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'Dirty Business' at Catbrook Village Hall,
Chepstow
On Saturday evening we had the pleasure of the
GreysandFavour Theatre company performing the
play, 'Dirty Business', at the village hall.
This play had been booked through the Night Out
scheme and was a welcome addition to the
list of events taking place at the hall, providing
the community with the opportunity to experience
an on stage performance with real actors!
Julie-Anne, Steve, Cathy and Grace all arrived at
the hall on time and got stuck in helping out
setting up the layout of the hall and constructing
their props for the performance. It was lovely to
chat to them about the play, where they had
previously performed it and how the subject
matter had certainly resonated with audiences. All
4 were friendly and looking forward to the show in
the evening and were certainly easy to look
after.
The performance took place to 30 residents and
there were certainly chuckles and knowing laughs
as the acts were played out. The characters were
real and one could easily sympathise with the
situation the 2 cleaners found themselves in and
their failed attempts to rectify the situation so
as the maintain the status quo, which we all know
is impossible in these days of tighter
budgets.
The final 2 acts were shorter and perhaps more
could have been made of the 'blackmail' theme
to match the first act which was the more
comical.
Those attending certainly enjoyed the performance
and the cast of 3, Steve, Cathy and Grace
gave it their all assisted by Julie-Anne who kept
it all under control.
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Andrew Pullan,
Night Out events
Saturday 13th May 2017
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'Dirty Business' at Tenby
Arts Club
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Last Friday at Tenby and
District Arts Club, a large
audience gathered to see a play
presented by the Greys and
Favour Theatre Company (writes
A.D.)
The play, 'Dirty Business',
was written by Derek Webb.
Dirty Business is about
two cleaners Josie and Angela,
who are supposedly busy cleaning
the office of council department
head, Roger Beasley, when in
between their chatting, they
find evidence of swinging budget
cuts planned for the near
future, and wonder who will lose
their job. They also find
evidence that seems to
incriminate Roger Beasley, and
plan to use this to make him
change his mind about the cuts.
On confronting him in his office
the next morning, things don't
go to plan, with their attempt
at blackmail failing
disastrously and another attempt
to make the most of the
situation to stop the cuts also
failing... however, in the final
scene, set a few months later,
the repercussions can be seen.
This play has plenty of humour,
with a steady flow of
malapropisms from Josie, and an
hilarious piece on the
difference between vertical and
horizontal cleaning from Angela.
From a slow start, the tension
mounted, and the unexpected
climax drew an appreciative
laugh from the audience.
Cathy Morris played Josie, and
Grace Dixon, played Angela.
Roger Beasley was played by
Steve Grey, and the play was
directed by Julie-Anne Grey. It
was a very entertaining evening.
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November 2016
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Dirty Business
By Derek Webb
Performed by GreysAndFavour Company.
The company arrived on time, set up basic but
effective stage scenery, refreshed themselves and
were ready to perform. It is to their credit that
one of the actors arrived from her mother's
hospital bedside to perform and return to the
hospital after the theatre performance.
The production is witty, topical and
down-to-earth. The characters are believable, the
actors convincing, the dialogue produced knowing
giggles rather than gales of laughter. It was a
simple production, well written and performed and
created an enjoyable evening for the audience. The
performance is a little over an hour in total.
Anyone involved in any of the public services will
relate to the experiences of the cleaners and how
the financial squeeze has affected many part-time
hourly paid workers. The production whilst being
entertaining is also thought-provoking. I would
recommend this company and performance to small
theatres, village halls and similar venues.
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Ned Heywood
Chairman of the Drill Hall Management Committee
November 2016
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TASTER MADE US HUNGRY FOR MORE
Dirty Business by Derek Webb
South Penlan Community Centre
28th November 2015
On Saturday, emerging company GreysAndFavour
offered us a "taster" from their latest
production, "Dirty Business", the comedy by
Pembrokeshire-based playwright, Derek Webb.
Dirty Business portrays the "after-hours" life of
a council office, when cleaners Angie and Josie
move in to conduct their sweeping and
dusting. Angie is a pub-quiz fanatic while
Josie has a good line in mangling the English
language and a lot of amusement comes from their
"intra-team communication" (i.e. gossip).
The crux comes when they discover a confidential
document detailing proposed spending cuts - and
the cruellest cut of all: their jobs are at
risk. But they also find something much
spicier - evidence that a senior official, Roger,
is having an illicit affair with one of his
staff. Armed with this scandalous material,
could they possibly persuade Roger to reconsider
his spending recommendations? They wouldn't, would
they...?
As Angie and Josie, Grace Dixon and Cathy Morris
gave us two recognizable characters, amusing
backchat and some laugh-aloud one-liners.
[...] The audience duly chuckled along.
All in all, an encouraging outing from
GreysAndFavour, presenting an entertaining excerpt
that left us wanting more.
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Ron Meldon
November 2015
Ron Meldon is the author of several plays that
have been presented at the Grand Theatre, Swansea,
including "Edge of the World", "A Bigger Fool",
"Eternal Fire" and "Secrets". His latest project,
"Leir & Co", a modern re-imagining of the King
Lear legend, was performed at the Grand Theatre in
May 2016
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