Return to The Grand Guignol

The Queens Players present an evening of suspense, horror and eroticism. Return to The Grand Guignol features four plays in the classic French Theatre of Horror style known as the Grand Guignol. The Grand Guignol Theatre in Paris’ Monmartre was the home of a totally unique style of drama which featured brilliant scripts that thrilled and terrified audiences for over 60 years. With the advent of movies the genre died out. The Queens Players now proudly reanimates it with three classic plays and one entirely new one act play by The Queens Players’ artistic director, Richard Mazda.

The evening begins with a modern interpretation of the style in an original one act, The Poacher’s Game. Two hapless dinner party guests, Julian and Olivia, run out of gas, they take a short cut through the forest. When they stumble on a campfire with a nicely barbequed rabbit they make a fatal mistake and help themselves. When the poacher returns to find his supper eaten he is not very happy. After some twists and turns in the plot you will be surprised at the shocking end to Julian and Olivia’s misadventure…

Play number 2 is At The Telephone. When the master of the house has to return from his holiday manse to Paris on business his good lady wife and servants are rather please that he has installed a new fangled device …. The Telephone. After events in the house take a shocking left turn the Master must listen to his loved one’s dire fate over the self same phone.

In Jack, two ladies of the night discuss the shocking murders that have occurred in the district of Amsterdam where they run their own operation. A knock at the door means that a slow night may just be profitable after all…or will it?

In The Final Kiss, a tortured acid burn victim is visited by the very perpetrator of his disfigurement; his ex lover. Jeanne pleads with Henri for forgiveness, he asks for a final parting kiss. Although repulsed by his scarred face Jeanne agrees. Henri takes his chance … after all what has he got to lose?

Richard Mazda and Max Ferguson direct.

NOT SUITABLE FOR UNDER 15 YRS.