They dreamed and schemed…
It was three days of drama - with a side order of laughter.
BUSINESSES, service clubs, a few seniors and the odd Moth teamed up with the Shelly Beach Rotarians to produce the hilarious melodrama `Olumpic Dreams and Schemes’. The annual offering has always come out tops on the South Coast’s entertainment calender and this year’s side-splitting take on the Olympic games was no exception.
From the moment the `Olumpic squares’ were lowered on to the stage, the audience realised they were going to be royally entertained. Royal, being the operative word. The Moths (the old soldiers not the ugly caterpillars with wings) not wanting to be outdone by the London shindig when ‘James Bond’ and ‘Her Majesty’ made their dramatic helicopter arrival, created their own economy version. It featured a remote control chopper and a queen (at least that is what was printed in the programme) of sorts.
A colourful collection of athletes of the rather-not-so-athletic variety made their way onto the stage to perform their skits, which ranged from the wobbly Ama Croka Croka to the willowy Glo Jobbers, the well-endowed opera singer, the waspish weight lifter and whacky undertaker. It was a laugh a minute.
The show, staged over three nights at the Port Shepstone Civic Centre, was presented by the Rotary Club of Shelly Beach, with input from the Hibiscus and Port Shepstone Rotarians, Margate Round Tablers, the Moths and a number of local businesses’ staff members and talented individuals. At the end of each night’s performances their was an auction, where audience members had a chance to raise more money by bidding for their favourite two skits, which were performed again. Hats off to the Margate Round Tablers their ‘Glo Job’ routine was voted the the best skit on all three nights.
The sold out productions raised an impressive amount of money which will be used to assist local charities and community projects.
Take a bow, show convenors Hugh Strickland and Ian Smith, big bouquets to the producer extraordinaire, Vanessa Howard-Tripp, who also conceived the idea and turned it into a production that offered Olympic scale laughs. The standing ovation goes to the enthusiastic cast.
