Auditions for Carlton’s August production, Cold Comfort Farm, are taking place this week.
Based on the comic novel by Stella Gibbons, this adptation written by Paul Doust and directed by Anna Parker parodies the romanticised and often doom-laden accounts of rural life that were popular in the early 1930s.
Think D H Lawrence and primal urges, Brontë brooding on the moors, with a good pinch of Evelyn Waugh. The novel is an affectionate satire
Well educated but poor, Flora, orphaned in her 20s, is homeless. She goes to her relatives, the Starkadder family of Cold Comfort farm, in the rural ghastliness of… Sussex.
Liking everything to be tidy, she sets about tidying her dysfunctional family: seemingly insane matriarch Aunt Ada, who saw ‘something narsty in the woodshed’ as a child, beautiful Elfine, who roams the hills writing poetry, Uncle Amos, who leads the religious cult of ‘The Quivering Brethren’ (and sisters), Rennet who throws herself in a well whenever ‘Mark’ is mentioned, let alone Cousin Judith’s obsession with her son Seth, who is lustily obsessed with his own gorgeousness.
Performances will take place from Tuesday 12th – Saturday 16th August at the Studio at New Wimbledon Theatre.
