PERFORMERS of the Stonesfield Players took on various characters for a marathon 12 hours to raise more than £330 for a West Oxfordshire charity.

The actors staged an improvised performance of scenes from plays including ’Allo! ’Allo!, Acorn Antiques and Under Milk Wood, reading straight from the scripts.

They were raising money for Charlbury-based SpecialEffect, which adapts video game systems for people with severe physical disabilities.

Audience members and those performing chipped in to the total amount raised, which organisers said was £337.

Molly Sherlaw-Fryer, of Stonesfield, said the series of short selected performances was followed by a final full-length rendition of The 39 Steps, adapted from Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film of the same name.

The 15-year-old said: “It went really well and by the end we had a full house for our final performance.

“We did about one act per play so we could do lots of them.

“Some had just two people in and in others there were about seven or eight of us.

“My favourite was probably ’Allo! ’Allo!, because of all the different accents everyone was having to do, we could barely tell what each of us was saying.”

The plays were staged in the High Street home of organiser Caroline Friend, who was also celebrating her 60th birthday.

Mrs Friend said: “We had a huge amount of fun and we are very pleased people donated as much as they did, given it was just a little event in my garden.

“Starting at 9am with virtually no one there was a bit surreal, but by the time we got to The 39 Steps the floodlights came on and we had a big audience and it felt like a proper theatre.”

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