‘A Bunch of Amateurs’ at the Town Hall – actually it’s a Marlborough Players production…..

A comedy by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, ‘A Bunch of Amateurs‘ had its first staging at The Watermill Theatre in Newbury back in May 2014.

But, now, nine years later it’s travelled a few miles down the road to the Town Hall, here in Marlborough.

The context: Keen to boost his flagging career, washed-up Hollywood action hero, Jefferson Steele, arrives in England to play King Lear in Stratford only to find that this is not the birthplace of the Bard but a sleepy Suffolk village and rather than Dame Judi Dench or Sir Kenneth Branagh the cast are a bunch of amateurs!

Not quite a ‘Private Eye’ production, but Ian Hislop is Editor, and has been since 1986 and Nick Newman has been with the magazine since 1981, as well as producing cartoons for many other publications including The Guardian, Punch and The Spectator. He was The Cartoon Art Trust’s Pocket/Gag Cartoonist of the Year in 1997, 1998, 2005 and 2016. He won the Sports Journalists’ Association’s Cartoonist of the Year award in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Ian is probably better known for his presence in the BBC’s ‘Have I Got News For You’, which is now in its ‘nth’ series.

‘A Bunch of Amateurs’ is at the Marlborough Town Hall, starting Thursday 08 June and with the final performance on Saturday 10 June. Starts at 7:30pm. Tickets are available from The White Horse Bookshop or online by by clicking here.

So as a comedy – it should have pedigree…….