WOMBWELL THESPIANS’ AMATEUR DRAMATIC SOCIETY ­­

“DIRTY DUSTING”

BY ED WAUGH and TREVOR WOOD

The Playhouse, Wombwell

Tuesday, 2^nd September 2025

Director & Producer: Jeff Tiler

“Dirty Dusting” encourages the audience’s imagination, and this production fulfils that promise. Three experienced cleaning ladies, Elsie, Gladys and Olive, having each worked for the same company for years, have been threatened with redundancy. Their boss, Dave, has decided to bring in a cleaning agency who in his option will do a far better job. Of course, the ladies are dismayed and concerned as to how to supplement their pensions. What will they do? While thinking about this, an unexpected phone call changes everything. Gladys, answering the office phone in error, is mistaken for a worker on a sex chat line and this humorous misunderstanding sparks an idea. With Olive taking the lead and providing encouragement, they re-invent themselves as “The Telephone Bells”, and this leads into outrageous and hilarious situations with dialogue to match.

The three ladies, Elsie (Sue Gent), Gladys (Jill Connell) and Olive (Andrea Savage) were perfectly cast and constantly on the stage with copious amounts of very funny dialogue which had the audience laughing throughout. Their acting was consistently very good indeed.

As the storyline progresses the ladies reveal secrets about their own love lives (or lack of them) with Gladys constantly complaining about the lack of interest her husband shows her. But after a few chats on The Telephone Bells and a bottle of wine, it appears that everything in their love lives changed beyond belief. The change in Gladys’ character was hilarious, and so were the other stories related by Elsie and Olive.

Lewis Conway’s performance of the grumpy and angry “boss” Dave was spot on. However, is transpires that he was under the thumb of his mother and also one of the customers who called “The Telephone Bells” for a sex chat. He had his comeuppance and the ladies won the day. Of course they made a great success out of their new venture.

All the hard work from an experienced director, cast, technical team and costume design paid off and entertained the audience with laughter throughout the evening.

Thank you for the invite and hospitality and a most enjoyable evening.

Sue Cox – Drama Rep Reg 14