Equus Productions

in 2014 when living in Wendover, Fiona Quilter-Wood and two partners started Equus Productions. This is a bare bones company with just the three directors in executive roles and they pull in actors and stage staff for each production as required – there is no regular troupe of members, although many chose to work with them regularly. Equus is unusual as the company is not based in one location but does mini tours going into local village halls and theatres for one or two nights and then moving on – quite a challenge! They normally concentrate on putting on serious drama but every few years they do a pantomime which they stage at Christmas or Easter. Fiona usually directs the plays and sometimes takes an acting role as well, she also writes the scripts for the pantomimes.

Cinderella made it to the ball report by Fiona Quilter-Wood, Artistic Director Equus Productions

Right up until the last minute, we were still unsure as to whether Cinderella would be able to attend the ball, but finally we got the news that performances were allowed to continue - such a sigh of relief considering the set was already built at that point! With careful Covid measures in place, we managed to open the doors at last and what fun we had!

Pantomime is such a wonderful, if slightly eccentric, British Tradition and is the backbone of theatres across the country. We are so grateful to all those people who came along to support us and cheered and booed in all the right places and even got involved with the fairy godmother’s magic spells and participated in the various actions for “Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds”.

The highlight of every performance was at the end of Act 1 when the Fairy Godmother invited the audience to come outside to wave Cinderella off to the Ball - the magic had worked and there was a fully lit carriage and a beautiful real pony to greet them.

The sounds of wonder from all ages and generations made all the hard work worthwhile – and I had to admit to wiping away tears at every show!

This show was in aid of the MS Society, and we were proud to present them with a cheque for £100 following the run.

As usual for us, we don’t wait long before moving forward and after 2 days of clearing and sorting we were making plans for our next show... an exciting and fully immersive production of Brief Encounter - to take place at the beautiful and historic Chinnor Railway. We are just finalising things now, but more news to follow soon! We also have plans afoot for the next performance in the Village.

Thank you so much for all your support and we hope to see you “on board” soon - as part of our team or in the audience.

Hallmark February 2023. Jack & Jill went up the Beanstalk. report by Fiona Quilter-Wood, Artistic Director

We thoroughly enjoyed bringing pantomime to the village again and welcoming some new performers to our group. We all had a lot of fun and judging by the many wonderful comments and messages received from audience members, so did they! We were particularly delighted to welcome Sarah Hobbs, a fabulous local BSL interpreter to our team this year and she gave a fully signed performance for us on New Year’s Eve. We had excellent feedback from members of the deaf community who attended the show and commented on how fantastic it was to be included and able to fully take part in the performance. We hope to have Sarah with us for future projects.

The production was sadly hit by illness with our dame, Archie, having to be replaced two weeks prior to the opening and two further performers, Karen and Adrian, having to pull out just the day before. But, as the old saying goes “the Show must go on” and we are, therefore, hugely grateful to Richard, Chris, James and Malcolm for stepping in at such short notice and allowing that to happen and for all giving such amazing performances.

Our thanks go to JNP Princes Risborough for creating advertising boards for us, to those very kind residents who allowed us to have boards on their property and, of course, all the members of our audiences for coming to see the show.

We never hang around long and are already in rehearsal for our next production which is the stage adaptation of the TV Sitcom, “The Good Life”. We are back touring with this one with performances currently confirmed for Hastoe and Gt Kingshill in April - it would be lovely to see some of you there and we hope to be back in the village again soon.