Heads up at the Loft

Buy photos » Talking Heads - top to bottom - Graham (Howard Scott Walker), Susan (Mary MacDonald), and Doris (Anne Wood). (s)

CHIT chat will not be in short supply when Leamington's Loft Theatre presents Alan Bennett's classic Talking Heads from July 18 to 27.

Gus MacDonald directs A Bed Among the Lentils, in which Mary MacDonald plays Susan, the nervous, alcoholic wife of a vicar.

As a distraction from her frustrating and unfulfilled life with her ambitious and, as she sees it, vainly insensitive husband and his doting parishioners, Susan is conducting an affair with local grocer, Ramesh Ramesh, discovering something about herself and God in the process.

A Chip in the Sugar, directed by Sam Harris, finds life becoming more complicated for mild middle-aged Graham, played by Howard Scott Walker.

Jealousy sets in when his mother, with whom he stills lives, gets back together with old flame, Frank. Matters come to a head when Frank proposes marriage and suggests that Graham should move out and into a hostel.

But Frank is hiding a secret and when Graham finds out he has no hesitation in letting his mother know, restoring the status quo and his comfortable life but destroying her hopes of happiness.

In A Cream Cracker Under the Settee, 75-year-old Doris has suffered a fall while trying to clear up after her less than thorough home help.

Alone and injured, she ponders her place in society and decides she’d rather die on her own in considerable pain than live in a care home ‘smelling of pee’.

But it soon becomes apparent that Doris is not the sweet old lady she first appears to be and that her constant nagging may have been responsible for her husband’s early death. Rachel Tompkins directs with Anne Wood as Doris.

Tickets can be booked online via www.loft-theatre.co.uk, or by calling 0844 493 4938 between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday. The box office will also be open from 7pm to 8.30pm on Monday and Tuesday July 16 and 17, and on each performance evening.

The performance on July 19 has been pre-sold to charity and no tickets for the performance will be available for general sale.

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