Season 27 Play 6 – Ring Around The Moon by Jean Anouilh
Ring Around The Moon
17th – 22nd March 1975
Directed by
Gordon Doble
Cast
Joshua, a crumbling butler – Arthur Bailey
Hugo, a young man-about-town – Geoff Bryson
Frederic, his twin brother, in love with – Geoff Bryson
Diana Messerschmann, engaged to Frederic, secretly in love with Hugo – Sandra Williams
Lady India, Messerschmann’s mistress, secretly in love with – Margaret Chapman
Patrice Bombelles, Messerschmann’s secretive secretary – Peter Hall
Madame Desmortes, Aunt to Hugo, Frederic and Lady India – Mary Kilduff
Capulet, her faded companion – Rita Walker
Messerschmann, Diana’s father a melancholy millionaire – John Burgess
Romainville, a lepidopterist, a patron of – Roy Buxton
Isabelle, a ballet dancer – Marilyn Baines
Her mother, a teacher of pianoforte – Jean Stuckey
General – Donald Clough
Double – Rob Bell
Hugo, a young man-about-town – Geoff Bryson
Frederic, his twin brother, in love with – Geoff Bryson
Diana Messerschmann, engaged to Frederic, secretly in love with Hugo – Sandra Williams
Lady India, Messerschmann’s mistress, secretly in love with – Margaret Chapman
Patrice Bombelles, Messerschmann’s secretive secretary – Peter Hall
Madame Desmortes, Aunt to Hugo, Frederic and Lady India – Mary Kilduff
Capulet, her faded companion – Rita Walker
Messerschmann, Diana’s father a melancholy millionaire – John Burgess
Romainville, a lepidopterist, a patron of – Roy Buxton
Isabelle, a ballet dancer – Marilyn Baines
Her mother, a teacher of pianoforte – Jean Stuckey
General – Donald Clough
Double – Rob Bell
Synopsis
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Directors Notes
Originally produced in Paris in 1947, “L’Invitation au Château” was adapted for the English stage by Christopher Fry and performed with a glittering cast at the Globe Theatre in 1950. It was an immediate triumph. Defying all the laws of probability, a kaleidoscope of interlocking intrigues, the play abandons all concern for the real world, and yet the characters remain brilliantly recognisable as stereotypes.
Against this pattern, Isabelle and Frederic, the two “innocents” are thrown into sharp relief, and it is by their attitudes that the others must be judged. Anouilh is on record as saying that the play gave him a great deal of trouble: the result was certainly worth the effort!
