The St John’s Players have been putting on productions in Gloucestershire for over 50 years.

The group usually perform twice a year, in the Spring and Autumn, and next month will be bringing comedy to Churchdown, with ‘The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society Production of Murder Mystery’.

“Theatre people tend to nickname it ‘Murder at Checkmate Manor’,” said Keith Swinford, director of the production.

“It was originally written for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1988 and was the production that paved the way for recent shows like ‘The Play That Went Wrong’.

“It’s basically a bunch of ladies and one chap in a village hall trying to put on a play, and everything that can go wrong does go wrong.”

Keith has been in amateur theatre for over 30 years, working with organisations all over Gloucestershire including Cheltenham Operatic and Dramatic Society and the Cheltenham Playhouse.

Now with the St John’s Players, Keith and the rest of the cast and crew have been busy working on this latest production, which will be their first of 2019.

He added: “It’s going really well, we’ve got a phenomenal group of people. The set is already built – even though at one point it falls down.

“There’s five in the cast altogether – part of the joke is that they play 20 characters between them.

“Four I’ve worked with before and are good friends anyway, and then we also have a new member, a young girl who turned up on the day of auditions and fits in really well.

The Players will be bringing the “play within a play” to St John’s Hall in Churchdown from Tuesday 14th to Saturday 18th May.

Although he’s directed many different shows over the years, from opera to drama, Keith maintains that working on a comedy is by far his favourite.

“Rehearsals have been excellent,” continued Keith, “they’re so much fun.

“Each scene has its own running gag and little gems of comedy, it’s really hysterical.

“For an example one scene has a lady sewing and she manages to sew her embroidery into her own jumper, just real silliness, Friday night humour. If you’re after a serious play this isn’t it!”