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Country Voices/These Things Do Happen

Published Monday 29 September 2008 at 15:55 by Kevin Berry

Two splendid plays are revived to celebrate 30 years of the Northumberland Theatre Company. Country Voices and These Things Do Happen can be seen as separate plays, but to experience both is advisable.

Country Voices looks at the rhythms of Northumberland country life in the early years of the last century. Writer Stewart Howson refers to world events but they do not frame the structure of the play. Yes there is a trench scene, but the war remains distant. The land and its seasons and work cycles matter.

A diligent and admirably flexible cast are a farming family and various peripheral characters. They play penny whistles and sing lustily. Incidents are recalled, some jovial, some bringing a lump to the throat. Characters feel anger and heartbreak and joy. There is nothing of Lark Rise to Candleford in these stories - they are based on everyday reality. A shepherd survives a dreadful blizzard, which is vividly described by Eleanor Dennison. Then she adds as a postscript, “But the shepherding got him in the end”.

Three of the actors play plough horses. Watching Philip Oakland holding his plough handles, reins around his neck, is something this reviewer will remember for a long time. One suggestion for the cast and not meant as a criticism - holding a stance for just a split-second longer will give it lasting impact.

The movement from one scene to another is impressive. Two girls play humans after being horses, but a farm hand is still brushing their legs. Injured farmer Lewis Roberts is nursed, lights change and he is his younger self, stricken with TB.

In These Things Do Happen, Oakland is a tractor. Not a frivolous thing, but funny and central to the theme of change.

One scene has the cast at the pictures. Two courting couples and Oakland create the movie trailers as he becomes Fred Astaire and then plays the Flynn/Rathbone duel in Robin Hood. Oakland has a black card tube and the range of things he does with it will astonish. He and Rebecca Spears even use the tube, and suitable hats, to suggest a passing country bus.

Janine Leigh’s playing of a Land Army girl is absolutely smashing. Her first try at ploughing has a beautiful description of the blade cutting into the soil. Nigel Collins’ old hand, preferring horses to tractors, is a faithful study and not as predictable as it might sound. Attitudes change, not slowly but steadily.

Ben Steppenbeck’s lighting design gives the company’s traverse-mounted stage a theatrical quality that some mid-scale venues would envy.

Settling down with an audience in a village hall is hugely satisfying - there is cosiness, warm humanity, decently priced ice cream and an honest response to what is shown on stage. These plays are sure to be enjoyed and their appeal will not be restricted just to village halls in the north country.

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