WE DIDN'T MEAN TO GO TO SEA

WE DIDN'T MEAN TO GO TO SEA

Eastern Angles at the Hush House

26.06.2016

A welcome revival for this skilful, affectionate adaptation, by Nick Wood, of the Arthur Ransome novel of 1937, the seventh of the Swallows and Amazons franchise.

The staging is wonderfully inventive, endlessly evocative of the little Goblin on which the children accidentally sail to Holland. A circular stage, audience two sides, a small sail, a stern with a tiller, bigger sails either end of the traverse area, sea-chart designs on the decks, and everything stowed neatly away below: tin mugs, maps, flags, ropes, jumpers and lamps.

A combination of soundscape – the wind and the waves mixed with snatches of Shostakovich, master of film music – and atmospheric lighting conjured up the voyage in all its moods; we could almost feel the spray and the sea water.

And four young actors re-created that innocent world before the war when children could go off on adventures unaccompanied - “ all alone in our own little world with only the sound of the waves rushing by ...”

Rosalind Steele is Susan, sea-sick, but scarily efficient, longing to take the helm and prove as good as a boy. Joel Sams is John, acting skipper, reefing the mainsail, fighting fatigue and the elements to bring the cutter safely to harbour. Christopher Buckley gives an outstanding performance as Able Seaman Roger, the youngest on board, outspoken and always hungry. And Matilda Howe is Titty [not Kitty or Tatty, thank goodness], who writes up the whole adventure in her exercise book.

They all stay just leeward of Blyton-esque caricature, and everyone gets the chance to play another character. So Howe is also the Dutch pilot, Buckley the owner of the boat who unwisely goes ashore for a can of petrol, Sams is a superbly imperious Mother and Steele the naval Father – John, like Hamlet, sees a spectral parent in the dark watches of the night.

We also meet Sinbad the kitten and Billy the donkey …

It's a marvellous tale, tautly directed by Ivan Cutting. Not only a spiffing adventure, but also richly written, with tempers fraying as the sea-mist closes in.

And, of course, a natural choice for Eastern Angles, set in the local geography of the Orwell Estuary, just a few miles as the gull flies from where the Hush House sits under those wide Suffolk skies.

photograph: Mike Kwasniak

RAGNAROK

RAGNAROK

Eastern Angles at the Hush House

13.09.2014

To a remote site, born of the cold war, to witness the world's end. Ragnarok, the Norse Armageddon, with Giants, Dwarves and the Ancient Gods.

Eastern Angles feel some affinity with the region's early inhabitants. There were Viking re-enactors outside the Hush House for some pre-show rough stuff. Playwright Charles Way was specially commissioned to write this piece for this company and this space. 

It boldly embraces the old myths, with epic staging and poetical language, with colloquialisms and clichés for added grit.

Designer Sam Wyer has taken his cue from this utilitarian building – the towers are corrugated iron, the ox on the spit an oil drum.

Light, sound, smoke, wind and flame conjure up a spectacular world, and there are countless striking stage pictures, not least the Viking funeral boat in flames, disappearing into the sinister perspective of the Hush House's tunnel. Ben Hudson's evocative soundscape, too, echoes the deafening origins of this Cold War hangar.

There are superb puppets – the Giants, Idun the orchard goddess, and Fenrir the wolf, looking a little too cute, here, perhaps.

But strong meat, this. An eye is ripped out, and eaten. Loki, the shapeshifter, is tortured. And the very visceral, ungodly family feuds link Asgard with mortal Midgard.

Director Hal Chambers deploys his cast to great effect, filling the traverse stage with confrontation, conflict and occasional comedy. Theo Ogundipe makes an impressive Thor, wielding his hammer and leaping athletically around platform and causeway. Gracy Goldman has huge presence as Freya, goddess of fertility. Oliver Hoare is a mischievous rapscallion Loki – insouciant, insolent, he has most of the puns and the wordplay. And three amazing characters from Josh Elwell: the Mason who rebuilds the walls of Asgard, Thjazi the Giant, and Hod who shoots the mistletoe arrow to kill the invincible Baldr [Tom McCall]. Odin, the all-father, is an imposing Antony Gabriel, with Fiona Puttnam his Frigga. The ethereal Idun is voiced by Sarah Thom, who also plays the Seeress, foretelling the future and peering back into the past - “Burning ice, biting flame, that's how the world began …”

There are myths within myths here, as well as a wonderful shared storytelling moment – How Thor Won Back His Hammer. And a breathtaking finale, where the future is foretold and Baldr walks out into the twenty-first century.

These Norsemen and their Gods are not dead. Their bones lie under these Suffolk skies, their names live on in our language. They must surely rejoice to see their colourful stories brought to life in this thrilling triumph of theatricality.

production photograph: Mike Kwasniak

MARGARET CATCHPOLE

MARGARET CATCHPOLE

Eastern Angles 

at the Hush House

23.06.12

To celebrate their 30th year, Eastern Angles have revived one of their greatest hits, performed for the Millennium in village halls all over their patch.

But this time Margaret Catchpole has been re-imagined on a more epic scale.

Epic in its design. The broad arena of the Hush House – a revelation in the site-specific Bentwater Roads of 2010 – allows us to have a shoreline, with shingle, and impressive landing stages that do service as smugglers' boats, and, memorably, as a man'o'war.

Epic in its performance. We have four musicians, and as well as a cast of six, the impressive forces of the Community Chorus: no mere supernumeraries, but real Suffolk characters, including a nicely nuanced vicar from

Tony Barnard.  And some big set pieces, like the battle and the Harvest Home, with singing and dancing.

Appropriately for Olympic year, Alastair Cording's piece celebrates a folk hero and noted horsewoman, as she struggles between her duty to her father and to her employers and her "unfortunate fixation" for the "Freetrader" Will Laud, played with just the right balance of swagger and sincerity by Francis Woolf.

There's a Dickensian sense of injustice, of broken hopes, of the harshness of fate, of lives balanced between good and evil, all well brought out in Ivan Cutting's production. There's a pleasing symmetry to the dramatic structure: the urgent knocking at the doctor's door, the desperate bareback ride. Australia is a leitmotiv, whether as a New Start or as a penal sentence.

Pete Sowerbutts is Margaret's father, his life destroyed by her ill-advised liaison, and also the local doctor, who sees her as a wild child who must be tamed. Two excellent characterizations.

Her first love, the shy but determined John Barry is sympathetically drawn by Liam Bewley – his determination survives as he joins the Revenue Men, sworn enemies of those who land moonshine at the Sizewell Gap, not least his rival for Margaret's hand, and his accomplice Luff [Gareth Hinsley].

Margaret herself is Rosalind Steele, who makes us feel the distress of this remarkable woman, sharing her joy at reading a letter, her sorrow at her many setbacks. There's a "cheerful alteration" in her life when she is taken on by the Cobbolds. Elizabeth [Becky Pennick], wife of the brewery owner, treats Margaret more like a sister than a servant, teaches her to read and write, and remains true to her even when her trusts are betrayed.

This is a fine revival, well worth schlepping out to remotest Rendlesham for, full of memorable theatrical triumphs: Margaret's plaintive "Ride the White Horses", her imagined roan mount, Laud's letter which she painstakingly reads as he prompts her from across the ocean, and the final tableau, the whole company frozen in farewell as our heroine walks into the infinite exile of the Hush House tunnel.

production photograph: Mike Kwasniak