Friends Of The Devonshire Park Theatre Summer Garden Party 2010

I am delighted to present here many highlights of The Friends Summer Garden party held at Charleston Manor just outside Eastbourne on 7th August 2010.

On the left is actress Louise Jameson who has not only appeared at the Devonshire Park Theatre many times but is also keen to support the theatre.

She made a surprise appearance at this event to give her support.

I am kicking off the rest of the media with my pics of the wonderful Sea Gypsies, Eastbourne's popular belly dancers.

Next I move on to Richard Curtis and his wonderful K9 Freestyle dancing dogs display. Here is a slideshow of the stills I took on the day.

Part 3 arrives in the shape of the worlds finest ventriloquist (in my view anyway) Steve Hewlett and his wonderful Friends. Hope you enjoy these stills.

OK we move on.... general stills now from the event at beautiful Charleston Manor, Litlington, Eastbourne includes more of Louise Jameson's guest appearance.

OK We move on to video highlights. Here is my offering on the Sea Gypsies. It's a mix of HD and standard definition footage. I made a clips production rather than posting any full track/dance sequence as I think the full performance is best appreciated live and doing this way it is more of a promotional video yet still entertaining.

More video with Richard Curtis and his K9 Freestyle Dancing Dogs. I thought I would be doing just one video. However Richard's presentation is educational for dog owners as well as entertaining. Taking this into account and with the amount of footage we shot I decided to produce individual videos of each dog.

I should point out that on YouTube many videos of Richard have ended up completely silent because users have uploaded video with Richards background music playing. The copyright owners have objected and YouTube have censored accordingly. This has effectively ruined all such videos as dialogue is cut also.

Where the dogs dance to a background track I have substituted the original music with a fully licenced Smartsound track. I have tried to use music of a similar genre and tempo and although I had doubts as to whether this would work I am actually pleased with the end result.

So here is the first video. Please welcome Richard Curtis and Whizzy....

Next up was cute and tiny Betty

Not finished yet..... here's Pogo

Finally from Richard Curtis we had a bit of a Disco

Last but not least I leave you with the amazingly talented Steve Hewlett.

Steve's had a busy year in 2010. Whilst still undertaking performances around the country he has been starring in the long season variety show Hooked On Laughter at the Royal Hippodrome Theatre in Eastbourne. At the time of writing this he's still there until early November so don't miss it.

Steve has also been busy supporting the friends of the Devonshire Park Theatre. From my other videos you will know Steve entertained at their Spring Fair and here he is at the Summer Garden Party held at Charleston Manor Litlington, Eastbourne.

We had the whole routine on video but I don't think it benefits the artist duplicating the whole act, especially if you are going to see him live.

So, instead, I've produced a 10 minute highlights video. It's ended up being a nice little Steve Hewlett promo video.

In his routines Steve is always very complimentary about other well known ventriloquists. However I truly believe this guy beats them all hands down both by way of skill and personality.

It's not just the ventriloquism but the spontaneity of his act that makes him stand out. Many artists abide by a script no matter what. Not Mr Hewlett he seems to be able to use things going on around him to benefit the act.

His 'voice throwing' skills are amazing and his variety of 'friends' all makes for an act that always leaves you smiling.

Friends Of The Devonshire Park Theatre Summer Fair 7th August 2010

Friends Of The Devonshire Park Theatre

Summer Fair

7th August 2010

Charleston Manor

West Dean

East Sussex

The excellent Steve Hewlett is bringing his friends along for what is guaranteed to be an entertaining routine. Brilliant stuff like this....

Richard Curtis and his Dancing Dogs. Who? This canine training genius ........

The Sea Gypsies will return for more belly dancing and hopefully the sun will shine on them this year... although at least this year it's possible to move indoors!

Something to appeal to all generations. Kids will love Steve (big kids too)

Any pet lover should enjoy Richard Curtis and his canine chums.

Dad's should enjoy the Sea Gypsies and whilst he's occupied mum can wander off and spend his cash on the many stalls to get revenge.

All for a paltry admission fee of £1.50

The official leaflet and map is below. But if you want a clearer idea of where Charleston Manor is if you click the 'location' link at the very bottom of this post who will see an extremely clear Google Map to help you find your way.

The Friends Of The Devonshire Park Theatre 25th Anniversary Garden Party

Saturday 1st August 2009

Opened by the cast members of
Last Of The Summer Wine
"The Moonbather"

Ruth Madoc
Tony Adams
Harry Dickman

If there's one thing you cannot rely on in this "Green and pleasant land" it's the weather.

This is one of the biggest events of the year for the Friends Of The Devonshire Park Theatre(FDPT) in Eastbourne and it all started so promisingly.

In beautiful surroundings at Selmeston near Eastbourne. a setting kindly provided by a family very happy to support a good cause, the event kicked off at 11.30am.

It wasn't exactly a typical summer's day but it was at least dry and very mild. Everybody just tried to pretend the ominous black clouds in every direction weren't there.

I don't know what the usual attendance levels are for the FDPT garden parties but the two separate "arenas" soon became very well occupied. Not just with the members of the FDPT but also a lot of people who had seen the event publicized by flyers and heard about it by word of mouth.

Whether they were attracted by the attendance of some very friendly celebrities, the lovely setting or the other attractions is anybody's guess but for the first couple of hours attendance level appeared very good indeed.

Former Hi-De-Hi star Ruth Madoc opened the show at 12pm accompanied by fellow, Last Of The Summer Wine, stage show stars Tony Adams and Harry Dickman.

Ruth congratulated the "Friends" on their 25th anniversary and mentioned that alongside stars like Amanda Holden she will be in a new sitcom called Big Top next year. She also expressed a hope that the weather would hold out for the day (the word jinx comes to mind).

Highlight of the day for me had to be finding that just by a chance remark I made Tony Adams told me had read my review of Last Of The Summer Wine and thoroughly enjoyed it - he even agreed that Harry Dickman (who is such a modest man) is the star of the show and had been trying to tell him as much. That's the second "honour" I've had recently with the singer Andy Abraham sending my full show review out to all his email subscribers - that was a nice suprise too.

After spending some time signing autographs and posing for photos the celebs had to rush back to Eastbourne for the matinee performance of "The Moonbather".

Hopefully in the first couple of hours the Friends raised a good deal of money for the Devonshire Park Theatre. Certainly the food area was packed and the raffles, tombolas and various fun and game stalls appeared to be reasonably busy.

Whilst many people ate their lunch in the "food arena" the Royal British Legion Concert Band serenaded them with a variety of tunes.

Around 1.30 the Sea Gypsies, Eastbourne's popular Belly Dancing team, took to the lawn.

They really are very colourful and extremely talented. However the first dance must have been some sort of modern rain dance as at the end of it the heaven's opened.

However as the saying goes "the show must go on" and they carried on with an impressive selection of dance routines despite the deluge.

At the end they probably felt more like Sea Dripsies than Sea Gypsies but all credit to them for carrying on regardless and keeping the audience entertained.

I'm more than happy to give The Sea Gypsies a plug so you can find the website here http://www.theseagypsies.co.uk/ for booking enquiries.

Thank goodness for that relatively dry first couple of hours because the weather was not set to improve for the rest of the afternoon.

Credit must also go to the Band who carried on playing throughout the afternoon. Fortunately a couple of spare gazebos were found to squeeze them all under to provide some shelter. A band leader with a sense of humour did not miss the opportunity to play hits like "singing in the rain".

Sadly no matter how much people wanted to stay longer for the other attractions of the garden party it is inevitable that many literally reached "saturation point" when it came to the amount of rain they were prepared to try and absorb.

Visitor numbers did drop quite rapidly after 2pm despite the fact this was scheduled to run until 4.30pm.

The performance of the Eastbourne Scottish Pipe Band was brought forward from 3.45pm to about 3.15pm but many decided to watch their full rehearsal in the car park rather than get any wetter for the actual performance.

I have to admit that having sheltered under many a tree for a very long time we decided at around 3.15 that we too were now as wet as we could possibly bare and it really was time to call it a day.

So I apologise to the Eastbourne Scottish Pipe Band that we too only got to see your car park tune-up. But I am sure the main show was just as impressive and the least I can do is link to your site for enquiries http://www.eastbournescottishpipeband.co.uk/

Despite the British weather I hope the first few hours were successful for the FDPT especially as a lot of hard work had gone into the preparation.

Perhaps, on the law of averages, the sun will decide to shine on the next event?

I'll finish by returning to the celebrities who kindly gave up their time to support this event.

Readers in the Bradford area, whatever you do, don't miss the chance to see Tony Adams in Jack and The Beanstalk at the Alhambra Theatre. There is nothing like a dame eh Tony?

For booking just follow this link http://www.bradford-theatres.co.uk/event/jack-and-the-beanstalk-a-giant-of-a-pantomime

Harry Dickman I believe is also in panto this year but although I've Googled to death I can't find out where. If I can get this information I'll post a link.

Last but not least I understand Ruth Madoc is having a panto-free-year but don't forget to look out for that sitcom, Big Top.