Betchworth Opera is the musical side of BODS and we are presenting "No! No! Nanette" at Betchworth on the 17th to 19th  May 2001.It's a super  musical set in 1925 and we want to stage just as it was in those days. It  has a wonderful chorus of  ten "flappers" who are friends of Nanette or staff in the house in London where the first act is set. Then later they all go off to the seaside - near Brighton, and become girls in bathing costumes on the beach.Nanette has been orphaned when her parents are  killed in a car crash and she has gone to live with a friend of her mothers  and her husband. This lady has frequent married lady visitors which makes  another chorus of ten rather older ladies.  Then there are the ladies  husbands and the boyfriends of the flappers.

That's quite apart from  the ten principal parts of which Nanette can be anything from eighteen to  twentyfive and her boyfriend Tom about the same age.

We have a great  company in Betchworth Opera, which has been in existence since 1936, but we  need far more cast than we have in our present membership. Obviously we  don't need a chorus line of 30 but we do need quite a lot to make the story  work.

The 11 well known songs that have stood the test of time the most  famous I suppose are "Tea For Two" and "I want To Be Happy"  Most of these  songs go into dance routines and we have a professional choreographer,  Charlotte Walford to teach the steps - obviously they will be the ones  appropriate for the mid twenties.We've had great fun with the money  values, Nanette considers she is a fallen women because she accepts twenty  pounds from a married man to go to Harrods and buy a bathing costume. We  worked out inflationary values from 1925 to the present day and found you   have to multiply by 30 so her twenty pounds was, by present standards  £600. 

We're having a sing through of the music at 8pm on Tuesday,  which is the 31st and a final one before we start rehearsing on Thursday 9th  November.  We meet in Betchworth Village hall which is about a hundred  yards South off the A 25 midway between Reigate and Dorking. If anyone  wants more information they can telephone Derrick Graham on 01 737 763643

Betchworth Operatic & Dramatic Society Troylands, 10 St. Johns,  Redhill, Surrey. RH1 6QFE-mail  Troylands@aol.co.uk