QUESTSTORIES
THE QUESTORS NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL
5th FESTIVAL 1964
THE SURREY RECRUIT

THE SURREY RECRUIT
by Fred Watson

Directed by Alan J Levitt
Cast: 
Ned Gethings, John Holbrook, Dorinne Ingram, June Judson, Ruth Lister, Frank Di Rienzo

THE AUTHOR

Fred Watson was a British playwright and television writer. He first attracted widespread attention with Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger, winner of a Charles Henry Foyle New Play Award and presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at London’s Arts Theatre in 1962. Its uncompromising language and disturbing subject matter made the production notably controversial. 

The Questors selected his unfinished play The Surrey Recruit for the 1964 New Plays Festival, developing it through rehearsal as an experiment in collaboration between writer, director and actors. 

Watson returned to the Festival with Private Fires in 1967. By then he was working full-time as a writer, with television credits that included King of the River, The Wednesday Play and the anthology series The Gamblers.

PRESS RESPONSE

The reviewers found Fred Watson's domestic political satire ingenious in conception but uneven in execution. The central idea of an apparently ordinary Surrey household concealing rival conspiracies was amusing, yet it was felt the play delayed its revelations too long and allowed the dialogue to become repetitive. The general conclusion was that the dramatic structure lacked the pace and impact needed to sustain its clever premise.

Amateur Stage

'R.W.' Review

QUESTORS ARCHIVES
THE SURREY RECRUIT

---