Mock Tudor Land – A Drama with a Bit of a BITE!

$5.50

It’s Britain at the end of the 1950s, and Dr and Mrs Villiers, a staid, respectable couple, are having a family get-together at their new house. In attendance are their son Geoffrey and his girlfriend Maureen, their eldest son Raymond and his secret boyfriend, Leslie, and their eighteen-year-old daughter Charlotte, who has been unwell and just returned from a sanatorium in Eastern Europe in this drama with a bit of a bite!

While it’s obvious that there are a few family secrets, the first half of the story plays out as a sedate family drama, although when a neighbour goes missing after visiting the Villiers house it’s clear that something isn’t quite right. Suspicion seems to point to Dr Villiers being up to no good in his secret basement laboratory, but when Maureen is attacked in the night by “an evil monster”, who is then revealed to the audience to be the missing neighbour, Irene, the play takes a turn toward chilling gothic horror.

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Description

a drama with a bit of a bite!

MOCK TUDOR LAND – A DRAMA WITH A BIT OF A BITE!

It’s Britain at the end of the 1950s, and Dr and Mrs Villiers, a staid, respectable couple, are having a family get-together at their new house. In attendance are their son Geoffrey and his girlfriend Maureen, their eldest son Raymond and his secret boyfriend, Leslie, and their eighteen-year-old daughter Charlotte, who has been unwell and just returned from a sanatorium in Eastern Europe in this drama with a bit of a bite!

While it’s obvious that there are a few family secrets, the first half of the story plays out as a sedate family drama, although when a neighbour goes missing after visiting the Villiers house it’s clear that something isn’t quite right. Suspicion seems to point to Dr Villiers being up to no good in his secret basement laboratory, but when Maureen is attacked in the night by “an evil monster”, who is then revealed to the audience to be the missing neighbour, Irene, the play takes a turn toward chilling gothic horror.

The arrival of Charlotte’s sanatorium doctor reveals the awful truth: Charlotte is a vampire, and she has attacked Irene and turned her into a vampire as well. Another vampire turns up, and the two doctors have their hands full in destroying them without anyone else finding out what’s going on. But just when they think everything is safe, we discover someone else in the household has also been turned…

You will soon discover that this is a play of two, very different halves: act one shamefully lulls the audience into the settled middle-class cosiness of late 1950s, English suburban life, with its ordered observance of respectability, integrity and conformity, and with just the odd clue of things that might happen. One may wonder: where is this going?
Act two deliberately shatters that safe illusion and changes tack to plunge the audience into a world of gothic horror, full of shocks to jolt them from act one’s deceptive comfort zone.

Other plays by Stan Thompson:

Falls into Place – a double crossing British whodunit set in the swinging sixties
No Way! Serial killer screenplay

Author: Stan Thompson

Type: Two-act Play

Genre: Drama with a bit of a bite, thriller, horror

Cast: 5F, 8M

Ages of the actors: All ages, from late teens to sixties

Suitable for: Older children up as some yougner ones may find it scary

Length: 90 minutes

Set: The action throughout takes place in the wide, open-plan entrance hall/sitting room of a very large, but slightly shabby mock Tudor house, built in the 1920s. There is a recessed entrance hall, stage right, furnished with a grandfather clock, oak hall table and umbrella stand. An oil painting hangs on the wall adjacent to the front door.
A staircase rises from upstage centre, leading to a first floor landing with balustrades that spans the full width of the open-plan area.
A large bay window, surrounded by heavy velvet drapes, is situated downstage right, ground floor. A similar window is situated immediately above, at first floor level.
The open-plan sitting room is furnished with a large winged-back sofa, three matching armchairs, an oak coffee table, an ancient HMV radiogram, an oak sideboard, bookcase and a standard lamp with a large shade. Ancient-looking wall lights are fitted with candle-shaped light bulbs.
A door, leading to a basement laboratory, is covered by a heavy tapestry curtain and is situated upstage left.

Level of difficulty: 7/10 – Transitioning from one genre to another is always interesting as well as tricky, but can make for superb stagecraft.

Read a Sample of the Script

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Contact Off The Wall Plays with any queries about Mock Tudor Land

Copyright © July 2021 Stan Thompson and Off the Wall Play Publishers

Like this play? Others like it:

Carmilla – a classic tale of vampires set in World War Two
Darkest before Dawn – screenplay about forbidden vampire love
In Hyding: An alternate Jekyll and Hyde – award winner

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