Derbyshire-based Rumpus Theatre Company is to go on the road with a new farce, As It Comes!, written by Rumpus director John Goodrum.
The play features Brian Stevens and Timothy Davies, who work for the Marvellous Marketing Company. When each is invited to dream up a campaign for a new wonder drug, the rivalry is rife to see which of their schemes will win the contract. But plans start to unravel before they go “disastrously and uproariously wrong”.
Kia Pope plays new boss Diana Jones. In 2023, she took the role of Mavis Wilson in Agatha Christie and Frank Vosper’s Love From a Stranger, a Tabs Productions’ presentation at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham.
David Martin plays Brian Stevens. He has appeared in numerous productions from farce to Shakespeare and has been in several gothic horrors for Rumpus including John Goodrum’s adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. He also took the role of Robert in Don't Dress for Dinner, Robin Hawdon’s adaptation of the Marc Camoletti farce, at the Pomegranate Theatre, Chesterfield in 2019.
Goodrum, who also directs and designs As It Comes!, will play Timothy Davies. He has acted in theatres nationwide. In 2023, he played Joseph Standcot in The Signalman, his play based on a short story by Charles Dickens, which visited Nottingham’s Theatre Royal as part of an extensive national tour.
Pavan Maru, who plays Arun Anthony in As It Comes!, took the role of Richard Brightwell in The Signalman. He also appeared in the 2023 Colin McIntyre Classic Thriller Season at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal, playing Nigel in Love From a Stranger, Florian in Goodrum’s Father Brown—The Murderer in the Mirror and Larry in Murderous Liaisons by Brian Clemens.
Karen Henson, who plays Jilly Jenkins, was Miriam Mandeville in Father Brown—The Murderer in the Mirror and played Annabel Chester in Alan Ayckbourn’s Snake in the Grass in the 2023 Classic Thriller Season.
David Gilbrook is sound and video designer for As It Comes!, which will have its première at the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke from Thursday 25 until Saturday 27 April. It will also play Coalville’s Century Theatre on Thursday 2 May. Other dates will be added to the tour.