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FIRST NIGHT FOR THE FALCON PLAYERS

LOUGHBOROUGH'S newest amateur company, the Falcon Players, successfully survived the ordeal of the opening night of the first production, "Queen Elizabeth Slept Here."

Their ambition in choosing the Town Hall to stage the play is to be admired, but the acoustics, meant that, even with the assistance of several microphones, many lines never reached the audience.

John Hudson, as the comic gardener, Mr. Kimber, was worse hit by this problem. His thick country accent was at times almost unintelligable.

Nora Starosta, in the lead part of Norah Fuller, the country-struck wife who buys the tumbledown cottage in which the first Elizabeth slumbered, managed to get her lines over audibly.

She and Alan Gent, who plays her husband, were just two of the cast who had never before been on stage in public.

Neat performance

From Rex Beecham, there was a highly amusing interpretation of Uncle Stanley, the family bore-a neat performance in keeping with his experience of the local stage.

Other parts were taken by Judy Small, Michael Holman, Gwen Plummer, Alan Chapman, Marjorie Lovell, Alan Stanford and Betty Deacon, who also produces.