Bag
Louise Gold
played Bella, ?6 October to end of November (and ? December) 1983
Cast (includes)
Bella - Louise Gold
Lizzie Evelyn Doggert
Zoe Kathryn Apanowicz
Stella Josie Lawrence
Nick Robbie Barnett
Production Team
Author - Bryony Lavery
Director - Michele Frankel
Designed by Caroline Hanania
Tour Dates (includes)
Battersea Arts Centre ?20 October 1983
New End Theatre, ?10 to 13 November 1983
Grantham Leisure Centre, supposed to open on 24 November 1983
Southport Arts Centre, opened 31 November 1983
The opening
night of the performance at Grantham Leisure Centre is actually in The
Guinness Book Of Records for Lowest Theatre Attendance, it
had an audience of nil. Apparently in the end the cast gave up and went for a
Chinese meal instead!
The Grantham opening
night has also been a question in Trivial Pursuit.
Five years
later Louise Gold found herself in another flop production that also
made it into the Guinness Book Of Records, Ziegfeld.
It was by no
means the first time that Louise Gold had found herself in a touring
production scheduled to play a Leisure Centre, some nine years earlier at the
start of her career, she had been in a tour of Hair that
played Gloucester Leisure Centre.
Kathryn Apanowicz may have taken part in Thing
A Thon.
Josie Lawrence went on to star on television in Rachel And The Roarettes, with Louise Gold as one of her supporting
players.
Josie Lawrence went on to appear in Happily Ever
After, her television credits include A
Week In The West End.
It seems
likely that the actor Robbie Barnett
is also the puppeteer of the same name, whose puppeterring credits include working:
The Great Muppet Caper, The Dark Crystal, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and, Muppet Treasure Island.
Critics Comments
With her production style, director Michele Frankel builds on the gap
between the absoluteness of the theme and its mundane field of action to
highlight the comedy, using the performance skills of mime and improvisation
instead of sets and props. It adds enormously to the sense of mischievous
humour and focuses attention on the characters. Each of these is meticulously
portrayed: the kindly insecure Bella (Louise Gold), .... Ann FitzGerald, THE STAGE, 20 October 1983.
Links about Bag
A
review, of a musical of A Christmas Carol for which Bryony Lavery has written the book:
http://www.qsulis.demon.co.uk/Reviews/A_Christmas_Carol.htm
