John Worrall-McBride

Over the next few months we will add more blogs from our members and upload some videos. To make a start I’ll introduce myself and talk about my Longton Players experience.

I joined the Players in early 2023 and asked to work backstage as that’s where my experience lies. Of course I was soon given ‘small roles’ to get me on stage and it was a laugh. I was a PE teacher and a builder in a few short weeks. Beat that Pacino. Then I was working on the set for Bunch of Amateurs – painting the set to look like an old barn. It was hard work, but it was worth it.

I was inside a cardboard washing machine blowing bubbles in Aladdin – that was a first, then wrote and directed a short play for the One Acts we staged in May 2024. I wanted to write a comedy and give myself something easy to work on, so I wrote Anonymous about a group of cake-addicted locals battling their cravings.

For Longton Live in 2024 I wrote and directed a 1950’s set sci-fi which had a meteorite crashing and radiation creating giant spiders. I wanted to do something a little different and we had a blast making that! It was a good way to play with sound and light effects and get the actors doing all kinds of daft things in masks, fainting continuously and generally having a silly time.

I had such a good time putting this together and the cast and crew were all brilliant to work with and got stuck right in. And if you missed it you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/AF7_uWhaopM?si=lhQIQQ5ANmG2yqZM

Over the summer a few of us got together to make a short film ‘The Light of Things’ which will be available to watch online in December. I wrote and directed the film with a small cast and crew between August and October ’24. We filmed in Penwortham and the Lake District. I used to make films regularly so it was a real passion project for me and the team really enjoyed working on something different. It’s spurred me on to write more and we are planning a feature film for 2025. If working on a film is something you want to do get in touch! We’d love to bring in more people and get working on more things.

And that brings me right up to date. I just worked on the set for Murdered to Death, which came out brilliantly with the dressing. Everyone was really pleased with how that came out.

I’ve started to write our next murder mystery evening – coming in March 2025 and after that I’ll be writing and directing A Night at the Musicals (with a few twists!) for our May production.

I enjoy getting stuck in whatever we are doing and get a lot out of the creativity and passion the team brings. I’ve loads of ideas for future productions too so if you see something unusual advertised it’s probably my fault!

Thanks,

John