditorium, with the lively number ‘Master of the House’. Then we had the song we could all join in with ‘I like the flowers’, complete with actions, and rather cleverly done as a round. At one point huge numbers of chocolate coins were flung around, at another huge water pistols were wielded. All the fun of the panto was here!

Finally, of course, we met the amazing Winston Wolf (from Portland, Oregon), who was finding England quite a strange place to have landed in. We all fell in love with Keeley Graham in this role. She seemed very American, yet I am assured she’s not, her accent was impeccable, and Winston was a wolf of character.

All ended well, of course. This was a successful panto, containing all kinds of elements, whizzing from scene to scene with a good sense of timing. The numbers were all brilliantly executed, by the principals and the great chorus, and they were short, maybe 2 verses only, which meant that the slick pace was kept up. The last few Compton pantos have been a bit too long, this was a great improvement, timing wise.

So thank you, CLT, for a great evening’s fun to beat the January blues!

Pauline Surrey

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