Grace has a lot to live for. If only her late husband would leave her alone.
A Note from the Directors
Welcome to the vicarage garden.
As Grace faces the dawn of a new chapter — widowed, preparing to hand over the only home she’s known for years — she expects challenges. She certainly doesn’t expect the secrets about to bloom among the flowerbeds.
This play is filled with sharp comedic wit, but it isn’t afraid to dive into the thought-provoking and often difficult truths that bind a family together. Rehearsing it has required a fair bit of imagination: the team has spent many weeks navigating a pretend stream, a greenhouse made of school chairs, and a shopping trolley that — well, you’ll find out soon enough what that’s standing in for.
We are so grateful to every single person who makes a Brightlight production possible — cast, crew, front of house and you, the audience. Theatre shines brightest when shared.
So please, take your seats and immerse yourself in the world of the vicarage. We wonder — who will have your sympathy by the final curtain?
The Story
Grace has given everything to the life of a vicar’s wife: years of quiet support, relentless good behaviour, and a smile fixed so firmly it’s practically load-bearing. Now, newly widowed and preparing to vacate the vicarage for a fresh incumbent, she’s braced for a difficult chapter.
What she isn’t braced for is what’s been quietly growing in the flowerbeds all these years. As her family descends — each with their own agenda, their own secrets, and a remarkable talent for saying exactly the wrong thing — Grace discovers that a new chapter might not mean a quieter one.
Entertaining Angels is a sharp, warm, and surprisingly moving comedy about the things families bury, the things they can’t, and the extraordinary grace it takes to begin again.
The Cast
Grace
Andrea has been a member of Brightlight Theatre for over a decade, bringing warmth and precision to every role she takes on. Audiences will remember her as the quietly devastating lead in our 2023 production of Still Life. Playing Grace — a woman who has held herself together so long she's forgotten what falling apart looks like — has been one of the most rewarding challenges of her theatre career.
Previous Brightlight: Still Life, Farndale Avenue Murder Mystery
Ruth
Sylvia joined Brightlight three years ago and has rapidly become one of the company's most reliably brilliant character performers. Her gift for finding the exact right note — comic without sacrificing truth — is on full display as the spectacularly unsuited Ruth. She is also a stalwart of the backstage team and an enthusiastic recruiter of new members.
Previous Brightlight: Almost Holmes, The Aviary
Jo
Entertaining Angels marks Collette's first main-stage production with Brightlight, having made her acting debut in Almost Holmes last December. In the short time since, she has become a genuinely exciting presence in rehearsals — instinctive, surprising, and funny in ways that seem completely effortless but absolutely aren't.
Previous Brightlight: Almost Holmes (debut)
Sarah
Ellen has been performing with amateur and community theatre groups across Surrey for nearly fifteen years, and her experience shows in the best possible way. Her portrayal of Sarah — all surface competence and barely concealed anxiety — is a masterclass in doing two things at once. She is also, off stage, one of the most enthusiastic tea-makers the green room has ever known.
Previous Brightlight: Farndale Avenue Murder Mystery, The Aviary
Bardolph
Andy made his acting debut with Brightlight in Almost Holmes last December, taking to the stage for the first time with a confidence that belied his newcomer status. He brings the same quality to Bardolph — a character who exists at the exact intersection of well-meaning and catastrophically unhelpful — and makes it look easy. It isn't.
Previous Brightlight: Almost Holmes (debut)
The Creative Team
In Conversation
Set Design & Build
A vicarage garden feels like a very specific world to recreate on a stage. Where did you start?
I started with the gate, actually. There's something about a garden gate — the threshold between the private world and the public-facing one — that felt central to the whole play. Once I had the gate right, the rest of the garden grew around it. The ironwork design became almost a character in itself, something rooted and decorative and slightly overgrown. Everything in this garden has been there a long time.
What's the most unexpected thing you've had to build or source for this production?
The greenhouse. It sounds simple until you consider the stage is a church hall and you can't actually install glass. So we built the suggestion of a greenhouse — the skeleton of it, the framing, the sense of warmth and enclosure — without any of the obvious materials. The school chairs standing in for glass panels was genuinely a happy accident. Once we tried it, it felt exactly right. A bit absurd, a bit beautiful. Very Grace, if you think about it.
Brightlight has a reputation for exceptional stage presentation — you've won festival awards for it. How much does that recognition change how you approach a build?
It raises the stakes, yes, but it also gives you a kind of permission. When you know the company is taken seriously at festival level, you feel free to take real risks. I'd rather attempt something ambitious and have it not quite land than play it safe and produce something forgettable. The audiences at St Peter's deserve the same ambition as a festival audience.
Director
What drew you to directing Entertaining Angels?
The fact that it's funnier than it has any right to be, and sadder than it pretends to be. Those two things in tension are what the best comedy does — it earns the emotional moments because you've been laughing too hard to see them coming. Grace is one of those characters who breaks your heart precisely because she won't let herself be broken. I found that irresistible.
You're co-directing with Laureen Rees — how does that change the process?
It makes it richer, honestly. Laureen sees things I miss and vice versa, and there's something enormously reassuring about having a second pair of eyes you trust completely. The moments where we've disagreed have almost always produced a better solution than either of us had individually. I'd recommend it to anyone — though I'd also recommend choosing your co-director very carefully.
What do you hope audiences take away from this evening?
I hope they drive home arguing affectionately about which character they are in their own family. And I hope at some point, maybe not immediately but on the way to bed, they think about one person in their life who has been holding things together quietly for a very long time — and feel grateful.
Our Charity Partner
As with every Brightlight production, at least 10% of tonight’s ticket sales will be donated to KatCanDo — a local charity doing extraordinary work for cancer patients and their families across our community.
KatCanDo was founded to make a practical difference: funding equipment, experiences and support that the NHS can’t always provide, for people who need it most. We are proud to have supported them across every production for several years now.
If tonight moves you, amuses you, or simply gives you a good evening out, please consider visiting their website and donating directly. Every pound makes a real difference to real people in Camberley, Frimley, and the surrounding area.
