Old friendship renewed for Arundel's theatre trail

She was tempted to watch a Drip Action play and wanted to become involved. And then the penny dropped. The company has as its artistic director Bill Brennan with whom she used to work some years ago.

“Bill and I used to be colleagues at what was then New England College in Ford. New England College was the British campus for an American College from New England. It was an interesting place. We often had students coming over from the Middle East and the Far East and from all over, from families who wanted their children to have an American business degree but didn't want them to go to America.

“I was working at the College and Bill filled in for me, in the first instance, when I was on maternity leave. He stayed on and we became the theatre department. When the college closed in 1996, Bill and I went our separate ways. Fast forward to March 2023 when I came to see Drip Action's Bakersfield Mist production, a play by a friend of mine, Stephen Sachs, in the States who is of some reknown now. A mutual friend let me know that the play was being performed in Sussex. I looked it up and found it at the Vic with Drip Action.

“I chatted afterwards with the artistic director – one Bill Brennan – although we didn't recognise each other at first. I was very interested in their work and got home with all their bumpf and I looked at the name then I realised. I thought ‘Bill Brennan! New England College!’ And there we were back on home turf together.”

Deni has since joined Drip Action and is directing her first project with them for Drip Action’s theatre trail, a traditional part of the Arundel Festival every August. This year’s trail offers a slightly reduced line-up with just the four plays this time, rather than the usual eight, running from Saturday, August 19 to Saturday, August 26 each day. The plays are: 11am Unfinished by Simon Brett. Arundel Town Hall, Maltravers Street, BN18 9AP; 12pm Tomboy by Stuart Smithers. Priory Playhouse, London Road, BN18 9AT in association with The Arundel Players; 1pm. All of a Quandary by Jacqueline Puchtler, The Victoria Institute, BN18 9DG and 3pm Kevins Above! by Claire Scott, 15 Maltravers Street, BN18 9AP. Tickets £6 from www.ticketsource.co.uk/drip-action-theatre-company.

Kevins Above! is Deni’s domain: “It comes from a writer from Scotland who has a particular interest in writing for the stage. Drip Action used to have a competition for the theatre trail and she submitted this play and then Covid came along and the piece went into the Covid vault to be produced at some point and now out it has come.

“It is about two Kevins who both come to their demise, one in a road accident, one drowns, and they find themselves in the afterlife relocation centre. They are to be moved onwards and then we'll see what happens next but it turns out that there should only be one Kevin. It's a mistake. There were two with exactly the same background and details but only one of them should have died.

"It's a great play. It's hilarious and it's fun and it's new and it's different!”