The Stage

A Village Life

Published Wednesday 10 March 2010 at 11:20 by Kevin Berry

The rural idyll is examined with humour and gradual but revealing insight in Mary Cooper’s new play for the Northumberland Theatre Company. Audiences for this tour of village halls will chuckle at recognisable ironies, but village life is not all fun and certainly not a panacea. How that is illustrated, in moments of emotional depth, is this play’s dramatic strength.

Margaret, played with unquenchable enthusiasm and heart by Sandra Hunt, is in her sixties and has come from London to the village of her childhood. She sees a disparate, apathetic community, which is not what she remembers. She tries to pull everyone together with frivolous ideas, but it is the prospect of a wind farm on a nearby beauty spot that eventually binds this community. Or at least puts them into two opposing factions.

Others in what is a splendid cast play two or even three sharply contrasting roles. Nigel Collins excels as Colin, Margaret’s husband who loathes village life. William Reay’s playing of a farmer dealing with despair really does hit home.

The NTC style is fluid, physically inventive and there are always memorable images to stir the senses. The actors have their props and costumes in the body of the hall, neatly arranged. Changing, in full view of the audience, is done with strict economy of movement. It has the effect of drawing the audience into the process of creating theatre.

A Village Life, touring to remote communities, is theatre without compromise.