OVER the years Holsworthy Amateur Theatrical Society (HATS) theatre audiences have become accustomed to high quality productions performed by adult and teenage actors, writes Christine Williams.

For this year’s spring production, however, ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’, David Wood’s adaptation of Michelle Magorian’s evocative novel, which opened on Thursday, May 16, director Eve Earles had the initiative and courage to choose a play for which she recruited 14 local children aged eight to 13 and the result has been a truly outstanding and memorable performance.

With wartime costumes and uniforms, songs including ‘Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye’ and snippets from the radio broadcast of Neville Chamberlain’s declaration of war and Winston Churchill’s ‘We shall fight them on the beaches’ speech, the audience is transported back to the dark and dangerous days at the beginning of the Second World War. The play tells the heart-warming story of a young boy named William Beech, who is evacuated from London to a village in the West Country. He is placed in the care of Tom Oakley, an elderly widower who has withdrawn from the world since the death of his wife and baby 41 years before and lived the life of a recluse. At first reluctant to accept the boy, he gradually reveals he has a heart of gold as the two of them form an unlikely friendship. All seems fine until William is summoned by his mother back to London.

Grant Fulcher gives an impressive performance as Mister Tom, judging his relationship with William to perfection, at first cantankerous then step by step kind and affectionate towards the boy. Sarah Leach is disturbingly good as Mrs Beech, William’s mentally sick, cruel mother. The adult actors playing multiple roles (villagers, medical staff, ARP warden, vicar, police, etc.) are excellent, but it’s the young members of the cast who really stand out. Indeed, 11-year-old Felix Bennett as ‘William’, and ten-year-old Archie Gough as ‘Zach’, steal the show and provide the audience with two exceptional performances well beyond their years. Felix movingly portrays the depth of suffering of a bruised and abused schoolboy, his gradual progression from misery to happiness and his flowering relationship with his ‘Dad’ to the point where finally he is able to say “Mister Tom, I love you”, only to have it all snatched from him when unhappily he has to return to London. Archie is equally outstanding as Zach, another evacuee and the son of an actor, who sparkles with comic talent and energy as he launches into Shakespearean speeches and provides some respite from the wartime gloom. His friendship greatly impacts on William’s life and leads to one of the most poignant moments in the play. Also impressive are the dozen eight to 13 year olds playing evacuees and village children, some of whom at first mock ‘silly city Willie’, then become his great friends. Tom’s sheepdog, ‘Sammy’, an appealing puppet, is skilfully handled by Evie Chandler-Galt.

Alan Eyles and his stage crew and the lighting and sound crews deserve congratulations for so well meeting one of the challenges of putting on this play, namely, the number of locations in which the action takes place, shifting the story from the idyllic countryside to the bleak emptiness of William’s home in London in the blitz. The lighting and sound effects, especially during the air raids and the songs and background music help to link the scenes and create the atmosphere.

Goodnight Mister Tom, while dealing with such issues as grief, loss, child abuse and mental illness, is a tale of heart-warming strength and optimism which nevertheless tugs at the heartstrings. Indeed, paper hankies were available to the audience in the foyer and there were moments when they were needed. As the cast took their curtain call, the quality of this production was reflected in the enthusiastic applause and cheers of the audience who surely had witnessed performances from HATS’s stars of the future. Congratulations were given to Eve Earles for producing a play of such high calibre, which undoubtedly put it among the best ever to grace the HATS stage.