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Compton Players

The Compton Players web site is at www.comptonplayers.co.uk. Facebook. Twitter: @ComptonPlayers.

At the Abingdon Drama Festival on 18/06/2022, Helen Saxton won the Original Playwriting Award for In Her Defence.

Next production

Where

At the Village Hall, Compton (10 miles north of Newbury). Click here for a map.

Box office

Online via the web site (no booking fee), or 07554 842207.

About Compton Players

Compton Players have been producing plays every year since 1947. We always welcome new members, and we are looking not only for people who want to act, but also those who can construct scenery, or would like to learn how, those who can make or sew costumes, those with a knowledge of electrics and/or electronics, and those who would like to help with publicity, box-office and front of house. We normally rehearse on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and for most productions there are twelve weeks of rehearsals. It doesn't matter if you've had any previous experience or not.

Contact Compton Players

Our chairman is Mary Warrington - contact her by .

Reviews of In Her Defence

14th July 2022

Review from NODA.

In Her Defence by Helen Saxton was originally a play called Evil Will Come with a larger cast than this performance, slightly tweaked for the reduced cast due to the constraints of taking this preview version to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It is a short but enormously smart and subtle play. It's not a whodunnit or a whydunnit but the premise is: will she get away with it? Told in various scenes, this very clever crime drama moves between before the murder at a flat, to the trial at the Old Bailey. There is a surprise end with a twist I didn’t see coming.

The set was minimal. Due to its transfer to Edinburgh the basic set – a living room that doubled as the Old Bailey, worked well. The absence of a full set kept the audience concentration on the action. The props were good with attention to detail such as labels on the murder weapon, 1940s black telephone and authentic looking cigarette case.

Helen Saxton (writer and actor) and Pete Watt (director and actor) should be enormously proud of this very polished production designed and performed with professionalism and class. The audience were totally absorbed throughout and everything about In Her Defence was totally believable. It was an intelligent telling of the age-old story of the saying ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ and deserves a wider audience which would be achieved through publication of this canny and original thriller.

CHRIS HORTON

Previous productions