The Lion in Winter

From Great North Road

Contributed by Barry Woodrow.

The Lion in Winter	The Lion in Winter	The Lion in Winter	The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter	The Lion in Winter	The Lion in Winter	The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter	The Lion in Winter

Maurie Mason's first full length production for NKAS and was Kitwe's Theatre Association of Zambia (TAZ) Festival entry for 1974.

I'm not familiar with earlier years, but during my time in Zambia (1971-79) the TAZ Festival was held for about 6 consecutive weeks during the period June-August. The Adjudicator, always a prominent figure in the theatrical world, would visit Zambia for that whole period and attend each production at its "home" venue, normally on the opening night.

The Adjudicator would select the best five productions and these would then be performed on consecutive nights Monday-Friday at the "Finals" venue - as you may imagine it was quite an achievement to move a production from - say - Lusaka to Chingola, rebuild the complete set beginning at midnight, have a least one rehearsal in the afternoon, and then perform for the public in the evening, before stripping the set and cleaning the stage again before midnight.

The Saturday evening of the Finals week was the Awards Ball, when many fingernails would be chewed and copious volumes of champagne consumed.

Concurrent with the adult Festival, a student Festival was also held. As far as I can remember there was no student "Finals week", probably because of the cost and complexity of moving productions around the country.

Back to 1974 - Finals week was in Kitwe; I don't remember the finalists other than "The Lion in Winter" and Chekov's "Uncle Vanya" from Livingstone. I lit both, as the lighting engineer from Livingstone had to run stage operations, their Stage Manager being unable to travel to Kitwe. The only award I can remember was my own, Best Lighting, for "The Lion in Winter", although I always had a sneaking suspicion that artistically I did a better job with "Uncle Vanya"!

If you take a look at the programme, Keith Beveridge, Peter Holmyard, Erman Barbosa, and of course I are all members of the GNR.