Drama news from all directions this week. General meeting of the group on Tuesday night, Unicorn Theatre last night and the stop press item is that Chuffer’s back from his escapades in Malta. More of that later.

Well Tuesday’s meeting kicked off with a debate on whether we should be staging plays that feature a high degree of what the oldies would call bad language. For some reason this seems to be the trend of late. Is it we are trying to appear avant-garde? Cutting edge perhaps? OK the plays sadly include little you can’t hear walking down the average High Street in Britain today. Anyway the old guard are clearly in the minority and I guess our next production will again be littered with expletives that do offend many people and will automatically debar a good proportion of the audience before we start, but what do I know.

The social events calendar is blank save for the Annual Dinner next week, and the ODN Quiz night this year is on March 19th at Didcot. Full reports in due course, oh yes.

Breakaleg Productions are putting on I’ll Get My Man this week, a real old fashioned turkey from the pen of Philip King. I have appeared in a fair few Philip King plays over the years and this was typical of the gendre. Now I love a really good farce but this was even too dated for me. That is not to say the play wasn’t entertaining and well presented, it was, and there were some really good performances from the Breakaleg cast in particular from Mike Varnom playing the hapless Rev Humphrey.

Anyone knowing the Unicorn stage will know its shortcomings, but Bruce Scott had made the most of the limitations and produced a really good set depicting the inside of the Stebbington-Fawley vicarage.

Gold stars also go to Oenone Grant for her part as the man-hunting Winifred Barrington-Locke and Tracy Leiper who took over the role as the housekeeper/cook only three weeks prior to the opening night. Man of the play (as it were) for me however went to Julie Kedward for her portrayal of the dippy Josephine de Brissac, excellent.

Now for the big news Chuffer’s return to Blighty. He emailed me to advise of his disembarkation on our shores and to relate his adventures in the Mediterranean.

He tells me he had a hectic month with the females sighing with relief on his departure from the island. (Yes Chuffer we believe you). The loaded 60-year old (Oh Chuffer how ungallant to mention her age) Mary-Jane was the leading lady I am told plus three others all from Oxfordshire of all places. I will try to extract more details from Chuffer this Sunday, shouldn't be difficult. Chuffer fans watch this space.

A nice little story to end this week and a lesson for all us fellas… Eleven people were hanging on a rope, under a helicopter: 10 men and 1 woman.

The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had to leave because otherwise they were all going to fall.

They weren't able to choose that person, until the woman gave a very touching speech.

She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids or for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return.

As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping ......