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Paddy & Peter Ariss

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Theatrical Experience/Training:
Peter and Paddy Ariss met at the London School of Dramatic Art in 1950. Peter had acted while serving in the RAF, and Paddy went on to do a couple of seasons in professional weekly rep. Later they joined the Tavistock Repertory Company at the Tower Theatre, Canonbury (London), one of England’s leading ‘little theatres’; professional in standards, amateur in status. Over the next twenty years they performed in something like sixty plays, from Shakespeare to Shaw, from tragedy to farce, from Music Hall to Pantomime, giving them both an excellent knowledge of stagecraft with which to back their own plays. During this time Peter performed at the Mermaid Theatre, and also produced a World Premiere for an American playwright (Roy Bongartz). Peter & Paddy began to write one-act Victorian melodramas to stage as the ‘pièce de résistance’ at the close of Music Hall evenings at the Tower Theatre, all of which have since been published. They are tongue-in-cheek melodramas with laughter in mind, and are designed to be performed in any size of village hall or theatre. Since moving to Herefordshire in 1973, the Ariss duo have written a three-act musical melodrama called "SON OF SWEENEY, or ANOTHER CLOSE SHAVE" - music and lyrics by Alan Breed. A one-acter as yet unpublished has been hilariously performed during the annual Victorian Festival at Llandrindod Wells, and another with an all women cast is in preparation. Peter & Paddy have been working together in all sorts of writing projects, including children’s stories, poetry, short stories., and full-length books; Paddy’s latest effort, which she was asked to write by publishers Countryside Books as one of a Counties series, is "Herefordshire Privies", due out in the autumn of 2000. The greatest joy of this theatrical couple is making people laugh, and it gives real ‘job satisfaction’ to know that people are enjoying performing in, and watching, their plays.

Plays