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 Argosy
Players in: The Return
Staged: 16-18 November 1967 at Crane Theatre Hanover
Street Liverpool
We have now reached the final Argosy Players production to be staged,
before all efforts are channelled into the Merger with barclays, out of which
will come a renamed group “Martins Operatic Society” (minus the word “Bank”)
which will continue to stage a major operatic production annually until 1980.
Having covered all of their dramatic shoes on this site, it is astonishing to
see just how versatile the Argosy Players are. In this final production –
“The Return”, the subject matter is too difficult for some in the audience to
handle. The acting prowess of the cast
is shown by their presentation of a three hour play that has only six
characters, and requires each of them to remember huge set pieces. We are
delighted to have found a review (albeit a very short article) of “The
Return” from the Liverpool Echo’s amateur dramatics critic, and this appears
further down the page after the following write up from Martins Bank
Magazine, which in its Winter 1967 issue, heaps justifiable praise on the
Argosy Players, and their staging of the play at Liverpool’s Crane Theatre…
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 We
believe that some people were embarrassed; we know of one whose susceptibilities
were affected and who left during the interval, and of others who, like us,
felt that the Argosy Players deliberately tested themselves in putting on
the serious, sometimes emotional, and often very moving play The Return by Bridget Boland at
the Crane Theatre on November 16, 17 and 18. The story is of a nun who
after 38 years in a convent decides she no longer has a vocation and
re-enters the outside world. Her
first steps beyond the enclosed walls are faltering ones and within a few
minutes she returns, shocked by the noise, the traffic and ‘all those
people’.
Maud
Melville, Valerie Parish, Phil Brayshaw
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Hilary Gray
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She tries again, accompanied by her nephew and
his wife, who have their own problems and, though told by the chaplain that
in helping auntie they may help themselves, their future does not look
rosy. Recovering from the sight of short skirts (the year was 1949 and they
were a decorous four inches below the knee) and from the discovery that all
the women with painted faces were not
harlots, auntie eventually plans to give away her annuity either to
nephew Peter or to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, having discovered that
the welfare state has taken over her self-elected role of ministering angel
to the poor. Finally she decides to
work in a factory making radio parts to help the export drive, while Peter
and Angela resolve to start a new life together.
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Brian Shaw
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The transition from elderly but innocent nun to a determined yet
kindly woman gave Maud Melville a long and exacting part in which her
acting ability was fully tested.
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 Although Bridget Boland’s ‘The Return’ may
not have a box-office appeal, it gave the Argosy Players (from Martins
Bank) an opportunity to show they can present a play which calls for acting
ability not always available to small societies. This story of a nun who
after over 30 years in a convent returns to a world, she has known nothing
of since 1913 requires good casting and producer Keith Naylor was well
served. Maud Melville as the nun, Valerie A. Parish (Prioress) and Philip
Brayshaw (Chaplain) sustained the characters with distinction. As the young
couple who accepted the task of introducing their relative to a new world,
Hilary Gray and Brian Shaw, gave the play life and action after a slow
first act, and John Milne also contributed a good performance.
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