Carrying one of Lord Baden Powell's rules, to serve the community, to an extreme, 85 East Grinstead and district Scouts, Cubs and Scouters staged a three-hour, 22-item Gang Show on Thursday.

This mammoth undertaking worked out surprisingly well considering the difficulty of directing such a large cast with ages ranging from eight to 50. There were few first-night jitters. If ever there was an occasion when both players and audience enjoyed a night to the full, this was it.

An outstanding feature of the evening's entertainment was the boundless imagina­tion used in scenery arrange­ment. Stage manager, Edgar Cooper's task was made easier by the production using, for the first time, Sackville Sec­ondary School's new stage and hall.
Effective lighting, skilful, silent scene-shifting and simple but realistic sets con­tributed much towards the show's success.

One sequence worthy of the West End was a song -sketch called "Oranges." Two groups of Scouts sang from each corner of a darkened stage, while through partly opened curtains Victorian orange sel­lers could be glimpsed. A deep blue light helped by a thin wire mesh screen created the effect of an historical vision.

In a "tribute" to William Shakespeare, some of the younger boys played a few of the more famous Shakes­pearean characters. Romeo's flower squirted water into his eye while he was making verbal love to Juliet. Hamlet used Yorick's skull as a yo-yo and, as a sur­prise entrant on the scene, one of the audience shouted that Bacon should get the credit normally showered on Shakes­peare, before he was led off.

A clever miming sketch went back a few hundred years in the form of a Chinese legend. Even an unfortunate mistake whereby the pro­logue was out of range of the. spot light did not spoil the effect. With the aid of a pianist Kathleen Anderson (who played most competently throughout the show) the ancient Eastern kingdom came to life and we saw the affec­tion of a crippled boy prince for a young beggar.

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