Still Playing Away

Friday 22 June

7.30 pm

£13.50 in advance/£15.00 on door

“1, 2, 3, 4. Knock on the door, What’s the day? It’s ….Friday! Hello!” PlaySchool always started with this friendly welcome and this Friday 21 June at the Marine Theatre  with Brian Cant and Jonathan Cohen will be a really warm inclusive evening. Brian and Jonathan are still Playing Away after 40 years. Margie Barbour, the Artistic Director of the Marine Theatre, was a director on BBC TV’s PlaySchool and worked with them both. She was thrilled when she heard they were available to come to the theatre to present this touring show. “Brian was always the favourite presenter; his warm connection with the audience always made him stand out. It was Brian really who made  the shows such a success. I am sorry there aren’t more people like him presenting children’s TV today, so many of them now are like singers from a boy band, where what he offered was a favourite uncle or the best possible kind of Dad!” she commented, “and Jonathan is such a skilled musician. He used to transpose songs for different presenters  as he sat at the piano, it was amazing to hear. He was a joy to work with and the theme songs he wrote for shows are really memorable. This is going to be a really fun evening.”

On Friday 22 June at 7.30 the theatre will resound to all the favourite songs from the shows of our childhood; or our children’s childhood. A wonderfully nostalgic new Music Hall show where audiences can relive their childhood with lively ‘stand up’ cabaret from Brian and Jonathan with sketches, songs, audience participation, classical music and monologues.  People who watched it as children will remember the “P – L-  A - Y Playawayway…” and people whose children watched it will delight in this trip down memory land when Children’s TV was a gentler and more child centred experience. Brian and Jonathan gained fame through their many children's TV shows including Play School, Play Away, Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley. Tickets are available from Lyme TIC 01297 442138 at £13.50 or £15.00 on the night.

Brian’s career began in repertory. His television work started in classic serials and popular series such as Dr. Who, Z Cars, Dixon of Dock Green and many others. His introduction to children’s TV was in Play School from which emerged Camberwick Green, Trumpton, Chigley, Bric-a-Brac and the hugely popular Play Away. More recently he has been in The Doctors, Casualty and The Bill. His theatre work includes The History of Tom Jones at the Belgrade Theatre Coventry. He played Frank Gibbons in Noel Coward’s This Happy Breed and Admiral Juddy in Rookery Nook at the Salisbury Playhouse. He also toured nationally playing the Vicar in Canterbury Tales. Films include The Sandwich Man, Nothing but the Best and A Feast at Midnight. He has recently appeared in An Ideal Husband, The Holly and the Ivy and Present Laughter and directed and appeared in The Railway Children, the latter co-directed with his wife, Cherry Britton, all for Middle Ground Theatre Company. Brian continues to write for Children’s Channel 5 programmes.He appears in Dappledown Farm on Channel 4 and with his wife, has written two series of Mechanick and The Softies for Channel 5. He has appeared in ‘Teletubbies’.

Jonathan won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music and later became one of the youngest Fellows of The Royal College of Organists.

He has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Westminster Cathedral and has toured abroad.  He was Musical Director and presenter of many children's television series - notably Playschool, Playaway, and Music Time.  He has composed theme tunes, title songs and incidental music for numerous TV play and programmes. He also co-presented Channel 4's The Music Game with Tony Slattery.  Jonathan toured with Brian Cant for many years in their two man show
"On the Road" and also with his "Music Workshop" and has been Musical Director for several West End shows. He has presented and conducted orchestral concerts with the LSO and Philharmonia and for the last ten years has been selling out the Royal Albert Hall in his Christmas Carol Singalong concerts.