May 7 2013.


The brilliant Rude Mechanical Theatre Company will give an outdoor performance of their delightful and hilarious new play 'Harlequin Goes to the Moon' in the Crouch Gardens, East Street, Seaford this summer.

The white-faced clown-like travelling players are described in The Guardian as 'a crucial part of our theatre ecology' and in The Independent on Sunday as 'consistently captivating'. All the actors are experienced full-time professional actors and musicians working regularly on television and in theatres around the country, and perform in a very physical style, combining mime and traditional movements dating back to the Italian Renaissance.

The play, like all this company's work, is brand new and has an original musical score performed live by the actors, who are multiple-instrumentalists.

"Catalina, the daughter of the great astronomer Il Dottore Pazzo, is madly, desperately, in love with the delicious Federico, the son inconveniently of Il Magnifico Buco del Culo, a Florentine banker who has reinvented the meaning of 'mean'. No banker before, nor since, was meaner, more spiteful, more greedy, more inexplicably nastier than he! In fact, he has forbidden them to touch even their little fingers - and to ensure this does not happen he has threatened his servant, Harlequin, and his wife's maid, Colombina, with 'death by stretching' if they should allow it to happen. No way will Federico marry the daughter of an astronomer who is so poor his pants are as ragged as a half-plucked chicken! Harlequin, of course, is terrified - who wouldn't be? - so, decides to steal Pazzo's moon ship, a contraption of rotating cogs and wheels, levers, paddles and sails, and fly to the moon where he will no longer be kicked around, but will set up his own government, become Emperor and make the rules. The stable boy, Paglia, who spends most of his time gazing at the moon like a smitten hare, takes little persuading to go with him." Hilarious antics follow.

The performance will be on Wednesday the 26th of June at 7.30pm. The theatre site in the landscaped area of the Crouch Gardens is reached via East Street and will be open from 6.00pm for picnics.

You should bring your own chairs or rugs as seats are not provided, and extra clothing for when the sun goes down.

The play is aimed at adults, but will be equally enjoyed by more mature children.


Tickets will be available from Newberry Tully Limited, 53 Church Street, Seaford and also online at the Company's website - www.therudemechanicaltheatre.co.uk  - where you can read more about them, or you can ring 01323-501260 for details.

Ticket prices:
Adult: £12.00
Senior (over 60/retired): £11.00
Student: £9.00
Child (7-17): £6.00


Photograph by Andrew Parkinson