July 2023
“Witch Hazel”, billed as “a densely layered piece of social surrealism” which explores clashing social mores across generations, will play at the Etcetera Theatre this August (22nd-23rd) as part of the Camden Fringe. Here, the creative team of Weeping Lemonade Productions (who have chosen not to be individually named) chat about the show, the beauty of spontaneity and what brought them together…
Tell me a bit about your upcoming show, Witch Hazel.
Witch Hazel is a one-act absurdist comedy set in an attic-flat owned by Nicola and Karren, both 47. Nicola works as an elocution teacher. Jayne, 40, is just finishing an elocution lesson and has some time to kill before an evening appointment. Nicola invites her to stay for dinner and the three of them spend the early part of the evening together. To pass the time, they chat, eat and complete a lifestyle quiz from an 80s women’s magazine. Jayne’s answer to one of these questions leads her down an unexpected avenue and she ends up recalling a bizarre date she went on aged seventeen.
An intriguing premise… And how did this production come to be?
Our writer is interested in prescriptive attitudes to language and accent. He had wanted to write a piece about an elocution lesson for a while. This idea fused with an interest in the way that close friends develop weird phrases and in-jokes that are opaque to outsiders. The opening two lines of ‘The Clarke Sisters’ by The Go-Betweens provided us with the play’s setting – although Nicola and Karren are friends, not sisters.
The first ten minutes were staged at ‘All Aboard the Laughing Lemonade’, a revue which was put on over two days at Wimbledon Library early in 2016, alongside various comic sketches written and performed by the company. The play’s 2023 iteration features a new cast who are all superb – Dana Acharya, Mia Skytte and Sarah Goldsmith.
The play is about how some people have reserves of eccentricity that aren’t often displayed publicly but emerge when they’re disinhibited. This is what happens to Jayne late in the play. And Witch Hazel is also a love letter to London: a soft celebration of the spontaneous encounters that living in this city makes possible.
How does this piece relate to your previous work – is this new territory or more of a natural progression?
Witch Hazel is the writer’s first play. As we were making arrangements to stage it, some of the company made a hauntological electronica album called Cairo Time which was released on Bandcamp for Christmas 2022.
It’s a record that consists of disorientating comic sketches set to a mixture of mallsoft, synthwave and vaporwave. Those genres celebrate how bits of disintegrating cultural ephemera float around the brain, imperfectly recalled but still somehow cherished. Christmas is obviously a time when one’s experience of memory functions a bit differently from normal: each Christmas is a palimpsest of Christmases past and most of us are quite prone to tipsy retrospect. This December, when you’ve bought your last present and poured yourself a sherry, put on Cairo Time and drift back to the past. Essentially, both Witch Hazel and Cairo Time are preoccupied by the sublime power of nostalgia.
As a comedy, your show has big laughs to deliver. How would you characterise the brand or style of the comedy in your show?
Social surrealism. We like comedy which is linguistically rich; ‘Sir Henry at Rawlinson End’ and the ultra-surreal pieces written by Chris Morris for Michael Alexander St John are both touchstones. There’s more innovation in any three minute segment of those items than there are in many writers’ bibliographies.
We like any comedy that dizzies and dazzles with its verbal brio – from Professor Stanley Unwin to The Two Ninnies to A Bit of Fry & Laurie. We also enjoy the 80s domestic sitcom, especially those set in the soft south. Ever Decreasing Circles, Sorry! and Shelley are all favourites of our writer. The petty conflicts and snobberies of those worlds are wonderfully realised. Witch Hazel is a confluence of these two modes.
And tell me a little about the dynamics at work between your central characters – what are the driving forces?
Nicola and Karren are friends who have lived together for decades. They own a very small flat in a remote suburb of London. They love each other deeply but much of their interaction is characterised by small antagonisms. Jayne is at something of an impasse in life and is looking to improve her diction to cut the mustard in a business she’s recently set up. She is as much an object of curiosity for Nicola and Karren as they are for her.
Some quick-fire questions now: your first experience of theatre/ live performance?
We first met as students at a stand-up comedy night where the director was performing.
Who makes you laugh most?
The list is long: Simon Munnery, Chris Morris, St Elwick’s Neighbourhood Association Newsletter Podcast, Caroline Langrishe as Carol Tapscott in Shelley, Evangeline Ling from the band Audiobooks, Alexei Sayle, Ric & Jenny from Spray, Count Arthur Strong, Leslie Knope.
Your route into the arts?
Using our spare time to write and perform. Our cast and director have been involved in various amateur drama groups in London, Manchester and elsewhere. Public libraries have provided us with venues and rehearsal space. Bandcamp is also a useful facility although our friendship with Nick Gill, a musical and literary genius, was what really helped bring Cairo Time to life.
Your own tastes and influences when it comes to theatre/ live work?
Thom Pain (based on nothing) is an astonishing play – a hybrid of a confessional monologue and an embittered stand-up routine from a man struggling to verbalise the distress he’s in. More recently, all of it by Ali McDowall, particularly the final section, was awe-inspiring in a similar way. The Bald Prima Donna by Eugene Ionesco is also great: more verbal efflorescence.
And why should audiences come along to see Witch Hazel this August?
To cackle and be buoyed.
So there you have it! You can catch “Witch Hazel” at the Etcetera Theatre, London 22-23 August 2023 as part of the Camden Fringe. More information and tickets can be found here.
Always Time For Theatre 
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