UP OUT O' THE SEA

Eastern Angles at the Town Hall, Maldon

10.03.11

touring until June 4^{th
for The Public Reviews}

Off the lonely Suffolk coast, eroded by the relentless waves, a wreck has lain for thirty years. Now it is to be brought to the surface, just as a prickly journalist from London turns up in the the tight-knit local community, with her laptop and her searching questions.

That's the starting point for Andrew Holland's Up Out o' the Sea, an atmospheric piece dealing with those Eastern Angles stock-in-trade themes of origins, ghosts and time-slips.

A simple, weathered set sits across the Town Hall in Maldon, replicating the John Mills Theatre back in Ipswich. “Fresh Fish For Sale – Special Offer Herring £1.50 lb” at one end, with a suggestion of the mooring and the remote Point. At the other, the village library.

The company of five bring some pretty complex characters to life, as their stories unfold and intertwine. Rough-edged chancer Tweedie, looking for love and a way out of the dead-end, was played by Francis Woolf, who caught precisely the mixture of bravado and vulnerability. His colleague, Dolphie, the only survivor of the volunteer crew that attempted the rescue on that fatal night, was Mike Aherne, who managed to make the grumpy old fishermen both believable and sympathetic.

Lisa-Marie Hoctor played two linked characters, both immature, both young mothers; sometimes hard to grasp all her words in this less than ideal acoustic, but I loved her Emily, the mysterious girl with a touch of the devil, who dreams of passing through into glory …

Laura Harding was brilliantly convincing as the writer with secrets of her own – the picnic at the Point was movingly done, as was the “information versus emotion” dialogue with Lisa-Marie's modern Milly.

And Lisa Tramontin played the Librarian, by no means a stock character, despite her stereotype hair and cardigan. Though not all of the dialogue she was given rang true, she did provide some of the most touching moments in a play of many layers and textures. Including the key revelation, a real goosebumps realisation.

Music was powerfully used – a Bach Passion mainly – and simple but effective lighting suggested the sunshine and the showers, the night and the storm. The setting was practical and versatile - I admired the imagination that turned a door with oilskins hanging from hooks into a stretcher for the victims of the storm.

In the end, after a rescue which echoes the earlier disaster, they decide to leave the wreck where it lies – a memorial draws a line under a past event whose details are gradually revealed in this intriguing piece, directed, with his usual sure touch for the intangible, by Eastern Angles' Artistic Director Ivan Cutting.

production photograph: Mike Kwasniak

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

TIM CAREY


Lunchtime Concert at the United Reform Church Maldon
08.04.10


Little more than 30 years separate Beethoven's Waldstein from Chopin's Winter Winds.
But as Tim Carey ably demonstrated, they are worlds apart musically.
He began his recital with the Beethoven: an eloquent, almost affectionate account of this monumental Sonata.
Chopin's anniversary year provided the excuse, as if one were needed, to play three of his best-known works, representing three markedly different styles.
After the A minor Etude, we heard the C# minor Polonaise, and to end, the first Balade, considered by Schumann to be the Pole's most “spirited and daring” music.


I know Tim Carey's work well, of course, but this was my first time in Maldon's URC, with its civilized architecture and its Boston grand.
And its CCTV, showing us the keyboard in close-up, a great asset to our appreciation of this superb recital.


Tim reminded us that next month he'll be bringing his Chelmsford Sinfonietta mini-Festival to the Cathedral. Flute and piano on the opening night, May 6, then Grace Francis at the piano on the Friday, with the orchestra playing Wagner, Reinecke and Beethoven on the Saturday to round it off.


Pick up a flier, or phone 01245 474709.

A MALDON TAPESTRY

The Maldon Heritage Play 2009

13.09.09

In the shadow of the old tower of St Peter's Church, which now houses the nationally renowned Maldon Millennium Embroidery, Alison Woollard's play – the tenth and last in the series, looked briefly back at some of the colourful characters from the history of Maldon and its environs.

Held together by the ladies stitching the history, the lively drama covered Mystery Plays [Noah, his wife, and a recalcitrant dove], Thomas Plume's pioneering lending library [and his workhouse], the leper hospital of St Giles, its herb garden, the healing properties of Maldon Salt Water, Beeleigh Abbey, loaves and fishes, poetry disseminated by balloon, transport facilitated by water, and of course the Pirates!

“To hell with History” the cry went up. But when history is as much fun as this, it's worth retelling for as long as St Peter's casts its shadow and the salt retains its savour …

The Heritage play was directed by Vicky Tropman, with Stuart Pegler in charge of the music.