Polished by Love, the play that I directed for the Grads in the 2010 SCDA One Act Festival is an 18th century work by the French dramatist Marivaux. It's an engaging, charming and entertaining piece dealing, as all great plays do, with one of the universals of human life. In this instance - love.

The plot in brief is this. A fairy, despite being engaged to Merlin the magician, has fallen in love with a handsome young peasant. She carries him off to her castle but finds that not only is he indifferent to her feelings but that he's a bit of a plonker, ungainly and dull-witted. Such is her infatuation that she's undaunted by this and is determined to turn him into a refined and spirited youth worthy of being her husband.

The young man though, meets and falls for a shepherdess who returns his feelings. This event transforms his manner and wit in just the way that the fairy has been unable to do. The fairy engages the help of her right-hand man (who in this production is a right-hand woman) to track down the shepherdess and to break-up the relationship. However she is not too happy about her boss doing the dirty on Merlin so she advises the young couple on how to get the better of her.

The young man beats the fairy at her own game but is persuaded to forgive her and the play ends in general rejoicing.

Quote from earlier version of this page - "The British final, to which of course we aspire, will be in East Kilbride on the 25th and 26th June. "

Cast
Crew
Well you can aspire all you like but that doesn't necessarily translate into achievement and alas that is what happened to us. KO'd in round 1.

But never mind we had a lot of fun doing the show and our efforts were warmly received by the public.  Even the adjudicator liked some of it to judge by these remarks:

"A fine piece of ensemble playing"

 "The moments of madness and absurdity, in particular the sheep scene, were inspired"

" The simple yet effective set and the use of original music helped to highlight the 'other wordly' aspect of the piece "

There are great photos taken at our technical rehearsal on Flickr and for Facebook users some backstage and après show snaps.

Stage Manager

Wendy Barrett

Costume Designer

Elle Wilson

Composer and Sound Designer

Jacob Danson-Faraday

Property Mistress and Scenic Artist

Umi Osakabe

Sound Operator

Richard Graveling

Prompter

Siobhan McGovern

Director

Brian Neill


The Fairy

Claire Wood

Trivelina

Helen McMillan

Harlequin

Matt Davies

Dancing Master

Amina Mahood

Singer

Lindsay Terrell

Peasant Dancers

Natasha Stiven, Russell MacIntosh

Sylvia

Stephanie-Sarah McPhillips

Shepherd

Neil Colquhoun

Sylvia’s Cousin

Natasha Stiven

Sheep

Natasha Stiven, Lindsay Terrell, Amina Mahood, Russell MacIntosh

Evil spirits

Lindsay Terrell, Amina Mahood