22nd - 24th March 2001, Wedmore Village Hall

The bourgeois nobleman (Peter Langley) receives yet another dressing down from his shrewish wife (Val Godfrey)

Wedmore Theatre Club’s Spring production this year was the Molière farce, "The Bourgeois Nobleman", using a brand new translation by Sue Rippon who directed the production. Molière, founder of the Paris Comédie Française company, is known as ‘the French Shakespeare’ although most people - us included - think he is much funnier!

It was a large and very lavish production of this classic seventeenth century piece, featuring a cast of 22, live music by Lully, singing, dancing and, of course, much slapstick and knockabout comedy. The cast ranged in age from 10 years old to 60.

Thanks to the generosity of our 40 (yes, 40!) local Fabric Sponsors, who kindly donated a huge supply of high quality material, we were able to make almost all our own costumes, using authentic period patterns and much hard work from volunteer seamstresses. Thanks also went to Wedmore Opera for the loan of some gorgeous and valuable silk dresses. Wigs were supplied by Dauphine’s of Bristol, and furniture by the Bristol Old Vic. In the interests of sourcing everything from the South West, we even got the hat feathers from Cornish ostriches!