The Adventures of Stoke Mandeville, Astronaut and Gentleman
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''The Adventures of Stoke Mandeville, Astronaut and Gentleman'' is a comedy play by Fraser Charlton and Nikolas Lloyd. The action is set in a universe with an
alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...
in which the British developed the craft of space travel during the reign of Queen Victoria. The modern day world is populated by stereotypically stoic Englishmen, and vile scheming Frenchmen who will stoop to any depth in order to thwart the ambitions and harmony of the British Empire. The title character shares his name with the Buckinghamshire village of
Stoke Mandeville Stoke Mandeville is a village and civil parish in the Vale of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located three miles (4.9 km) from Aylesbury and 3.4 miles (5.5 km) from the market town of Wendover. Although a separate civil p ...
and its well-known
hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...
. The play was originally written as six half-hour episodes for BBC Radio 4, and a pilot episode was recorded, but Radio 4 decided not to go ahead with commissioning a series from two unknown writers. Instead, the script was turned into a stage play, and was first performed in Newcastle in the Black Swan Court in 2001 with a cast of just five, including the two writers, who all had to play multiple parts. After this, the play was revised for performance at the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...
and with a slightly different cast ran for two weeks in 2002 at ''Augustine's''. It has since been performed a few more times, notably at Cambridge University in 2003, Highgate in 2004, Guildford (Surrey) in 2007 (where it was voted best event of the year by the students of the University of Surrey), Adelaide Australia 2009, and several more productions have been proposed. The play's two chief influences are Douglas Adams's '' The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy'' and the role play game ''
Space 1889 ''Space: 1889'' is a tabletop role-playing game of Victorian era, Victorian-era space-faring, created by Frank Chadwick and originally published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) from 1989 to 1990. It was the first roleplaying game to feature s ...
'', although another is '' Sir Henry at Rawlinson End'' by Vivian Stanshall. The website (link below) contains reviews, programme notes, and many examples of the play's robust and utterly politically incorrect humour. The minimum cast for the play is five, one woman and four men, although since there are many parts, a far larger cast could be used. The running time for the Edinburgh version is one hour and fifteen minutes, which is about ideal for the Festival Fringe. Posters and fliers for the productions displayed the following statement: "The management wishes to assure all patrons that under no circumstances shall persons of a ''French'' nature be admitted to the auditorium."


Critical reaction

Reaction from critics has been generally good. However, the 2002 Edinburgh production gained a poor review from ''The Scotsman'', which awarded 2 stars. The review was written by someone who had not attended the show. Only two days before, ''The Scotsman'' had published an article by Robert McNeil, who had seen the production, praising the show.


Video Version

The first episode of a video version of the story appeared on ''YouTube'' on 4 July 2012. The video version stars professional actor Jamie Osborn as Graham Pennyworth. Having a very low budget, the videos were shot in a disused art gallery, with all the actors against a green-screen.


References


External links


Official websiteFirst episode of video series on ''YouTube''.
*Review of Adelaide production in the Independent Weekly

*Adelaide Theatre Guide review

*On-line "TalkFringe" discussion/review page of the show in Adelaide

*Edinburgh Guide review of the 2002 production

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adventures of Stoke Mandeville, Astronaut and Gentleman, The 2001 audio plays English plays Alternate history plays BBC Radio 4 programmes British science fiction radio programmes