A Time to Keep is a play written by David Edgar

David Edgar (playwright)

David Edgar is a British playwright and author who has had more than sixty of his plays published and performed on stage, radio and television around the world, making him one of the most prolific dramatists of the post-1960s generation in Great Britain.He was resident playwright at the Birmingham...

 and Stephanie Dale.

It is the fifth play to be specifically written for community actors in Dorchester, with the aim of providing a rollicking story with many roles. The "community play" contains over 100 characters, from George III and his court to the criminal classes. The original production featured over 130 actors and was directed by Jon Oram with music by Tim Laycock.

Plot

In the summer of 1804 a group of women decide to put on a play to entertain the troops and George III.

Set against the backdrop of the threatened Napoleonic invasion of 1804, A Time to Keep inhabits terrain somewhere between Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

 and Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

, with its ambitious middle classes, its garrison of eligible officers, and its impoverished low-life. Driving the plot is an unlikely but passionate romance between a well-born but feisty young woman and the youngest son of a family of notorious smugglers.

The Original Cast

King George III - Mike Roberts

Queen Charlotte - Sue Theobald

Princess Augusta - Emily Taylor

Princess Mary - Tanya Harrison

Princess Sophia - Izzie Hall

Henrietta Stickland - Miranda Blazeby

Caroline Waldegrave - Rose Swann

Elizabeth Waldegrave - Daphne Payne

General Charles Fitzroy - Anthony Thorpe

General Garth - John Ramsden

Ann Mason - Ann Jonathan

Mary Stickland - Natalie Wakelin

Betty Sanger - Jessica Holloway

Edith Oldis - Angie Ramsden

George Corbin - Roan Doyle

Jane Harvey - Clare Daniel

Martha Ayres - Sarah Peterkin

Rebecca Brindle - Joy Wallis

Sara Bly - Sue McGarel

Susan Thorne - Sheila Johns

Captain Count Kielmanregge - Joseph Parsons

Major James Brine - Peter Rothman

Captain Joseph Hagley - Lee Fowgies

Lieutenant Frederick Baron Uslau - Ken McGregor

Excise Man 1 - Kevin Morris

Excise Man 2 - David Reeve

Recruiting Sergeants - Darren Richards and Kevin Morris

---This Cast List is incomplete at this time---

Reviews

“A Time to Keep is a brilliant piece of theatre”

“Beautifully crafted, witty and well paced”

“Immersive and strangely moving”

“It’s cheering to see a noble and communal art resurrected with such conviction”

Luke Kennard,Times Literary Supplement.



“A spirit lifting evening”

“Filled with an infectious happy energy”

“This is theatre at it’s fundamental level: a shared, imaginative experience, communicated with winning passion”

The Guardian - four stars

Guardian Review

The future

A Time to Keep is currently being adapted for twenty actors and will be staged at LAMDA in autumn 2009 and then tour to the Lake District later that year. Directed by Penny Cherns. Musical Direction by Tim Laycock.

It is currently being performed by a group of second year Drama students at Loughborough University, to great critical acclaim. (2011)

The play is published by Nick Hern Books. and is available for licensing.