Seizing the Day Company
Presents
Wearing The Trousers
The true story of Vesta Tilley, one of the most successful cross-dressing music hall stars that you’ve probably never heard of…
Written by Dyanne White
Directed by Craig Edwards
‘Wearing The Trousers’ is a new play which plots the life of one of the most successful cross-dressing music hall stars that most of the world has never heard of. Spanning Vesta’s life from childhood to her mid-seventies, ‘Wearing The Trousers’ has been written for Seizing The Day Company, bringing to life Vesta’s story in a series of flashbacks supported by a multi-role cast.
Using original music and songs from Vesta Tilley’s playbook the story leads us from her dotage in Monaco back to her theatre debut aged five in 1869, to the extraordinary People’s Tribute book, presented to her in 1920 by Ellen Terry and signed by her admirers including
Charlie Chaplin, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini and two million members of the public, to celebrate her career and retirement from the stage.
Born Matilda Alice Powles in 1864, Vesta became England’s highest earning woman and ‘England’s greatest recruiting sergeant’, singing patriotic songs in an enlistment drive for WW1. After retirement to support her husband’s political career, she moved to Monaco in an attempt to improve her failing health. She died in 1952 and is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery, London.
Please note that we have taken a slight liberty with history and have used Ella Shield’s 1915 parody version of the song ‘Burlington Bertie’ in our production. Although Vesta was the first performer to make this song famous in the 1900s, the original lyrics have unfortunately been lost somewhere in the echoes of the music hall theatres.
Cast
Dyanne White: Vesta Tilley
Kay Francksen: Allegra
Chris Harris-Beechy: Chairman, Harry Ball, Walter de Frece, Soldier, Commander, Policeman, Stan, Dan Leno.
Marie Clifford: Alys, Queen Mary, Customs Officer, Ethel, Voter, Nurse, Ellen Terry.
Biographies
Dyanne White: Writer and performer
Dyanne is a British actress who repatriated from Italy in 2018 after spending 21 years in Rome.
As a founder member of the Miracle Players Theatre Company Rome, she wrote and performed fifteen shows including such high-brow masterpieces as ‘ Caesar! More than Just a Salad’. Roles at the English Theatre of Rome were diverse, from Polonius in Hamlet (all-female Shakespeare) to Anna in Pinter’s Old Times. Teatro Multilingua, (acknowledging that she speaks fluent Italian and no French), cast her as the French speaking character in ‘I Still Recall That Quiet Night’. Dyanne also loved playing the title role in ‘Mrs Green’, an anti-Brexit play, performed in both Rome and London fringe theatres.
As well as performing in and dubbing many international films she has written a bilingual sit-com series, ‘Tracy & Polpetta’ for RAI 2 and a screenplay ‘Coming Apart in Italia’ which won the Endas International Prize for ‘Best Comedy’. She also survived 168 webisodes of ‘2kidsandadog’; occasionally performing but mostly directing, writing and waving a wobbly camera around. Her first novel, ‘Neville’ is currently languishing in her Dropbox.
For the BBC, she has performed in roles as diverse as Basil Brush’s scary psychiatrist and Dot on ‘Playdays: Dot Stop’. She has written over 180 children’s television episodes including Storymakers: Blue Cow & The Bedtime Zone. Her theatre work includes slapping her thighs in panto at the Mercury Theatre and on the pier at Porthcawl, and shows at The Gate Theatre, The Bristol Old Vic and the Bristol Improv Theatre. She is also one of the few humans to appear in an Aardman Animations stop-motion commercial.
This is her third project with Seizing The Day.
Kay Francksen: Performer
Kay is a core member of Seizing the Day and has had roles in both Snapshots and Bluffing Your Way in Ballet.
She was a founding member of Blue Angel Theatre Company, exploring absurdist drama which, she claims, is still a mystery to her! Theatre productions include playing the Narrator in Oriental Passion’s dance productions. She has also performed extensively with Next Stage Theatre Company (Bath). Shows include performing as Mrs Alexander in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the beautiful Minack Theatre in Cornwall, July 2025, and Intimate Exchanges at the Off Off Broadway Festival, New York. Other productions include Shirley Valentine and Lady of the Manor in House and Garden by Alan Ayckbourn, who as their main sponsor, came to the performance and met all the cast.
During the pandemic Kay zoomed across the Pond playing Lady Smatter in The Witlings, a satire written by the 18th Century playwright, Fanny Burney with the First Flight Theatre Company USA, New York. Another performance of note is her impersonation of Theresa “Missy” May rapping in a short You Tube film (Goodbye to the NHS) which resulted in her and the cast being invited to audition for Britain’s Got Talent!
Marie Clifford: Performer
After training at Rose Bruford Drama School, Marie’s professional career began here in Bristol with Avon Touring Theatre Company. She continued to work in theatre, radio, TV, film etc for nearly twenty years.
For a period of time she tried to be sensible and became Head of ICT and then Head of Drama in a secondary school. Disillusioned with the state education system, she broke away and set up her own dance fitness business teaching everyone from the fully fit and able to those at risk of falls, those with dementia and those who have survived a stroke.
In between teaching her classes, her love of the stage has still been sated these past fifteen years by appearing in seventeen pantomimes. Roles included Scottie (Star Trek), Captain Hook, Queen Mum, Wicked Stepmother, Rumpelstiltskin, Witch of t’ North, A crab, The Troll (aka Mr Trump), and The White Rabbit to name but a few. For a short while she also dabbled with running away with the (No Fit State) Circus, wrote directed and acted in Treasure Island on the Matthew and undertook numerous parts in twenty-four fashion shows, the like of which had to be seen to be believed! If you know, you know!
Chris Harris-Beechey: Performer
Chris is an actor, voice artist and sound designer with experience in script writing. After getting a taste for performance in school whilst performing drama and theatre studies and performing arts, they went on to study acting with a two year acting and performance course at the Bristol acting academy.
Chris has performed in a wide range of theatre productions, short films, videogames, advertisements and many more, but now with the Seize The Day Company has learned about the history of ballet in helping to assemble and perform in this fantastic show.
Alexandra Pickford: Producer
She then transferred from ballet to Fitness Professional, Aerobics, yoga teacher and Massage Therapist. Returning to the theatre aged 65, Alexandra worked on Once Upon a Time, on tour, joined The Untold Dance Theatre and Gerry’s Attic Community Dance and set up the Seizing The Day Company, which includes the successful collaborative shows, Snapshots and Bluffing Your Way In Ballet.
Alexandra took Bluffing Your Way in Ballet to the Edinburgh Fringe 2024, with very good houses, excellent reviews and a sell-out at Bath Theatre Royal, Ustinov in 2025.
She is currently transitioning from dancer to Producer, with the tremendous challenge of staging Seizing The Day’s world premiere of ‘Wearing The Trousers’ at the Alma Theatre, Bristol, followed by a tour of the South West. She is the beating heart and sponsor of Seizing the Day.
Craig Edwards: Director
Craig is an actor/director living and working in Bristol.
Along with actors Howard Coggins and Stu McLoughlin he formed Living Spit in 2011. He has directed all Living Spit shows from The Six Wives Of Henry VIII onwards to the recent adaptations of There’s Something About Typhoid Mary, Beauty & The Beast, Too Many Greek Myths andThe Passion Of Living Spit.
He directs for other companies, most recently Meadows To Meaders a series of community plays for Local Learning and Southmead Development Trust.
Recent acting productions include:
Cinderella at The Tobacco Factory/St. James Theatre London, Into The West Travelling Light, Jane Eyre Bristol Old Vic/National Theatre, The Borrowers The Tobacco Factory, Five Children And It The Egg, Further Than The Furthest Thing Minack Theatre and A Christmas Carol, Living Spit.
Alan Teece: Musical Director
Alan Teece is delighted to be Music Director for this production. Alan works as an accomplished composer, pianist, arranger and choirmaster and has written and performed in a variety of productions. He has his own studio where he composes using the latest Cubase technology.
Tim Adams: Co-Producer and Sound Tech
Tim is Dyanne’s long-suffering husband who has been coerced into many of her projects including his role of Co-producer and Sound Tech for Wearing The Trousers and the company’s previous production, Bluffing Your Way in Ballet. Acting has also been part of his agenda including roles with The Miracle Players and The British Embassy of Rome.
Pam Tait: Costume Designer
Pam Tait is known for Beautiful Thing (1996), Sid and Nancy (1986) and Queer as Folk (1999), The Sarah Jane Adventures stories, Invasion of the Bane and Revenge of the Slitheen.
Grateful thanks to:
Adrian Longstaffe, for the use of his wonderful rehearsal space.
Angela Clifford, for her generosity.
Helen Bannigan for her French, merci beaucoup!
Leah Milton & Malcolm Donkin for their script editing.
Acknowledgements:
Worcestershire library’s Archive and Archaeology Service & Bristol Central Library’s Reference Library.
'Seizing The Day' Company 