Tipton Play & Pantomime Society entertained audiences again last week when they presented three evenings of One Act Plays at the Community Hall in Tipton St John.

Billed as a Community Play Festival, they certainly embraced this heading welcoming productions from Ottery Community Theatre and Axminister Drama Club.

The evenings were very well attended with the Saturday night being café-style around tables where audiences were invited to bring their own refreshments for the interval.

TIPPS presented two plays themselves, both raising more than chuckle around the hall. Bride before a Fall by Robert Scott followed the hilarious actions of a husband and his glamourous girlfriend as they plotted to “bump off” his wealthy wife with a very unexpected result! Last Tango in Little Grimley by David Tristram is a firm favourite on the play festival circuit, and with characters probably very much recognisable to drama clubs can always be relied on to entertain!

Axminster Drama Club’s Stuck by Andrew Coley was thought provoking but not without moments of humour, when three very different characters found themselves thrust together when a lift unexpectedly stops between floors. Over the ensuing 6 hours and 27 minutes their individual fears and phobias are shared, as they learn to trust each other, and finally emerge on a positive note,

“Life is like one giant journey in a lift!”

The Playground by Chelle Walsh, performed by Ottery Community Theatre, was set outside a school as a diverse collection of mothers were waiting to pick up their children after class. Two were very much “upwardly mobile”, in an array of “designer” outfits they gossiped in a ghastly manner, obviously considering themselves to be a “cut above” the rest! The gentle and patient parent was supportive of the exceedingly stressed one, and the retiring headmistress was firm but caring. The newcomer lurked, and listened quietly while making copious notes, and turned the tables at the end proving to be the incoming head – it shows that gossip doesn’t pay!

Lighting and sound were in the capable hands of Paul Kinson and all made for an excellent festival of entertainment.