Frodsham Players present Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table.

May 7 2009 Chester Chronicle

IT all adds up for Frodsham Players’ latest production.

The amateur theatre company is presenting Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy Ten Times Table at the community centre this week.

The play, written in 1977, centres on plans for a village pageant.

On the committee is Eric, a young left-wing schoolteacher played by Mark Mitchell, who decides to turn the pageant into a rally for proletarian revolution. The right-wing faction is led by the chairman’s formidable wife Helen.

Ayckbourn drew his inspiration for the play from the tortuous committee process involved in moving his Scarborough repertory company from the Library Theatre to the Stephen Joseph Theatre.

The play was written in the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, when celebrations and pageants took place in towns and villages across the country.

But it has many elements for a 21st century audience including the scarcity of funding and the dispiriting restrictions brought about by Health and Safety rules.

Ten Times Table is at the Frodsham Community Centre tonight, Thursday, and tomorrow at 7.45 pm. Tickets are £6, from 01928 732 515, from Frodsham Frames on Main Street or from douglas.cashin@talk21.com.