by Alison Hepworth
A HANKERING to perform Terry Pratchett is not common for an amateur dramatics group, but
then the Purple Theatre group is not what you'd describe as normal.
Some members travel from as far away as Bournemouth and Winchester to rehearse at the scout
hut in Gatting Way Uxbridge, from 9am each Sunday for seven hours, such is the pull of the
Purple Theatre.
"I think people travel all this way each week because the Purple Theatre Company
is a bit special," says Simon Driscoll, who joined Purple Theatre last year. "They are the
funniest most creative bunch of people it has been my pleasure to spend a Sunday in a scout hut with.
They put on popular plays with an unusual twist and are professional whilst having a good laugh."
Their next production is their sixth Pratchett performance, Interesting Times, which is,
according to Purple, "damn funny" and "off the wall."
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The theatre group was borne from some Brunel University students who launched a theatre group
called Brunel Alumni Drama in 1997. Following productions in that year of Pratchett's plays Mort, Murdered to Death,
Whose Unviversity is it Anyway? and Swimming with Dolphins, the did another called, Men at Arms in 1998.
In 1999 they re-named themselves the Purple Theatre Company and moved to the scout hut. That year
they put on another Pratchett play, Maskerade, at the Compass Theatre in Ickenham. Two more Pratchett plays followed:
Carpe Jugulum in 2000 and Lords and Ladies in 2002.
Of course the company does other plays - their repertoire varies from Bugsy Malone to Much Ado
about Shakespeare, a play written and directed by Purple's Peter Burnett.
Interesting Times tells the story of the OAP Barbarians, the pacifist Red Army, an evil emperor and the
most hapless wizard of them all, Rincewind.
"The all contribute to make
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this play a great example of Pratchett's humour and wonderfully tongue in cheek," says
Miranda Kirschel, another Purple company member. "Interesting Times will undoubtedly demonstrate
the Purple Theatre Company's reputation for originality energy and that unusual twist."
The play is set in Discworld. For those unfamiliar with Pratchett's work, it is a flat pizza-shaped
planet, supported on the backs of four vast elephants who in turn stand on the meteor-cratered carapace of an
even vaster turtle.
The Discworld novels have been compared to the same humour that brought us Monty Python and Blackadder -
they have a fantasy setting but its inhabitants are very cynical and rain-sodden - some say very British.
As well as enjoying themselves, the amateur actors raise money for charity - profits from Interesting
Times will go towards the children's hospice Shooting Star Trust, Hillingdon mayor's chosen charity.
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