Father’s Funeral is a comedy drama with skeletons tumbling out of the cupboard every other page. Funerals are normally sombre affairs, but Jack Jones’ funeral turns out to be anything but. Take two daughters who don’t see eye to eye and are arguing over the arrangements, an illegitimate son, a father who is a womanizing fraudster and two female strangers who have their own motives for being at the funeral and you have a play that is full of drama and comedy and will keep the audience on the edge of their seats, wondering what is going to happen next!
The first word in the play is “George!”
This was written, produced and directed by David Challenger, who has been a member of Grenoside Players since 1999. It had been scheduled for the previous November, but was postponed at the last minute due to illness among the cast. The set had been built, so had to be dismantled and stored to allow for panto to take place. All the flats were numbered to help reconstruction. There was a large painting covering two panels, but the crew were able to fold it in half, and reconstruct it later
Steve Vere’s niece Emma Vere joined, doing set construction. Ian Godley, her future husband, was in the crew. Emma also replaced Viv Stuart to play Lynne James, although she wasn’t credited as the programmes had already been printed!
We have only found a couple of photos so far
During the first performance, there was a power cut. The small emergency lights were used, plus a battery-powered spotlight picking out each speaker in turn! The lights were restored half way through the performance
