Oh What a Lovely War - November 1999 :  Gaslight - March 2000 :  Our Town - May 2000

Our Country's Good - November 2000 : Maskerade - March 2001 : The Cemetery Club - May 2001

Cause Célèbre - November 2001  : Confusions - March 2002  : Don't Dress for Dinner - May 2002

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - November 2002 : Hobson's Choice - March 2003 : Dead Funny - May 2003

London Suite - November 2003 : Bedroom Farce - March 2004 : Funny Money - May 2004 : The Perfect Couple - June 2004

The Boy Friend - November 2004 : The Winslow Boy - March 2005 : Broken Glass - May 2005

Hotel Paradiso - November 2005 : Ten Times Table - February 2006 : Abigail's Party - May 2006 : Parallels - June 2006

An Italian Straw Hat - November 2006 : Death of a Salesman - February 2007 : Habeas Corpus - May 2007

Tons of Money - November 2007 : Whose Life Is It Anyway? - February 2008

 

 

Pinner Players was founded in 1936, in the heyday of Amateur Dramatics in Britain and apart from four years during the war has continued uninterrupted to the present day. Its aim then, as now, was to perform plays of the highest quality for the local community. The company was originally called The Popular Players but soon changed its name to The Pinner Players Amateur Dramatic Society.  In 1998, in response to a changing social environment, it changed its name again to Pinner Players Theatre Company but the underlying raison d'etre has never changed.

The Popular Players began life in the old Vagabonds Hall, which used to be in Eastcote Road. It changed its name and its venue to the Greenwood Hall in Pinner and then St Anselm’s church hall in Hatch End before finally coming to rest in 1982 in Pinner Village Hall where we opened with ‘Ten Times Table’. The first season in 1936 included ‘The Second Visit’ and ‘Check to the King’ and we closed for the war years in 1940 with ‘Quiet Wedding’. In 1944 we opened with ‘Charity Begins’ and have performed three plays every year since, in March, May and November. In recent years plays have ranged from drama to comedy, farce to musical, thriller to pastiche and have included authors from Shakespeare to Sondheim, Simon to Stoppard, Miller to O’Malley and Anouilh to Ayckbourn. We have put on 182 productions in 64 seasons.

Who can forget the final scene in ‘Stepping Out’, when the drab ‘village hall’ set was transformed into a glittering stage and the rag tag dancers into a polished troupe in top hats and tails!  What about the heart-rending scene in ‘Journey’s End’ when the young Lieutenant is carried in, fatally wounded by a sniper’s bullet; the sheer frothy exuberance of the entire ensemble in ‘Tom Jones’ or the baffled bewilderment of the actor playing the lead in ‘The Crucible’. Curtains opening onto the ‘burnt out apartment’ in ‘The Rise and Fall of Little Voice’ and the wonderfully atmospheric back yard in ‘All My Sons’ earned a spontaneous round of applause from the audience. No-one from Pinner Players has gone on to become famous, but most of them give performances of West End quality every time and the continuing support of a loyal and growing audience proves that PP offers a quality product which is looked forward to and enjoyed by young and old alike.  

We are proud of our local and theatrical connections; our first president was the late Hugh McDermott and in 1966, Bob Holness, then an up-and-coming young television personality, was asked to take over as president. He and his wife Mary have been staunch supporters and fans ever since - even performing in a couple of the music halls.

But there are problems; like all drama groups in order to survive Pinner Players has to attract new, young blood, and once it gets new members it has to keep them. Back-stage workers are especially hard to attract - all work and no applause! Young people have exams, university and new jobs to keep them busy; the demands of business often mean that established members struggle to fit in even one play per year.

The choice of plays for each season is a problem with which the committee struggles every year. We marked the millennium by performing plays taken from the most significant plays of the last 100 years, as described by the National Theatre, but we must also look forward. We believe we were the first amateur group in Britain to perform ‘The Rise and Fall of Little Voice’ in 2000. We staged Terry Pratchett’s Maskerade in 2001. Went back to basics with ‘Confusions’ by Ayckbourn and ‘Don’t Dress for Dinner’ by Camoletti in 2002 and will continue to perform old and new plays by old favourites and new authors alike.

Pinner Players has survived changes in culture, leisure activity and venue; it continues to attract members and audiences and despite television, cinema, the internet and the pace of modern life it continues to go from strength to strength. In 2006 we celebrated our 70th year and we certainly plan to be around for many more years to come.

So if you've ever been tempted to take part in a play, come along to one of our auditions or rehearsals and see what you've been missing. It's never too soon or too late to start!