Curtain goes up on college play at Billingham theatre

The Theatre Upstairs in Billingham is the venue for the production of Quartermaine’s Terms which runs until tomorrow.

Organisers have described it as the best work ever written by Simon Gray and is all about the staff room of a Cambridge college that teaches English to foreign students in the early 1960s.

The audience will get to meet an assortment of teachers who all have considerable problems, including St John Quartermaine, a lonely bachelor who is desperate for company and almost totally ineffectual in a classroom; even if he is a decent sort.

The play is described as a comedy with a powerful undertone of melancholy and loss.

Producers also describe it as a delicate, moving, yet consistently funny piece.

The Theatre Upstairs is in Belasis Avenue in Billingham and is a volunteer-based theatre. Quartermaine’s Terms is being performed thanks to the Billingham Players who were founded as a social group attached to the ICI works in the town.

For years, the group performed at the Synthonia Club before moving to the current home in Belasis Avenue.

Doors for Quartermaine’s Terms open at 7pm and the performance starts at 7.30pm. There is also a small bar for pre-show and interval drinks.

Tickets are £9 at full price and £7 with concessions for each performance and the last is tomorrow.

Tickets can be bought from the venue, or tel.(01642) 551981.