Good Things
24th - 31st January
Good Things is a gentle, funny comedy set in a Charity shop. Susan, a volunteer, has been dumped by her husband and replaced by a younger model. Facing the "Big 50" Susan has to cope with a father entering his second childhood, an adolescent daughter and an Ex who still has the power to wound. Good Things is an hilarious look at people in middle age trying to find love for the 1st ; 2nd or 3rd time around, whilst retaining their humour, sanity and dignity. Great characters make this an entertaining watch and take you on a journey that spans 6th January, 14th February and Christmas Eve of the same year. See what happens when people eaves-drop on private conversations and jump to the entirely wrong conclusions.
Home
7th - 14th March
The play opens with Harry and Jack.
These two charming, nattily dressed gents meet in what at first seems to be a municipal park. They reminisce about the war (Jack feels that had it continued for another thirty years the nation's moral fibre would have been much improved), discuss the weather and exchange views on work - Jack is in the wholesale business, Harry had to abandon his youthful dream of becoming a dancer and is now a heating engineer. Both are decidedly eccentric and Jack has an inexhaustible fund of stories about his accident-prone family and friends, who tend to fall off cliffs or break their necks tumbling down stairs the day before they were due to move to a bungalow.
If you've ever sat next to an empty seat in a park or public library, the chances are that you'll have attracted the company of someone like Harry or Jack - strange but harmless. But with the arrival of the raucous Kathleen and Marjorie, the plot thickens; we realise that the park is in fact the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, the "home" of the title. Kathleen's feet may be tortured by her hospital-issue shoes (her comfy lace-ups were confiscated as a suicide risk) but there's nothing wrong with her libido, much to the disgust of the prim and proper Marjorie. According to her Kathleen was already well known to the boys in blue called out when she wrecked her flat - "They had to send out the police in threesomes, they couldn't trust two and one was never enough". How much of this is true? Was Jack really admitted because of his unhealthy interest in little girls? Did Harry's wife dump him merely because she couldn't cope with his depression? We never really find out, but of course that isn't the point. Home is the story of two odd couples from opposite ends of the social spectrum, incapable - for whatever reason - of coping with what life has thrown at them.
Abigail's Party
25th April - 2nd May
This is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and satire on the aspirations and tastes ofthe ‘new’ middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970’s. Set in – the London – side of Essex (theoretical Romford) Beverley Moss invites her new neighbours, Angela and Tony, over for drinks. They moved into the road just two weeks ago. She has also invited her neighbour Susan (Sue), a divorcee of three years, whose fifteen-year-old daughter Abigail is also holding a party back at their home. Beverley’s husband Laurence is typically late home from work, in fact only just before the guests arrive and the ‘gathering’ starts off in a stiff fashion as the virtual strangers tentatively get to know each other. As the hostess with the ‘mostess’ Beverley endeavours to keep the drinks flowing and the alcohol takes effect on the evening. Sniping, flirting, naivety and too much stress is a cocktail for disaster as the play concludes.
Tommy's Long Weekend
6th - 13th June
You don’t mess with Tommy Taylor. Everyone knows him – or do they? Three particularly harrowing days while fighting in the trenches of the Somme have turned him into one of Grimsby’s toughest pub landlords. But, with Britain once again on the brink of war and the Mariners playing a vital FA Cup semi-final against Wolves, it promises to be another challenging and poignant time for Tommy.
For their latest play, journalists John (Tommy’s grandson) and Victoria Taylor have trawled family and local history archives to shine a light on the difficult inter-war years – known as The Long Weekend - in a Grimsby surviving the
Great Depression with humour, beer, fish... and football.
Tommy’s Long Weekend is a funny, affectionate and nostalgic story, based on the life of the legendary local publican, starting with scenes from his time in the army and ending with Grimsby’s FA cup semi final against Wolves in 1939.
We meet his wife Nell, his son Jack, Mr Grange of Grange Wintringham, pub
regulars Norm, Frank & Bob and Fifi, lady of the night, amongst others.
This is another first for the Caxton Theatre, a world premiere, a local play
about local people which will be fascinating & fun for cast and audience alike.
The Unfriend
18th - 25th July
While on holiday, Peter and Debbie befriend Elsa: a lusty, Trump-loving widow from Denver, USA.She's less than woke but kind of wonderful. They agree to stay in touch – because no one ever really does, do they?
When Elsa invites herself to stay a few months later, they decide to look her up online. Too late, they learn the truth about Elsa Jean Krakowski. Deadly danger has just boarded a flight to London! But how do you protect all that you love from mortal peril without seeming, well, a bit impolite?
Because guess who's coming... to murder!
Steven Moffat's play The Unfriend takes a hilarious and satirical look at middle-class England's disastrous instinct always to appear nice. It was first performed at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in 2022, before transferring to London's West End – first to the Criterion Theatre, then to Wyndham – in 2023.
Steven Moffat is an award-winning writer whose internationally successful television shows include Doctor Who, Sherlock and Dracula – the latter two co-written with actor and writer Mark Gatiss, who made his stage directorial debut with The Unfriend.
A Rainbow Over Sheffield
5th - 12th September
Set in a run down flat in Sheffield, the play will have the audience laughing one minute and crying the next. Rusty is a prostitute, and she and her friend Mavis run a business from their flat. This mainly involves dressing up to re-enact scenes from famous films for kinky pensioners.
Rusty dreams of breaking away and starting a new life, but breaking away from her violent pimp will take some doing. A visit from her young sister triggers a series of events that lead her to see a flicker of light in the tunnel, and a chance for a new life. But life is cruel, and rainbows don’t last forever. Acruel turn of events puts her in a position where she must…………(now that
would be telling!)
The Effect
18th - 25th October
Connie and Tristan are two strangers. Connie and Tristan are two strangers. Young urban twenty somethings trying to earn some extra cash by taking part in a drugs trial. Dr Sealy and Dr James are monitoring the pair very closely during the trial. As time goes on Connie and Tristan find themselves strongly attracted. The two Doctors also seem to have a connection. But is it the drugs causing the attraction or something else?
In the end everyone takes a leap in the dark.
What’s love got to do with it?
Maybe we will find out.
Bleak Expectations
28th November - 5th December
The story Charles Dickens might have written after drinking too much gin…
Follow half orphan Pip’s extraordinary exploits with sisters Pippa and Poppy and best friend Harry Biscuit, as they attempt to escape the calculating clutches of the dastardly Mr Gently Benevolent, defeat the hideous Hardthrasher siblings, and deflect disaster at every turn! Will evil be vanquished by virtue? Can Love triumph over hate?
Bleak Expectations is a hilarious chaotic caper, featuring dastardly villains,
preposterous names, pulse-quickening romances, heart-rendering death scenes, and definitely, probably, hopefully a happy ending.
