BATS Past Productions

The Late Christopher Bean

An Anglicised adaptation of American author Sidney Howard's comedy drama by Welsh playwright Emlyn Williams.

Performed by STADS at St. Teilo's Church Hall, Bishopston in April 1984. Tickets cost 75p, children 50p.

Synopsis

The scene is the living room of the 'Old House', the Haggetts' home in Childer Barnston, a small village in central England. Set in the early 1930s, over the course of a day in May.

Fifteen years previously, the Haggetts had given asylum to a tubercular stranger, Christopher Bean. The many paintings he left were used to patch up leaks in the roof, etc. Only one portrait has been treasured, that of Gwenny, their servant. Suddenly strangers call, announcing the paintings are worth a fortune. These innocent folk become eaten up with comical cupidity and do their best to get hold of Gwenny's portrait. But Gwenny is Bean's widow, owner of the portrait, and seventeen other pieces she rescued from the fire.