• Felix Humble
• Mercy Lott
• Flora Humble
• George Pye
• Jim The Gardener
• Rosie Pye
  

• Director
• Stage Manager
• ASM/Props
• Production Assistants
• Lighting Design
• Lighting
• Sound Design
• Sound
• ASM/Continuity
• Set design
• wardrobe
• programme/Poster design

• Stephen Lowin
• Trish Richings
• Sylvia Aston
• Alan Lade
• Michael Bulman
• Clare Forshaw

• Cathryn Parker
• Phil Armstrong
• Ray & Debbie Cox
• Tony Bannister & Lori Boul
• Geoff Parker & Gary English
• Cathryn Parker & Alan Lade
• Geoff Parker
• Robert Hargreaves
• Peter Barnes
• Cathryn Parker
• Helena Bell, & the cast
• Alan lade

SEAFORD GAZETTE Review by Derek Watts

Charlotte Jones’s ‘Humble Boy’, seen at Seaford Little Theatre last week is a comedy of sharply-observed characters and witty dialogue about serious themes - broken vows, failed hopes, family angst and, yes, the joys of bee-keeping. It has been seen as a modern re-working of the Hamlet  theme but stands up in its own right as a very funny, very sad, highly intelligent and extremely touching drama focusing on the raw intensity of family emotions.

Felix Humble, a Cambridge astro-physicist, is in search of a unified field theory. Following his much-loved father’s sudden death he returns to his rural home in the Cotswolds for the funeral after an absence of seven years. His mother, Flora, the symbolic queen bee in the Humble hive, is attractive, difficult and domineering and her lover, George Pye, and his daughter Rosie, who once had her heart broken by Felix. Stephen Lowin conveyed the awkward inability to cope with real people and real emotions in a fine reading and Sylvia Aston gave a suitably haughty and unsympathetic performance. She clearly did not share his father’s passion for bees and was much more interested in the louche, brash George Pye, played with disarming panache by Alan Lade.

There are hidden agendas and guilty secrets lurking in the garden, where the action is set. Felix sees a character whom no-one else seems to realise is present: even more strange, this man shares his father‘s name…....This is the gardener Jim, played by Michael Bulman, who offers a wise commentary on Felix’s heartbreak at the death of his beloved bees.

The comic set-piece, Flora’s lunch, was beautifully played, giving Trish Richings, as the helpful neighbour Mercy, the opportunity for a wonderful tour de force as she said Grace. As usual, Trish hit the mark – as did Clare Forshaw, as Rosie, especially when she movingly revealed that her daughter was in fact Felix’s.

Jones’s work is an elegant variation on the traditional family play and for all the talk about bees and black holes, however, it is as a son-and-mother story and a study in grief that the play works best. The almost unbearable chaos of Flora’s lunch party and the ensuing ghastly violence has overtones both of Fawlty Towers and Edward Albee - while you want desperately to watch it because you care so passionately about these sadly-flawed people, you feel the need to do it from behind the sofa. At many times, as in life, you won't know whether to laugh or cry.  

Cathryn Parker has skilfully directed a beautifully acted production of a fine modern play, one in which the skilful weaving of parallels and analogies gives the play more depth than at first appears.

SEAFORD SCENE Review by Andrea Hargreaves

If this play were a rose it would be a hybrid tea, the type that flowers beautifully for weeks on end but doesn't necessarily have the embracing fragrance and more fleeting bloom of an old-fashioned variety. Humble Boy must have been a problematic play to direct, its author, Charlotte Jones, writing it in a style hybrid that seems to borrow from Hamlet and Ayckbourn with some of Tom Stoppard's multi layering, giving this dark comedy lots of laughs, and much to consider in the way of dysfunctional relationships and the eating of humble pie. Ultimately, however, while appreciating the clever and wittily delivered lines, I felt the plot lacks the clarity to satiate all the senses.

But enough of the play itself, for this was merely the vehicle that conveyed splendid acting from the cast of six. That the players were prepared to give up three rehearsals a week to develop it is testament to their commitment. It is set in a wonderful garden, for which Ray and Debbie Cox should take a not too humble bow, and director, Cathryn Parker, certainly knew how to nurture her 'roses', for flower they did. There was no curtain, so a few minutes before the start and during the interval the actors could be seen pottering about, setting the scene for a play which required them to learn — and to their credit remember — a huge number of lines. Stephen Lowin as Felix Humble, back for his father’s funeral, showed great breadth as at home with comedy as with his more serious lines. Seaford stalwart, Sylvia Aston, took on the part of Flora, his mother, with skill believably transferring from shallow and brittle to deeper character as understanding changes her at the play's end. As her lover, George Pye, AIan Lade once again showed what an asset he is to Seaford, notably with wonderfully timed drunken capering. His feisty daughter, Rosie, one-time lover of Felix who fathered her child, was well played by Clare Forshaw, and Trish Richings as Flora's friend rightly received an ovation for a very funny key speech, The pivot of the piece, however, is the gardener feelingly portrayed by Michael Bulman, which brings me back to the brilliant staging, the real star of this production being the set, particularly a stunning beehive that lit up at focal points to illustrate the part that bees play in this odd story. Great atmosphere was conjured by the lighting and sound team, so more applause please for Gary English, Geoff Parker and Robert Hargreaves. Helena Bell did a great job of the costumes,

Responsible for the acclaimed The Cemetery Club in 2013, with Humble Boy Parker has again proved herself as a director. I can only conclude with the words of the lady sitting next to me: 'You'd pay a lot of money to see something as good as this in London.’ Yes, this was Seaford Little Theatre in full bloom.