Devised from Jenna Bailey’s best-selling book of the same name, Foursight Theatre’s current touring show looks at the impact of the Cooperative Correspondence Club.
The club was formed in the late thirties, after an Irish housewife wrote a heartfelt letter to Nursery World magazine. Her opening sentence provides the play’s title. She was lonely and desperately unfulfilled. Many women responded to her plea and the CCC came into being with the circulation of a private, hand-stitched magazine of collected letters.
Foursight’s staging uses live music, film and a soundtrack. Seemingly ordinary lives are traced through the letters and they become far from ordinary. There is deep emotional insight, stark incident, lively humour and a growing sense of the value of the magazine. The dialogue is clear and immediate and the acting has a moving integrity.
Foursight’s physical style is free flowing, with dynamic group movement and a level of creativity rarely seen in adult shows.
Jill Dowse’s playing of an emotionally disintegrating woman is exemplary. Catriona Martin suggests so much with her expressions and gestures and Samantha Fox shines as a woman who discovers a talent for writing, but remains very much a housewife. There is deep commitment from everyone in the cast and a palpable respect for the people they are playing.
Many who see this will wonder why there is so little about the organisation and distribution of the CCC magazine. Some documentary detail is needed.
Foursight’s programme is interesting, though in one glaring respect it is unhelpful. Plenty of information about the cast, but no pictures with captions.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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