Sam Cree’s The Mating Season Sets Off On Northern Ireland Tour

ONE of Northern Ireland’s newest and most innovative amateur dramatics groups are taking their inaugural production of Sam Cree’s The Mating Season on tour across the country this month.

Building Bridges Community Arts Theatre, based in Lurgan, were formed in February to address the social issues of sectarianism and segregation that still exist in the local area.

The group’s first production took place in May and since then they have been busy with Summer Schemes, preparing an ABBA tribute concert and re-rehearsing to take The Mating Season show on the road.

The play focusses on the family of Sid Gillespie (Raymond Murray) who desperately wants the hand in marriage of his latest lady friend, the difficult-to-impress Stella Morley (Marie Tiffney) much to the dismay of her daughter Vanessa (Charlotte McClelland) and Sid’s housekeeper, Mrs Jameson (Susan McPeake).

On proposing, Stella accepts on the condition that Sid marries off his Uncle Fred (Aodhan Hughes) and his two sons Mervyn (Daniel May) and Robin (Andrew Mulholland), in an attempt to get them out of the house.

Sid invites the boys’ love interests, as well as Fred’s childhood sweetheart around to discuss the idea of marriage and hopefully persuade them into engagement.

As Saucy Babs (Kirsty Fleming), German immigrant Helga (Caitriona Cairns) and nervous Violet Harris (Louise Welsby) make themselves comfortable in Sid’s home, he ends up getting more than he bargains for and the hilarity of each predicament unfolds.