The Salcombe Players are rehearsing their March production ‘Separate Tables’ by Terence Rattigan.

All the proceeds from the pantomime are donated each year to the Salcombe Swimming pool association, a charity which runs the outdoor Salcombe pool, in which local children learn to swim and the delights of which can be enjoyed by all from May-Sept.

This year, due to the success of their production of Cinderella, The Players are delighted to be handing over £2,500.

Separate Tables, two interlinked one-act plays, is set in the 1950s in a genteel, residential seaside Hotel, where everyone is keeping up appearances. The Beauregard Hotel, Bournemouth is the sort of drearily respectable establishment where a certain class of person once came to moulder away their impoverished twilight years.

It’s a miniature closed society, snobbish and inbred, where the permanent residents all know each other, know or guess one another’s secrets, and gossip endlessly.

Director, Wendy Morrall said: “All the characters are linked not just by their presence in the hotel but by loneliness. This is what drives their behaviour.”

In the first play, the arrival of stylish actress, Anne Shankland sets the cat among the pigeons. Then in the second play, a sordid scandal stirs up a frenzy of vindictive self-righteousness amongst the residents. In both plays it is the calming presence of manageress, Miss Cooper that eventually settles ruffled feathers and the residents continue their lives with renewed hope.

Separate Tables runs from Thursday, March 15, to Saturday, March 17, at 7.30pm at Cliff House, Salcombe. Thursday and Friday nights will be conventional theatre style numbered seating.

Saturday night will be the Players’ popular café style seating where the audience are invited to bring their own picnic supper. The Cliff House licensed bar will be open each evening. Tickets and seating plans are available at Salcombe Tourist Information Centre 01548 843927.