Sturdy Beggars Bring Play to Acton

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The Bespoke Overcoat - one act play

The Bespoke Overcoat - “A sustained, typically over-long Jewish joke – than which there is no sadder and no funnier story.” - Wolf Mankowitz

“He has enormous energy as a writer coupled with a terrific knack for dialogue.” - Patrick Galvin

THE BESPOKE OVERCOAT
Based on the Russian short story, ‘Shinel’ by Nikolai Gogol, ‘The Bespoke Overcoat’ tells the tale of East End Jewish workers, Morry, a tailor and Fender, a warehouse clerk.
Fender, suffering bitterly from the cold, is unable to afford one of the luxury sheepskin overcoats sold by his boss, Ranting, so he asks Morry to repair his old one.

Morry believes that the coat is so far gone as to be irreparable, and persuades Fender to let him make a bespoke overcoat at cost price, but Fender dies of pneumonia before the job is finished.

The twist in the tale is that the story is largely told in flashback from the point of view of Fender’s ghost, who visits Morry in his workshop to thank him for his overcoat. Morry is wracked with guilt, for did his insistence on taking time to create a bespoke overcoat contribute to his friend’s death?  (Michael Brooke)

CYRIL ‘WOLF’ MANKOWITZ (1924 - 1998)
Writer, playwright and antique dealer, Wolf Mankowitz was born in London’s East End; his father Solomon was a Russian émigré. Grammar School educated, he won a scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge and his publications in the art domain include a study of Josiah Wedgwood and ‘The Concise Encyclopedia of English Pottery and Porcelain’ (1957).

He wrote the novels ‘Make Me An Offer’, ‘A Kid for Two Farthings’ (the film directed by Sir Carol Reed) and ‘Laugh Till You Cry’, while his later works include ‘Gioconda’ (1987) and ‘A Night with Casanova’ (1991). His film credits include ‘The Millionairess’ (1960), ‘The Long and the Short and the Tall’ (1961), ‘Casino Royale’ (1967), and the musicals ‘Expresso Bongo’ (1958-59),  Pickwick’ (1963), and ‘Stand and Deliver’ (1972).

STURDY BEGGARS GROUP THEATRE (SBGT)
The Sturdy Beggars Group were formed in Leatherhead in 1986, under the auspices of Arts for Labour. Previous productions include ‘The Hairy Ape’ by Eugene O’Neill, ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’, by David Mamet, ‘Michele Lu Lanzone’ by Franca Rama and more recent productions include ‘Insignificance’ by Terry Johnson and Shaw’s ‘O’Flaherty V.C.’

 

November 13, 2007