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Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet
by Alan Bennett
&
Carry On
by Jennie Webb
Friday 6th MARCH 2026Erin Arts Centre, Port Erin
Photos
All proceeds to the benefit of Alzheimer's Society (IOM)
Legion Players and Rushen Players presented an evening
of theatre
and raised £550 for the benefit of Alzheimer’s Society (IOM)
Miss
Fozzard Finds Her Feet
paints an intimate portrait of one woman
and the forces that shape her life.
We
are deeply moved by Bennett’s compassionate display of human frailty in the
person
of an ordinary, middle-aged Englishwoman who speaks as though chatting
with an old friend.
Miss Fozzard innocently tells us her story, completely unaware of the poignant,
heart-rending reality that lies beneath the everyday events of her existence.
Carry On finds
a woman of a certain age weighing her losses and
what she carries - how she’s been carrying it - as she
looks ahead
at a new and uncertain leg of her journey.
 |
| Cast - Miss Fozzard | |
| Director |
Stephen Craige |
| Miss Fozzard | Stephanie Gray |
| Cast - Carry On |
|
| Beth | Sarah Lockyer |
| Backstage Crew | |
| Lights, Sound & Publicity | Ron Beswick |
Review by Barnaby Lockyer
Miss Fozzard eventually finds her feet while Beth
prepares herself for 'the next leg of her journey'.
So it is, a play on body
parts features in both of these clever monologues.
Alan Bennett is well known for his Talking Heads,
exploring human eccentricity with precision and wit;
LA-based playwright Jennie
Webb writes what she calls ‘domestic absurdism’, focusing on women’s experience.
Legion Players bring gentle background music to Bennett's
work and break up the narrative by means of
subtle movement and convincing mime.
Miss Fozzard is at home to us, initially in slippers, and we the audience felt
increasingly at home with her in her dignified,
clear but often laugh-out-loud
performance, the delivery of lines focusing exactly as it should on the
pleasures of mischievously
playful language and the gradual disclosure of
character and relationships.
Costume and props aided this development most effectively.
It seemed appropriate under the circumstances
that perky peony buds should replace drooping roses in a vase on the table, and the unboxed scarlet high heels
revealed
at the end of the piece confirmed Miss Fozzard’s emancipation.
Rushen Players’ Carry On featured a piece of red
luggage and no other prop, but expressive acting and gesture to convey parts of
the body
associated with the poetic images of lost friends and relatives
remembered were not only relatable but also powerfully moving.
The event was a fundraiser for the Alzheimer's Society, in
memory of Susie Beswick, a stalwart of drama on the Island.
It took place just
over a year after a staging of Under Milk Wood at Erin Arts, which paid
tribute to Susie's life and love of theatre,
and brought together her family
and friends, including those she had worked with over the years.
I know she’d
have also appreciated the language and poignant humour of tonight’s plays.
