Springline Radio Players

This is our second audio play written by Chris and we are grateful for him allowing us to present this to our world-wide audience. Chris lives and works in Alberta, Canada and more scripts can be viewed on his website - www.communitytheatreplays.com.

We are pleased to introduce Patricia Motto to our Springline Radio Players website. Patricia’s first published work came in the Byford Booster when, at the age of six, she wowed her teacher with two complete correctly punctuated sentences. Since then, she has at various times taught composition at the college level, made sort of a living as a freelance writer, and, because she became fond of nice meals out, graduated from law school and became an attorney specialising in sexual harassment. Her one act play, “The Cousins’ Book Club,” won major awards at the Watermelon One Act Festival in Maryland and was produced by the Open Door Playhouse in California. Another of her works, “The Best Friends’ Rule” was selected for production at the Dubuque Arts One Act Play Festival. Her work has also been featured at The Arizona Women’s Theatre. Patricia lives happily with her shelter dog, Fosse, in Elmhurst in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, USA where she also choreographs for and dances with The Tree Town Tappers.

"Hard Times" was written by Chris McKerracher and adapted for audio by John and David Hunter. Chris is a prolific author and playwright from the tiny town of Calmar in Alberta, Canada. He has an impressive collection of hilarious, inventive plays which have been performed for many enthusiastic audiences in the central Alberta region, as well as in the USA, across Canada, and now in the UK.

It is December 1937 and the acclaimed medium Felicity Fermington is immersed in seasonal preparations. However, a knock on her cottage door brings news of danger…..where will this lead, what will she do and will the spirits guide her? Karen McKivitt continues on from the highly successful audio play "The Lost Lamp of Lorrata". And there are more adventures to follow.

Burke and Hare, the most notorious killers in Scotland's history, were arrested in 1829 for the murder of sixteen people. During the trial, William Hare, after being given a promise of immunity, testified against his former "business" partner, James Burke. Amid a great public outcry, Hare escaped the gallows, was released from custody and then disappeared into the mists of history. But what happened to William Hare? Listen to find out his dark secret. Our audio play was written by Alan Kilpatrick, an Irish/Native American playwright who currently lives in Belgium with his wife and their three dogs. He is the author of some thirty plays which have been staged at the Autry National Center, Los Angeles; the Diversionary Theater and the La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego; the VSA Fourth St. Art Center and Adobe Theater, Albuquerque; the Alternative Theatre and the Horse Trader Theater, New York; the Blue Door Theater, Spokane; the Croydon Warehouse Theatre and the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, London, the Troubadour Thea

Box and Cox is a one act farce by John Maddison Morton and is based on a French one-act vaudeville, Frisette, which had been produced in Paris in 1846. The original play was used by Sir Arthur Sullivan for his comic opera, which he renamed "Cox and Box. Box and Cox was first produced at the Lyceum Theatre, London, on 1 November 1847, billed as a "romance of real life." The play became popular and was revived frequently through the end of the nineteenth century, with occasional productions in the twentieth century.  Our adaption was written by Neville Teller and first broadcast across the USA in October 2015 in a production by Shoestring Radio Theatre, San Francisco.

A gentleman musician, and a plum of a lady medium combine forces in a 1930’s post luncheon séance to reveal the whereabouts of The Lost Lamp of Lorratata. Where is Lorratata? Why do they need to find the lamp with such urgency? What exactly does the Vicar want and will there be ghastly or ghostly consequences? All will be revealed over the next 40 minutes.

In the morning  room of “The Manor House” Gwendoline and Cecily are gazing attentively out into the garden anticipating the imminent arrival of Jack and Algernon from the garden.

In the garden of “The Manor House”, Jack Worthing’s country estate Cecily, Jack’s ward is studying with her governess Miss Prism before the unexpected arrival of Algernon Moncrief.

The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Algernon Moncrief is playing the piano in the drawing room of his flat in Half Moon Street, Mayfair awaiting the arrival of his formidable aunt Lady Bracknell accompanied by his cousin Gwendolen, and in walks his best friend Jack Worthing.

Back in London Mr. Pickwick pays Dodson and Fogg, sends Jingle and his servant to the West Indies to begin afresh, and learns that Emily Wardle is planning to elope with Snodgrass. Mr. Pickwick convinces Mr. Wardle that Snodgrass is a worthy gentleman, and the couple are married in Mr. Pickwick's newly purchased home. In the meantime Sam Weller has been courting a pretty housemaid named Mary, and under Mr. Pickwick's auspices they are married.

The 23rd of April is not only the birthday of the bard with some historical records also suggesting the date of his death, it is one year and one month since the commencement of our first pandemic lockdown. During this year and one month we have all experienced a roller coaster of emotion.  Unprecedented at least within the life experiences of much of our present generation.  Yet at its most fundamental level the human condition and its reaction to the trials and tribulations to which it is subjected remains unchanged throughout the centuries. The raw emotions felt by Shakespeare and his cast of characters were no different to those expressed by us all in our collective 21st Century battle with our viral enemy.

On returning to London, Mr. Pickwick is taken to the Fleet Prison for debtors because he will not pay damages. In prison he witnesses much misery, filth, and squalor and for a brief time he is victimized by two predatory inmates. There he finds Alfred Jingle and his servant in utter destitution and gives them some assistance. Mr. Pickwick tells Sam Weller to leave him, but Sam has himself jailed for debt to be with his kindly master. Dismayed by the misery of prison, Mr. Pickwick rents a cell by himself and comes out only in the evenings. When Mrs. Bardell is arrested and jailed because she cannot pay her lawyers, Mr. Pickwick begins to soften. Further, Winkle has married Arabella and needs Mr. Pickwick to intercede for them with her brother and his own father. Finally Mr. Pickwick decides to pay costs, which releases himself and Mrs. Bardell, and he also pays Jingle's debts.

Eventually the Pickwickians return to the Wardle farm to celebrate Christmas and the wedding of Mr. Wardle's daughter, Isabella. Amid festivities Snodgrass continues his romance with Emily, and Winkle falls in love with Arabella Allen, a friend of Mr. Wardle's daughters.On Valentine's Day, 1831, Mr. Pickwick is tried for breach of promise. Due to the rhetorical allegations of Serjeant Buzfuz and to the circumstantial evidence, Mr. Pickwick is found guilty and ordered to pay damages, which he refuses to do.

In London, Mr. Pickwick learns that Jingle is in Ipswich and goes there to expose him. Because of a mix-up in bedrooms at an Ipswich Inn Mr. Pickwick is hauled before the justice, a local henpecked tyrant called Mr. Nupkins. Nupkins is visited frequently by Jingle, who is interested in the daughter. Mr. Pickwick extricates himself by proving that Jingle is an adventurer.

In London Mr. Pickwick comes across Sam Weller, a boot cleaner and general handyman whom he takes on as a valet. When Mr. Pickwick tells his widowed landlady, Mrs. Bardell, that he has taken on a servant, she assumes from the ambiguous way he puts it that he intends to marry her. Mrs. Bardell faints in his arms just as Tupman, Snodgrass, and Winkle enter — a compromising circumstance. Mr. Pickwick and his friends go to Eatanswill and are invited to a costume party given by the local literary lioness, Mrs. Leo Hunter, where several varieties of silliness are exhibited. At this party Mr. Pickwick sees Alfred Jingle, whom he pursues to a neighbouring town. Jingle's servant tells Mr. Pickwick that Jingle has designs on a young lady at a boarding school, and Mr. Pickwick decides to prevent the elopement.  

After some mishaps in the cricket match and Mr. Tupman falling in love with Rachael; and Mr. Snodgrass with Emily, Tupman is outsmarted by the vivacious, unscrupulous Jingle, who elopes with Rachael. Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Wardle pursue Jingle and Rachael to London, where, with the help of a lawyer, Mr. Perker, they buy off Jingle and save Rachael Wardle from an unhappy marriage. They continue on by coach to London and there Mr. Pickwick comes across Sam Weller, a boot cleaner and general handyman whom he promised to take on as a valet, subject to approval from his widowed landlady, Mrs Bardell.  

After the Pickwickians meet to begin their first journey they meet Mr. William Wardle, a country squire who invites them to his estate at Dingley Dell. After some mishaps, Mr. Pickwick and his friends arrive at Mr. Wardle's Manor Farm, where they enjoy card games, flirting, storytelling, hunting, and a cricket match. Mr. Tupman falls in love with Mr. Wardle's spinster sister, Rachael; and Mr. Snodgrass falls in love with his daughter, Emily.

The Pickwickians have met Mr Jingle who turns out to be a supposed actor and con man. At their first stop, Mr. Jingle insults a local doctor, and the doctor proposes a duel. Because of a mistaken identity, however, Mr. Winkle receives the challenge, not Mr. Jingle. Will the angry doctor realise his mistake, or will the duel be pursued?

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (also known as The Pickwick Papers) was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with Sketches by Boz published in 1836 Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour and to connect them into a novel. The book became Britain's first real publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise. Our Kid and Me Productions have presented the audio play in nine episodes, commencing on Boxing Day, 26 December 2020 with the other eight episodes being release from January 2021 in two week intervals.