About the play
In this stage adaptation of the hugely popular
TV series by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, Paul
Carpenter and Ian Gower revisit the 1950s and
Maplins Holiday Camp, with its host of colourful
characters.
It’s the start of a new season and founder, Joe
Maplin, announces that he is setting up a camp
in the Bahamas. He needs female Yellowcoats to
go and work there and the annual “Miss
Yellowcoat” competition will decide who is to
go.
Rivalry between
the girls is fierce, with Sylvia and Gladys
joint front runners to win the coveted yellow
sash. Camp cleaner Peggy, meanwhile, is thrilled
at the prospect of a vacancy for a new
Yellowcoat and convinces Entertainments Manager,
Jeffrey Fairbrother, that she is the ideal
candidate for the job.
At the same time, Camp Comic Ted Bovis is forced
to employ numerous money-making schemes when his
ex-wife turns up at the camp with a bailiff in
tow, and Yvonne and Barry Stuart-Hargreaves send
the rumour mill into overdrive when they
overhear Gladys escorting Jeffrey into his
chalet late one evening.
Hi-De-Hi, campers!
Review
Thanks are due to Jimmy Perry & David Croft for
giving us a marvellous insight on how our
holiday camps operated many years ago. Denmead
certainly brought it all back with some
marvellous characterisations in this Paul
Carpenter and Ian Gower production. ‘
Gladys Pugh’ was very well acted by Samantha
Spivey and really got our chuckleberries going
from the very start; ‘Peggy Ollerenshaw’ was
excellently played by Nadine Darnley in typical
Sue Pollard fashion despite an injured shoulder
whilst Ryan Richards was really excellent as
‘Ted Bovis’ along with his sidekick ‘Spike
Dixon’ played by Luke Brand. You could sense the
tension between the husband and wife ballroom
couple excellently played by Ann Dent-Smith and
show producer and director Ian Clark.
It
was a really excellent production which had the
audience in hysterics throughout bringing back
my memory as a teenager when I myself was a
Butlins redcoat.
John E. Thomas NODA Rep
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