Murder Weekend in Budleigh Salterton




















The Salterton Drama Club's spring production of 'Murder Weekend' by Bettine Manktelow is a comedy thriller directed by Mary Logan.

Livia, a romantic short story writer, and her husband Stan, arrive at a country hotel for a "Murder Mystery weekend. They are joined by Patsy and her husband Ashley, who have won the weekend in a competition and Vi and Dorothy. Each receives an anonymous "Murder Mystery" game envelope. Someone has left extra notes for Patsy and Stan exposing Livia's and Ashley's illicit affair. Next, Shelley, the chambermaid, mysteriously disappears and everyone is left to determine whether this is all part of the game. However, intrigue and suspicion deepens when one last uninvited guest arrives.













The cast on rehearsal evenings

Bettine Manktelow has been in theatrical ventures either professional of amateur all her life, starting off as a repertory actress at the age of fifteen. Her first play, which was not published, was presented in Singapore to an audience of sophisticated ex-pats. As it was a kitchen-sink drama it was greeted with hoots of laughter.
At the time Bettine did not realise she had a flare for comedy! Subsequent plays, however, even when dramatic or thrilling always managed to have interntional comical lines and/or comical characters. Her career as a playwright did not take off until the 1970s when she was directing for an amateur company in Ramsgate, Kent. By sheer luck one of her plays was taken up by a professional company in Folkestone and a director from French's was there to see it. He liked it, and it was published. This was "They Call it Murder."
Since then Bettine has written and had published twenty plays, mostly published by Samuel French but also by Jasper Publishing. She now lives in Deal and continues to write and direct a new play on an annual basis.

7th - 12th March 2011

"Murder Weekend" by Bettine Manktelow

Directed by Mary Logan


Monday 7 - Friday 11 at 7.30 pm
Saturday 12, 2.30 pm only

Tickets: £ 7.00 from the T.I.C.
Budleigh Salterton Tourist Information Centre

Cast:
Livia Wagstaff - Lynn Leger
Stanley Wagstaff - Mike Brookes
Mrs Johnson - Jenny Bowden
Shelley - Rebecca Clark
Patsy McAvoy - Karen Bazeley
Ashley McAvoy - Mark Bazeley
Dorothy Padmore - Elaine Wilson
Violet Jenkins - Rosemary Williams
Wallace Wainwright - David Wilkes

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