Cast

Synopsis

Set in a school of English for foreigners, this humorous chronicle of seven teachers over a number of years allows us a view, from the staffroom, of school management. We also glimpse the lives people have away from their workplace, which they hide from their colleagues, St. John Quartermaine the only one with sympathy, understanding and time to listen.

Directors Notes

You may not be familiar with Simon Gray’s plays, indeed prior to being asked to direct I did not think that I had ever heard of him! I think the cast was in a similar position too! At an early rehearsal I recall one actor saying that when he was offered a part in the play he thought it was going to be like King Solomon’s Mines’, and assumed that Quartermaine would be strutting his stuff in a safari suit! You will see from tonight’s perfomance that nothing could be further from the truth! In reality many of us Will know of Gray. Not perhaps for this play, but for his famous falling-out with actor/writer Stephen Fry who walked out of his starring role in Gray’s ‘Cell Mates’ just after it began its West End run. Gray is one of our most prolific contemporary award-winning writers. He wrote “Quartermaine’s Terms’ in what he describes as his golden era of the 8Os. The play covers a couple of years in the lives of seven teachers. But whilst set in academia, an environment well known to Gray, it has little to do with education per se. Gray has simply chosen this framework in which to explore issues such as friendship and loyalty, selfishness, and the relevance of the world of work in people’s lives. By running “Quartermaine’s Terms’ ’ immediately after Kevin Moore’s extremely successful production of Ray Coney’s light-hearted ‘Run For Your Wife’, BLT is certainly offering you a very different night’s entertainment. In contrast to Cooney’s highly comic, ripping narrative tale, Gray almost dispenses with a story-line altogether! Deliberately letting the play’s action be as casual as it is in real life, in a writing-style reminiscent of Anton Chekhov, Gray lets us witness simple exchanges of daily life. In this way we learn of the events in the characters’ lives existing below the surface which shape what that are and how they live, Interesting!

Enjoy your evening.