News January 2021

Click here to read the newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Autumn News 2020

Click here to read the newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Summer News 2020

Click here to read the newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Autumn News 2018

Click here to read the newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Summer News 2018

Click here to read the newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

This is another review

this is a second review

Posted in Reviews

Review Test

this is a review test

Posted in Reviews

Keep in touch

Click here to read the newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

The Cause and other news

Click here to read the newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

We are launching a crowdfunder!

Rebellious Sounds Archive Logo

Click here to about our upcoming Rebellious Sounds Archive crowdfunder »

 

Posted in News, Rebellious Sounds Blog

Coming soon!

Rebellious Sounds blog entries coming soon!

Posted in Rebellious Sounds Blog

Newsletter January 2018

Click here to read the January 2018 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Newsletter November 2017

Click here to read the November 2017 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Press Release September 2017

Dreadnought South West wins National Lottery support for the Rebellious Sounds Archive of oral histories about women and their activism.

Click here for full article

Click here for pdf download

Posted in News, News

Occupy The Airwaves 2017 Blog

Dreadnought South West with Phonic FM On International Women’s Day 2017

After months of planning and curation we finally had our 16 hours of radio broadcasting to celebrate International Women’s Day 2017.

It was a big shift from 2016’s pilot, where we had 6 hours on air and a much smaller gathering of women hosting shows. Nonetheless it worked and brought about a huge amount of joy and pride to those of us involved.

So we decided to see if we could do it again, and thanks to Phonic FM we were. All the regular DJ’s gave up their weekly slots to enable this to happen so many thanks to them, with Dave Treharne and John Wigzall (Director’s of Phonic) (and Pat who did the desk training) supporting us all the way.

This year thanks to funding from Arts Council England South West, Exeter City Council and Fawcett Devon we were able to make that leap into the unknown, including offering in the run up to the event itself free training for women in Podcasting and how to run the desk in Phonic’s studio. This was very exciting indeed as we hoped that it would inspire those who took up the training to continue engaging with radio and podcast production long after the event itself. There was also a session on producing a radio script to allow for structure and the do’s and don’ts whilst on air. You might be able to guess what some of those are.

   

Some amazing podcasts were part of the day from Cathy Towers and Belinda Dillon talking to women running independent businesses in Fore Street in Exeter. Some of these will be put up on the website, and so will the podcasts made by Nicky Glassbrook. We look forward to sharing these with you all.

Our plan was to be on air from 8am until Midnight. And we were. Over 65 women and girls took part on air in some way in the end, and we were supported brilliantly all day by Exeter Phoenix who provided us with a green room so everyone involved could get a cup of tea and meet other guests or show hosts.

There was a wonderful community atmosphere throughout the day. So a big thank you to Patrick and his team at the Phoenix. The tea and coffee supplies helped us enormously! John Wigzall was also a great support technically throughout the day, as was Helen Connole who ran the desk for several shows. Josie Sutcliffe, Charlie Parker and Kerrie Seymour were there all day running the logistics and ensuring everything moved on schedule. It was a great celebration of women from across the city of Exeter.

  

In the weeks leading up to Occupy the Airwaves, Sam Smether’s Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society was invited to speak at a Fawcett Devon event about the impact of leading the EU on women. Dreadnought had the opportunity to interview Sam before the event took place. The interview was broadcast during the Women and Activism show.

The interview will be made available in the Autumn on this website for you to listen in to. Thanks to Sam for taking the time to talk to us at Dreadnought South West. The above image is of Yvonne Atkinson (Fawcett Devon Co-ordinator), Sam Smether’s and Nat McGrath from Dreadnought. It was great to hear Sam talk and we thoroughly recommend it if you ever get the opportunity she is an eloquent and highly knowledgeable speaker, particularly on gender equality and women’s rights.

Josie and Charlie were instrumental in the programming of the day with Kerrie Seymour and between the three of them they were able to plot the day.

This included Inspiring Women’s Day. Kicked off by Josie Sutcliffe with Nina Simone’s version of ‘Feelin’ Good’, to start Dreadnought’s 16 hour occupation of Phonic.FM. Joined by Charlie Parker and Kerrie Seymour, who then went off to set up the Green Room for the day, and Belinda Dillon who stayed as a guest for the rest of this launch show. Val Wilson from Exeter City Council joining towards the end.

Shows included subject such as Female Friendship and collaborations hosted by Kerrie, Motherhood which created a manifesto for being a mother, and Speaking Out, hosted by Cathy Towers, which included some fantastic podcasts of interviews with a range of women about how they have spoken up and out. This was very inspiring. Women In the Arts and Women and Activism was hosted by Josie Sutcliffe, her third show of the day!

Nicci Wonnacott did a spoken word performance of her piece ‘Mouth’, which was exciting and political. On the Front Line: Women in Tech & Science, hosted by Helen Connole with Felicity Liggins from the Met Office was great in sharing stories about women in tech and quite a few experiments took place in the green room.

In Gender, Identity, Sexuality, in Museums & Heritage, hosted by Nat McGrath, there were two fascinating recorded interviews with Dr Jana Funke from the Institute of Sexology at the University of Exeter and Trans Activist and Historian Cheryl Morgan. Really looking forward to hearing these again, and the discussions between Dr Ina Linge, Terah Walkup and Dr Jen Grove.

It’s A Girl Thing, another show hosted by Kerrie Seymour later on had younger women on the show and then as we hit teatime Sharifa took on Advocay with guests and then Cultural Identity, amidst some fantastic tracks by women. Where is Home? Hosted by Emily Souter-Johnson came next exploring notions of identity and where we belong. Then a comedy hour ensued with The Two Yonis aka Nicky Glassbrook & Michelle Ridings, considering how the menopause has impacted on their lives and behaviours.

Finally we hit our last stride with Women Are the New Punk Rock hosted by Lande Hekt, with guests and amazing conversations and music about women and DIY punk culture. It was a great way to end the longer shows, with music by women and the content ranging from being a younger women to periods.

Finishing with The Party’s (not) Over, hosted by Josie Sutcliffe and Nat McGrath with the team: Charlie Parker, Kerrie Seymour and Belinda Dillon. It was such an exciting and rewarding day. Finally got that Beyonce track in!

Dreadnought Associate Artist Catherine Cartwright beamed in all the way from Australia during the day and sent us a beautiful print image from her collection of new work. It was amazing to here from Cath on the day. We know that there were folk listening in from the US, Norfolk, Essex, Northampton, Cornwall and other parts of the UK.

A massive thank you to everyone who hosted a programme, ran the desk, made podcasts, was a guest, chose great tunes by women, gave an interview to be recorded in advance. Thank you for your time and effort in making this event work.

Big thanks to Charlie Parker, Kerrie Seymour, Belinda Dillon who were there all day, as was Josie Sutcliffe with Natalie joining later on in the morning. AND to our Trustees who supported the event and continue to support our ongoing work and commitment to sharing stories about women and girls, and making their voices heard. The radio, we have discovered is a great way to do this.

We hope very much to be back next year on March 8th 2018, but in the meantime if you read this and think you would like to be involved then please do get in touch with us here: info.dreadnoughtsw@gmail.com

Thanks.

 

Posted in Occupy The Airwaves 2017

Newsletter March 2017

Click here to read the March 2017 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Newsletter February 2017

Click here to read the February 2017 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Occupy The Airwaves 2017

with Dreadnought South West and Phonic FM
International Women's Day 2017
Wednesday 8th March

click here for full details »

Posted in News

Barbican Theatre Rebellious Sounds Writing Workshops 2016

EXPOLORING 100 YEARS OF WOMEN'S ACTIVISM IN THE SOUTH WEST

Click here to view the Barbican Theatre workshop poster

 

Posted in News

Writing Workshop – Bodmin November 2016

Click here to view the poster for the Bodmin writing workshop

 

Posted in News

Calm Down Dear Festival, Exeter Bikeshed, 2016

Calm Down Dear Festival, Bikeshed Theatre, Exeter

“It’s a sting”  says Sarah Moody, musician who we have brought in to join the company for this last burst of research and development on ‘The Orchard’.

A sting is a musical interjection.  That’s my interpretation.

At this last stage of development.

Suddenly the company has grown.

Sound and discordance are back in the room.

Sarah has joined us to work with Claire on the sound for The Orchard.  To see what happens when two accomplished musicians are in the room. Thanks to Claire for making the recommendation and embracing bringing another musician into the process.

We only have two days, but Sarah is amazing and tunes in to Claire fast.  There are wires everywhere around her as she places various instruments and pieces of tech in the space.  It is exciting to see this new development.

We have a fuller song now and it is a big ask for Saskia to take it on, but she does.

Suddenly we are in a more traditional theatre space with an audience coming and this raises all kinds of questions about the vision of the work itself, where it could go in the future and how it might be realised.

We are full to the rafters audience wise with a waiting list.  Apologies to anyone who could’t get a ticket.  

It is lovely to know folk want to see the work, make a return in some cases.

There familiar faces.  People who have been part of The Orchard Roadshow sharing’s in 2015.

The play itself has had another major re-draft and has suddenly felt more economical to us, although in the performed reading discussion afterwards, some say there are too many words.  It feels like it needs to be in rehearsals now to allow Josie to open up all the spaces that a performed reading cannot really find.  To open up its internal rhythms.

I think it can have one final slice of painstaking forensic attention.

To get rid of anything completely unnecessary and to develop The Trumpet character even further, as she/he/not sure what gender if any binary at all is, has some catching up to do with the development of the other two characters.  Close but not quite.

This is the peril of introducing a new character later on into a play.  But what is clear is that The Trumpet is here to stay.

There are over half less words than before.  I know now we are close to the play we want to tour.

I made some bold edits.  Time now to be bolder than ever.

Ruth and Michelle are ready to move into a new space with the play.

It has been amazing working them over the past two years.  They have been open and diligent and made challenging suggestions, but have always pushed to move the text on.  I am grateful to them for this commitment.  They are integral to the work.

It has been worth taking this time and care to make the discoveries we have made.

And to Josie who has been the person who has held it all together.

The Dramaturg that pushes and pushes seeking meaning in places that I couldn’t always see.  Giving the actors time and space to hold the words.  Speaking to audiences about why we are doing what we are doing.

The Director who sees the things we do not initially see, who has been carving out a vision for the world of the play as language has dominated.

Soon another kind of visual language will take centre stage thanks to her.

And to Claire who has moved with us and made responses throughout to our ideas, some have been quite challenging, and now we are moving towards a sense of sound for the play, it has been great to see Claire collaborate firstly with Saskia, and now with another musician in this final R&D phase to push the sound of the play.

And to Saskia who has joined us for this final development and who has been so open and generous in the studio, willing to try whatever we ask of her, amidst a team who know one another now quite well, have their own rhythm.  This has been a gift at this stage.

And to Sarah who brought a new energy to the sound of the work.

Finally to Charlie our Producer who has been with us for this last phase and who has brought her own thoughts to the development of the work, committed to having a voice in the room and to supporting our work.

It is clear that this will be the last performed/reading of The Orchard, and so I inevitably spend some time reflecting back upon this epic journey we have taken it on.

It’s a good feeling to finish in Exeter on our home turf.

Thanks to Arts Council South West for allowing us to experiment one last time.  To Exeter Phoenix who have continued to support us, to Fawcett Devon, the Elmgrant Trust and Exeter City Council.

Thanks to the Bikeshed for having us and to Chloe Whipple who we worked with on making this happen.

Thanks to the people in the audience and to those who stayed to be heard and share their thoughts, it was a challenging and thought provoking last audience dialogue, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

For more information about the Calm Down Dear Festival Read more »

Natalie McGrath
Writer of ‘Oxygen& ‘The Orchardfor Dreadnought South West
Tuesday 4th October 2016

Posted in Blogs

Newsletter September 2016

Click here to read the September 2016 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Looking into Archives

Looking into Archives

It’s very misty and the sea looks pretty choppy and wild, but I am thrilled to be back in Penzance.  Home of the Hypatia Trust, whom I am meeting with later on today.  I’m really excited to be spending time with Melissa and Phil, after quite a while of not seeing them.

I used to stay in their Library as a fellow of Hypatia, at New Mill, and now they have moved into Trevelyan House in central Penzance.  I am excited awaiting hearing all their news, all the updates on the Trust itself and their archives.

Oxygen was partly born in their library at New Mill.

The idea for the tour began with the book Hypatia published: A Very First  History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Cornwall 1870-1914 by Katherine Bradley.  In it was a list of the stopping places that the women took to rally and rest on the Great 1913 Women’s Suffrage Pilgrimage. It looks liked a theatre tour.  How seeds are planted and ideas begin to grow.

Hypatia Trust, Penzance – Wednesday 29th June 2016.

The Hypatia Trust is on the move, with new premises in Chapel Street to house their offices, resources, collections, and for writers, academics, guests to stay will be a final stage, and an onsite archive facility.  This is very exciting for them indeed.

I am also impressed by their new website:  www.hypatia-trust.org.uk

Have a wee look for yourself.

Talking to Melissa about archives and archiving is fascinating and something she is clearly passionate about.  She talked to me about archives that are about a single thing, and how archival subjects as everywhere.

Documents / articles / stories / oral histories / books / pamphlets / zines / objects / photographs

Melissa also talked about archiving as a process of collecting that can be a lifetime pursuit, where odd things that come out, will make it an experience for someone visiting it, of all these things you have collected, one might stand out to someone on the hunt, researching.

“An archive can build a unique picture of someone else.”

This makes me wonder when I think about the possibility of a Rebellious Sounds Archive for Dreadnought in the future.

What might adventuring into this rich archival territory mean for us?

It is envisioned at this stage as a collection, unique here to the South West, one that is also an experience for people to engage with, of oral histories/stories of women’s everyday activism.  So it will build a wider picture or act as a collective picture?

Hearing Melissa speak is really a privilege.  She talked of building Hypatia’s story.  Of what do they pass on if historians are not documenting women’s lives in the way that men’s lives are so readily documented.  She talked about in history how hard it is to find out anything about women; “we might know a first name, but not much more.”

Extraordinary to think that this is the case when we look back.

“An archive is about hints to help find the truth, this is what Hypatia is about.”

So it is beyond the stories we collect.  It goes beyond the name and the person.  Who are they, what have they done, achieved, thought, actioned?

Melissa also said: “get to the tender points which light fires.”  I think this is a beautiful way of articulating the possibility that an archive can bring.

I love that: ‘the tender points’.  

St.Ives Archive – Thursday 30th June 2016

Archives.

I am here to learn about archives.

Secretly.

Somewhere in my heart I think I am an archivist.

Maybe we all are now.

These quiet meditative spaces that writers love.

I venture to Carbis Bay to visit the award winning St.Ives Community Archive.  Dreadnought and Hypatia Trust both got pipped by this archive in the first Women’s History Network Community Prize in 2014.

So I thought I could learn something from them.

Carbis Bay.

It is a beautiful morning and I travel by train to St.Erth to get the branchlike to St.Ives, and then to travel back to Carbis Bay.  There’s a system.  The train is packed.  St.Ives is kissed by sunshine as we arrive.  The whole bay is beautiful.  I walk onto sand at Carbis Bay.  I have 10 minutes to look out to sea and then I have to use my navigation skills to get to the St.Ives Archive.

Not enough time to take off my shoes and socks.

I am early.

It is uphill.

I take pictures of all the archiving around me.  Boxes and folders are labeled.

Numbered.

Ordered.

This is a living breathing physical archive.

I am about to learn something new.

Janet Axten arrives.

And I learn more than I could have imagined.

I am introduced to the world of community archives and archivists.

Have a wee look at this community venture:  www.stivesarchive.co.uk

 

Natalie McGrath
Co-Director Dreadnought South West
29th & 30th June, 2016

Posted in Blogs

Lucienne Boyce

Lucienne Boyce Lucienne Boyce writes historical fiction and non fiction. Her first historical novel, To The Fair Land (SilverWood Books) an eighteenth-century thriller set in Bristol and the South Seas, was published in 2012. Her second novel, Bloodie Bones: A Dan Foster Mystery (SilverWood Books, 2015), is the first of the Dan Foster Mysteries and follows the fortunes of a Bow Street Runner who is also an amateur pugilist. Bloodie Bones is a finalist for the Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016, and has been long listed for the M M Bennets Award for Historical Fiction 2016.

For information about the Dan Foster Mysteries (including information about the real people and events mentioned in the books) see http://www.lucienneboyce.com/dan-foster-bsr/

In 2013, Lucienne published The Bristol Suffragettes (SilverWood Books), a history of the suffragette movement in Bristol and the west country. She regularly gives talks and leads walks about the campaign.

For further information about The Bristol Suffragettes (including free suffragette walks and biographies) see http://www.lucienneboyce.com/suffragettes/

Lucienne is currently working on the second of the Dan Foster Mysteries, and a biography of a married couple who were involved in the suffragette, socialist and pacifist movements.

Social Media Links:-

Website: http://www.lucienneboyce.com/
Twitter: @LucienneWrite
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lucienne.boyce
Blog: http://francesca-scriblerus.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6437832.Lucienne_Boyce

Posted in Cast

A Sharing

A Sharing
(Then something devastating happens):

Jo Cox MP would have been 42 years old today.

Last week her life was cut short.  Taken from her.

We were in the studio locked in a bubble working on Dreadnought’s new play The Orchard, exploring new directions.  All the actors were there: Michelle Ridings, Ruth Mitchell and Saskia Portway.  Musical Director; Claire Ingleheart, Director; Josie Sutcliffe, Producer; Charlie Parker, Dreadnought Champion; Sarah Pym.  Myself.  Writer.

Later on an audience of incredible women arrived to hear and respond to the work.

During the day Jo Cox MP was murdered in the street in her constituency.

This hadn’t registered with me at all as I wasn’t looking at my phone, any social media.  Just focused on the job at hand working with the text in front of me.  Moving forward.  Taking the play to the next level of understanding.  It had had another big push.

Late nights are the norm for writers during development phases.  It is a feverish time and a feverish kind of state of being.  Making me oblivious to the world outside the play.

I enjoy these development days.  Feel that they are necessary to learn about the words and the world of the play.  To establish a creative language across the team.  I like to push as hard as possible, to learn as much as I can, to get the most out of the creative talent and energy around me.

But what happens when you think you are beginning to understand something, then the world bounds in, and you realise it is sometimes impossible to understand anything.

What happened in Batley in Spen.  On its streets finally registered before the sharing began.  It is unbelievable.

Silence between us all.  We think of her family, friends and colleagues

I couldn’t quite take it in.  Surely not.

We were about to present a play about women in politics.  Political women.  In the early Twentieth-Century.

A play about women and politics.  Women in politics.  Then the early Twenty-First Century comes crashing in.

I cried a lot since Jo Cox was murdered.  I didn't know her.  I never met her.  But her words that have filtered through into our wider public consciousness have touched and moved me.  Her humanity and humility and grace sings out.

It is clear that Jo Cox MP fought for the underdog.  That she wasn't frightened to be a vocal feminist and a champion of women.  She supported people who were terrified.  In exile from their own countries, working towards making them welcome.  Working towards a greater understanding of compassion in our society.

So I realise I am angry.

I am also sad.  Holding these thoughts in my heart.

I know I am not alone.

Having spent much time now considering women’s political voices, their role in politics, how women fought to be heard, to have the right to vote now.  These are common threads in all the work we do with Dreadnought, but none more so than in the plays Oxygen and now with The Orchard.

Today many folk are meeting in Parliament Square to hold hands and to be clear that the message is to ‘LoveLikeJo’ because love is stronger than hate.  My neighbours two doors down have put this on a placard and placed it in their window for all to see.

What a shock.  What a devastating blow.  What a loss.

I ask myself the following question: where is the love between Fawcett and Pankhurst in The Orchard?  Is it there?  If so, where?  I have to keep seeking it.  There has to be love. To honour them and Jo Cox who was able to become an MP over 100 years later because of them.

It is all connected. I am trying desperately to connect here.  I hope it make sense.  I hope I am not making a complete hash of this?  Talking out of term?

I’m here on my own today and so cannot hold hands or make that link with anyone.  But I am in my heart.  For it is love that has been attacked.  Here on our streets and then also remembering last week was one helluva week, starting with the killings in Orlando of 49 LGBTQ people.  Random acts of killing.  Hatred in what was meant to be a safe space.

These things are a timely reminder, like big landscapes, that life is bigger than we are.  It is certainly bigger than plays.

We need unity and common causes, and dignity and safety on our streets and in places for people to gather to laugh and dance and feel free.  These spaces shouldn't have tyranny hanging over their heads.

I am so sad about these things.

All of these things are wired now into me.  What can I say as a writer to navigate this?

What can writing do in dark times?

Bertolt Brecht had something to say about that.

I was hoping to find love within The Orchard.  Determined even, and it has reached a place of love after anger after misunderstanding after understanding after common cause after division after rage after despair and walking and direct action collide.

After.

What can we do after such events as these, but love.  Because we do have more in common than what divides us.

I realise I haven’t written anything about the sharing.

 

Natalie McGrath
Writer of ‘Oxygen’ & ‘The Orchard’ for Dreadnought South West
Wednesday 22nd June 2016

Posted in Blogs

Discordance and The Orchard

Discordance and The Orchard

Back in the studio.

It’s May 2016, and we are getting back into the studio to re-ignite the collaboration with MD and composer Claire Ingleheart.  We also want to bring in a third performer.  To find out if the grenade I talked about in the last blog has legs.

Claire brought us such beautiful harmonies with Oxygen’s songs so it is fascinating to now feel like we are walking towards a show that engages with discordance.  And to think about how to articulate this to her, and making sense when doing so.

Making sense of discordance.  Now there’s a new challenge.

It’s tricky as I understand it as a feeling at the moment.

Two forces clashing.  Meeting.  Spiralling away from one another.  Meeting.  Holding on to one another maybe just for an instant.  A catch me if you can moment.

But there are other things I am interested in as well as the words.

Sound as a reaction.
Music as a force pushing against the status quo as these two women are.
Sound that can shape shift.
Open up spaces.

And I’m not a musician.  I can’t read a note.  I just feel it.  Let a sound get inside my head, my body, particularly my body.  I like to dance.  Move as I am bound to the computer.  It is a kind of jerk reaction to almost stillness.

I’m not sure that writing and stillness always works.

‘The Orchard’ is a world of its own and so sound is integral for Josie and I to this.

I’ve been listening intently to Stravinsky’s Rights Of Spring.  Possibly a bit too often.

Such a potent piece of work. First performed in Paris in 1913.  No coincidence.  I am writing again.  About 1913.  What is it about that year?  That ground that hasn’t been covered.  Enough.  Barely at all.

Previously I talked about a revolution for women.  Here is revolution also in art when I think of Stravinsky.

Stravinsky is evocative in so much of my thinking as a write, when trying to discover and embrace, (wrestle might be more appropriate), with the content of The Orchard.  Music as always dominates.  Finds it way into channels I don't know are there until I allow for repetition and overload.  Sound pumping into my body.

Sound that finds it own patterns and rhythms or non-rhythms.  A clash of dynamics.  Ideologies in a tender embrace in one moment, and then at odds in the next.

Bumpety bump bump bump!

A rallying call.

And how can this then speak directly to an audience.  Sediment.  Being layered into the fabric of the play.  This is what we seek.

I am obsessed thinking about frameworks and structure when developing a play.

I get submerged. A lot of forgetting takes place.  Then remembering follows.  Oh.  I see.

Structure.  I love chaos inside a structure.  Stravinsky haunts me.  I want this music to haunt everyone else too.  It is following me around.  It brought me structure at the earlier stage of the work:

A Nightingale
Sounds of An Orchard
A Chorus of Ghosts
Ritual of Rival Tribes
And so on

A spine I am convinced is still okay to work with.

We go back into the studio with performer Saskia Portway, a cello, a harp, a piano, a violin and a drum.  But not Michelle and Ruth.  Not yet.  We really want to see what happens free of the ‘play’.  I take in a page of text I think.  Maybe two.

Josie is keen to experiment with sound.  To work with Saskia on this new role of The Trumpet.  There is no other name for her at this point.  She feels androgynous.  Like something unknown.  Unpredictable as a force potentially within the play itself.

Anarchy and discordance and disruption.

We explore this new voice.  Claire and Saskia explore sound.  Dialogue becomes sung and new connections are made.

Suddenly there is something that resembles a song.

Josie and I listen in as we read small sections of The Orchard that I have sought out as ways of trying to discover the nature of this third voice now known as The Trumpet.  Each evening I work through those small sections of text to see if they can work the next day.

Something has shifted.  I think Josie’s grenade is brilliant and it works.  A trumpet has arrived.

A new kind of rhythm has emerged.  I look at and see the play with fresh eyes.

 

Natalie McGrath
Writer of ‘Oxygen’ & ‘The Orchard’ for Dreadnought South West
25th May 2016

Posted in Blogs

Newsletter April 2016

Click here to read the April 2016 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Newsletter November 2015

Click here to read the November 2015 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Newsletter October 2015

Click here to read the October 2015 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Newsletter August 2015

Click here to read the August 2015 newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

 

Posted in News

Newsletter July 2015

Click here to read the July 2015 Newsletter »

Click here for the newsletter archive »

Posted in News

Returning to The Orchard 2016

Returning to The Orchard

Returning to The Orchard after nearly a year away from it has been revealing.  Last year there was the exciting Rebellious Sounds Roadshow of scratch readings and rich audience dialogues across the South West.

Here we presented a raw script to audiences from the outset with the opportunity to open up meaningful dialogue with them.  All of our audiences were amazing and generous in their responses, examining and taking on the play’s content.  We wanted to know if it had potential.  If the content was rich and engaging enough to bring it to contemporary audiences.

It provoked much debate about women and politics and activism and causes and being in it for the long haul, which struck such a chord for so many.  This opened up airwaves in the play itself.

These dialogues were central to informing many of the choices made and conversations we went on to have.

I’ve said this before, but it is important to say it again, but everyone was very generous, some audiences had to be asked to leave by venues as the time was marching on, and their staff wanted us to go home as they wanted to go home!

The play developed after each scratch performance and finally landed with a sense of its form, or so I thought!

Sometimes you need that kind of distance I’ve now had to get some perspective as a writer, and it is easy to get really weighed down by what has passed when looking at re-imagining historical figures as characters on the stage.  There is another and particular kind of responsibility at stake.  It is fair to say that taking on and attempting to write known historical people is tricky.  How can a writer really know what they might say?  I had been clear from the outset that I didn’t want to load it with verbatim material.

I have been asking about the imagination and how I can make a leap with this.

Then it’s funny, (and I don’t mean ha ha), when you think you have ‘found’ the form of a play you are working on, and then the director/dramaturg, (Josie Sutcliffe), you are collaborating with on the work throws a creative grenade at you and the work.

A new thought.
A new challenge.
A final R&D.
A new leaping off point.

What I had been seeking was a kind of authenticity, maybe this isn’t simply possible (it isn’t useful as a word and isn’t possible), and so what I mean is something resonant of how I imagined these two extraordinary and influential female leaders, (Millicent Fawcett, Emmeline Pankhurst), voices to be and sound like.  Okay who I am I kidding, it’s an imagined version of them.  Nothing more nothing less.

Leaps you see.  They will upend you.

Clearly I can’t really possibly know or would presume to know, but who are they as characters on the stage in a play that imagines them meeting in the height of the fever of 1913.

A year full of revolution for women.  Revolution approached in different ways.  Yet still, a common cause.

Revolution.

When Pankhurst finds herself on the run from the dehumanising ‘cat and mouse’ act imposed by Government, and Fawcett, who is preparing her troops to walk up the arteries of the country, to converge in one place as a site and signal of peaceful protest.

Both are in motion, moving, trying to move forward and not to look back.

I wondered what might happen if they had to be still for a moment, an hour, not much more and if this happened whilst they were together.

This wondering continues as I re-find the play.

So many questions arise from imagining the potential of such a meeting.

Did they ever really meet after the Women’s Movement of the early Twentieth-Century split into the militant WSPU (Women’s Social & Political Union), and the non-militant NUWSS (National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies)?

Does it matter whether they did or not?

Apart from the obvious sadness that I feel for the division in the movement at the time.  I also understand that they had to follow their own paths in the fight for women’s enfranchisement.  I also wonder if somewhere they needed the opposition to give their own personal causes perspective?

Sitting one evening talking to Josie last summer about the work, she suggested that there might be another person onstage with Emmeline and Millicent.  Someone more like a Greek chorus or Ariel, who could keep the audience within touching distance of the work in the spirit of the dialogues we had just had.

A nod to this.  An honouring.

Someone who might reveal more about their divisions, disrupt our thinking, shake things up.  A more contemporary voice.  One that reaches out and beyond them.

That was the grenade.

This unsettled me for while, but slowly I registered what it could mean and do potentially in terms of song and sound, not to mention the dynamic of the play itself.  Three is complex in a completely different way to two characters onstage, especially if they are all onstage all of the time.

And so here we are almost a year later.

Blessed with more Arts Council funding to enable us to return to the studio to think and play, and listen to sounds and instruments, a new voice is in the room and it is exciting.

 

Natalie McGrath
Writer of ‘Oxygen’ & ‘The Orchard’ for Dreadnought South West
Friday 6th May 2015

Posted in Blogs

Happy New Year 2015!

Happy New Year!

We hope that this finds you all well.

2015 is already proving a rich and eventful year for us here at Dreadnought HQ, with some wonderful news to share with you: we have recently received funding from Arts Council England South West, Exeter City Council and Fawcett Devon, which will enable us to get out and about in the region during March and April. It also allows us to continue our Rebellious Sounds project, seeking out stories about women and activism in the South West region. Have a look at these fascinating interviews (undertaken by Belinda Dillon) on our website: www.dreadnoughtsouthwest.org.uk/radicalvoices

We’re doubly delighted and excited as in this pre-general election time we can share with you a development of our new play, The Orchard, that we began in 2014; written by Natalie McGrath, directed by Josie Sutcliffe and performed by Michelle Ridings and Ruth Mitchell.

In this imagined meeting. Amidst heightened militancy. Amidst the sound of women walking. Emmeline is on the run. In hiding. A fugitive (“I am a wolf.”) Millicent is marching. Making preparations (“It is the hive I love.”) In her element. The moderate and the radical. Which is which? In private. In an unnamed orchard, where no one else can see.

We invite you to join us as we host a series of unique ‘scratch’ performances across the region. These scratch performances are similar to script-in-hand or rehearsed readings of the material we have so far. We want you, our supporters and audiences, to have your say in this pre-election time and to add your voice to our creative process through lively q&a sessions and debates on the issues contained in the play; the importance of using the vote, democracy, equality, women’s voices and the paradoxes of leadership.

Nine million women did not use their vote in the last UK general election in 2010.  What will happen this May?

As well as the performances, there will be free workshops and associated events taking place in Redruth (2nd & 3rd March), Bodmin (4th March), Teignmouth (11th & 12th March), Exeter (19th & 20th March), Corsham (26th March), Plymouth (24th April) and Stawley Pavilion in Somerset (25th April).

Full listings of all Dreadnought activities will follow very soon. We would love you to share this newsletter with friends and family you think may be interested – you can use the buttons on the right to do this via Facebook or Twitter, or to forward it to an email address.

We look forward to seeing familiar faces and new ones too, on our Rebellious Sounds: The Orchard Roadshow.

Sending very best wishes,

Co-Artistic Directors Josie Sutcliffe & Natalie McGrath.

click here to view the e-newsletter version of this page > 

Posted in News

Land’s End and Beyond

I'm sat in the auditorium of the beautiful Orange Tree Theatre today, where the company are working Oxygen for the space, which is in the round.  Another new space, another new configuration.  Amazing to the see the 'bones' as they are now known in here, after seeing them against so many other backdrops.

It is great to be so welcomed here in Richmond by Sam Walters and his team.  It's very exciting to be finishing our tour here.  A place where women playwrights are regularly honoured and produced.   Richmond.  The women on the pilgrimage were here.  Passing through.  Almost at their destination. 

We have been made welcome in so many places on our journey. This has been an extraordinary aspect of the Dreadnought project as a whole.  Another reflection of the way the women of 1913 gathered and managed being on the pilgrimage route.  When we set out on this projects beginnings over eighteen months ago, it was always an ambition to try and reflect and honour aspects of the pilgrimage itself.  Obviously the constraints are wildly different, but here we are nonetheless.

Read more ›

Posted in News

Oxygen Review – The Rondo Theatre, Bath

On 13 July 2013
Review by Sue Gordon

Oxygen, a new play, by Natalie McGrath, tells the story of a group of women who walked from Land’s End to Hyde Park in the Summer of 1913 as part of  the Great Suffrage Pilgrimage. History tells us that thousands of women up and down Britain joined the march to London in protest against gender inequalities, work conditions and to demand votes for women.

In contrast to the militancy of Emmeline Pankhurst’s campaign, exemplified by Emily Davison’s death at Epsom the same month as the Suffrage Pilgimage, the marchers wanted to emphasise that the campaign for equal rights could be law-abiding and peaceful.

Natalie McGrath’s well-structured play highlights the divisions within the suffrage movement through its focus on two sisters who take up opposing positions with regard to the issue of militancy. To that extent, their relationship mirrors that of Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, who held strongly conflicting views as to the best way to gain the franchise.

The production is both inventive and resourceful with just a few props used to good effect to create a sense of the time. Moreover the ensemble combine well to portray both the determination but also the emotional intensity and sense of common purpose that drove these women on in their search for justice.

The music is beautifully evocative both of the aspirations of the women but also of their sense of frustration in the face of difficulties and sheer exhaustion.

Oxygen tours until 20 July with the final performance at The Orange Tree. Richmond. It is a powerful piece of theatre that confirms Natalie McGrath’s genuine talent as a theatre maker.

Link: http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/oxygen-the-rondo-theat-9027

 

Posted in Reviews of Oxygen

The Centenary in Hyde Park

To mark the centenary of the pilgrimage reaching Hyde Park, a celebratory picnic will be held by some of the cast and crew in Hyde Park to mark the end of this incredible tour.  

We will gather at 2pm near Speakers Corner, which is in the north eastern corner of the park – via the Marble Arch tube station entrance/Oxford Street – Top right corner of the park on this map: http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde-park/map-of-hyde-park

We will have flags and colours of the Suffragettes and Suffragists with us.  Please feel free to come in your own suffrage colours.

Remember to bring a picnic and something to sit on.

Any questions, please email josie.dreadnoughtsw@gmail.com or kerrie.dreadnoughtsw@gmail.com

We look forward to seeing you there for a very special anniversary!

Posted in News

Beginnings of Oxygen

It seems quite a long time now since the development of the script of 'Oxygen' for Dreadnought South West began.  It is strange, but useful to be reflecting upon its journey now we are into the tech week of rehearsals at the Barbican in Plymouth.

I have been on quite a journey with it over the past six months.  As has everyone involved.  It is quite something to start to see where it has begun to land now it is in a rehearsal process.  I think plays are pretty restless creatures.  Never quite ready to just sit still.  Beautifully inconsiderate in their refusal to be complete.

Read more ›

Posted in News

Jane Duffus from THE F WORD

You could say that 2013 has been a good year for emancipation of women. Colliding with the centenary of Emily Wilding Davison's death at the Epsom Derby in 1913, we've enjoyed a raft of new suffrage books this year, Clare Balding's documentary about Davison and Jessica Hynes' sit-com Up The Women. Alongside this resurgence in interest about our feminist foremothers comes Oxygen: a new play by Natalie McGrath. This celebrates another suffrage centenary – that of the pilgrimage of women who marched for six weeks from Land's End to Hyde Park for the largest ever suffrage rally.

Produced by the Dreadnought South West Association, Oxygen is one of a series of projects to champion women's voices and stories over the years. Since the tour began on 19 June, Oxygen has been traveling across the South West, following the route taken by those determined women 100 years ago. They have been stopping off at town halls, arts centres and community halls along the way to spread the message of women's history to as many people as possible.

What is refreshing about Oxygen is that it focuses less on the militant suffragettes and more on the peaceful suffragists, as well as its illustration of the struggles between the two as they try to work alongside one another. In Oxygen, this is illustrated by two sisters, each of whom side with different camps, although ultimately they march shoulder to shoulder with the same goal. It is also importantly illustrated by having peaceful leader Millicent Fawcett speak at the final rally in Hyde Park, rather than militant leader Emmeline Pankhurst.

While women have the right to vote, we still have child poverty, human trafficking and sweated labour Oxygen covers a lot of issues that were relevant at the time with perfect accuracy, making clear that women's emancipation involved a great deal more than simply enabling women to have the right to vote once every five years. It was also to do with ending child poverty, ending the white slave trade and ending sweated labour. It was also to do with shedding constraining clothing like corsets ("I am distorted no longer! Liberty!" cries one character), and much more besides.

Music plays an important part in Oxygen, just as it did in the whole suffrage campaign. In fact, the production showcases four brand new songs with lyrics written by Natalie McGrath and music by Clare Ingleheart. These were all uplifting, touching and beautiful – I very much hope that they will be available to buy from Dreadnought South West before long.

There is a cast of five (Rebecca Hulbert, Michelle Ridings, Rachel Rose Reid, Stevie Thompson and Carolyn Tomkinson), who flit between characters and classes. All must be applauded for their talent and performance – as well as for holding up unfailingly in full period costume during a sweltering heatwave!

You could say that 2013 has been a good year for emancipation of women. But you could also say that while women have the right to vote, we still have child poverty, human trafficking and sweated labour. Oxygen is an uplifting and touching reminder of what we have achieved so far and of how far we still have to go.

 

 

Posted in Reviews of Oxygen

Oxygen Review – Trinity Centre

Reviewed by Rosemary Wagg

Summer 2013 marks the centenary of Emily Wilding Davison’s death after falling under the King’s horse at Epsom Derby. Unsurprisingly for an historical figure with a secure place on the school curriculum, this anniversary has sparked renewed interest in the suffragette who is usually just one step behind the Pankhursts on the name-check list.

Surprisingly, for a figure we thought we knew everything about, 2013 has also drawn attention to some crucial evidence that disputes the typical martyrdom myth. We have learnt that Davidson had a return ticket from Epson in her coat pocket – OK, so a return is usually almost the same price as a single, but I still wouldn’t buy one if I was heading somewhere to die – and slowed-down camera footage of her drive forward onto the track suggests she was attempting to attach a Votes for Women sash to the horse, not sacrifice herself under it.

The true intentions of Davison we will, of course, never know, and I do think – given the pervasiveness of the idea of her as a suicide – that the recent publicising of challenging research and the newly questioning attitude towards her are both worthwhile. However, this continued borderline-obsession with the King’s horse and the suffragette always serves to ignore the many thousands of other women who supported women’s suffrage and, whilst not quite giving their lives for it, did devote considerable time and effort to campaigning for it.

Oxygen, a new play by Natalie McGrath, which is currently touring the South of England, significantly expands this usually narrow focus and, for this reason and many others, it is a very welcome addition to both popular scholarship on the movement and the current schedule of a lot of small theatres.

McGrath’s play is about a group of Cornish women who left the South West to join a march of thousands, known as ‘the Great Suffrage Pilgrimage’, across the South of England to Hyde Park. Perhaps because the tour of the play follows the same route itself and is augmented with ‘waymarker events’ that will be ‘responding to the centenary of the Great Suffrage Pilgrimage and celebrating women’s voices and issues today’, the authenticity of the ensemble’s passion for women’s suffrage and feminism is palpably detected. The hot tears that eek out of eyes so obviously come from genuinely believing in each word of the script and feeling a connection with the characters and people of that era.

This authenticity of emotion was probably what made this show far transcend being a small-stage costume drama. In fact, it far transcended both large-stage costume dramas and TV costume dramas. I will compare it to the most recent televised version of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End, despite perhaps not being qualified to do so, being as I only grumbled through one part of it before finding, in particular, the suffragette character, Valentine Wannop, an insufferably simpering show-off topped with anachronistic blonde highlights. Contrastingly, the actresses in Oxygen are – without reverting to sounding like a Dove advert – refreshingly diverse in looks and ages and perceptively cast in roles subtly tweaked into being historically realistic.

 It was, quite simply, a proper joy to watch and re-awakened in me a memory of the first time I went to vote – for Ken Livingstone in the London mayoral elections – and felt an almost absurd amount of pride at having been able to do so. The small Primary School-aged version of me that I still carry around just under my ribs, and who once added Emmeline and Sylvia Pankhurst to her little list of ‘Cool Women’, kept grinning for the whole long day.

Posted in Reviews of Oxygen

Oxygen Review – Exeter Insider

For what cause would you give up six weeks of your life, leaving your home and family to walk 300 miles? Would you be willing to go to prison for this cause? To endure force-feeding twice-daily, suffering broken ribs, a broken nose and damaged lungs for the rest of your life? To die? These questions all came to the fore as I sat in the sun-bathed bowl of Rougemont Gardens watching Oxygen, a new play by Exeter-based Natalie McGrath that celebrates the courage and spirit of the women who fought and campaigned and sacrificed so much to make sure that I, as a woman in the 21st century, can vote.

Read more ›

Posted in Reviews of Oxygen

Oxygen Review – Remote Goat

Four stars
It's a sunny summer evening and the sisters are out in force. At dusk there's a sense of expectation in Exeter's Rougemont Gardens enhanced by rugs and hampers. The women (plus a few of the others – about a 10:1 ratio) are waiting – for an infusion of Oxygen.

Natalie McGrath's Oxygen celebrates the Great Suffrage Pilgrimage of 1913, with a focus on the south west route following some Cornish women from Lands End to London. This is Dreadnought South West Association's first project – and it is a timely cracker.

Expect – an ensemble of five talented actors; a stark, skeletal eye catcher of a set; some haunting original music. Anticipate – being moved, sometimes mesmerised, occasionally confused. Wait for – stray images and fragments of tunes to re-emerge in mental replays long after the show.

The play aims to put women's stories and experiences out there. The political – personal spectrum is explored with some sensitivity. The activist strands – 'Votes for Women.' 'Fear nothing, dread nought, speak out.' 'Make a pilgrimage to London.' – represent a big series of leaps for some of the Cornwall contingent. Once on their way, they are empowered.

Unlike the pilgrimage route, the play's narrative is far from linear. There is a lot of character hopping and multiple location shifts. This episodic approach is a tad puzzling despite costume and scenery clues. The beautiful bare bones set – wooden/bamboo tripods and hessian covered shapes – are frequently recast into new sculpts, mostly effectively. A couple of the characters embrace breeches but the general look is conventional female attire – light long sleeved tops, dark flowing skirts, hats – all topped with stripy sashes and the odd rosette. The prison gear looks spookily authentic. This show is visually strong and would be even more striking played inside. And yet, Oxygen has a reflective, dreamy quality and a slightly out of focus feel.

Some of the big names of the Suffragette movement make brief appearances – Emmeline Pankhurst, Millicent Fawcett, Emily Davison – but for the most part it's the unknowns who are brought to life. The audience laugh and cry with them and some look ready to peel out of their corsets and march.

Oxygen is a long show and a bit wordy but it's quite special – so pack the hamper and catch it if you can.

Posted in Reviews of Oxygen

Oxygen Review – Western Morning News

It could be their costumes, the walking boots, long skirts, straw hats and suffragette-coloured ribbons they are wearing, but as soon as the cast of Oxygen take to the stage there is no doubting the fact that we are about to see something very special.

Written by Natalie McGrath and directed by Josie Sutcliffe, this is 90 minutes of non-stop, compelling theatre.

Created as part of the Dreadnought South West Association project, which works uses art and heritage to champion women's voices and stories, it was inspired by a walk taken 100 years ago from Land's End to London by members of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. That event, in turn, was prompted by Emmeline Pankhurst's hunger strike in Holloway prison and the death of Emily Davison at the Epsom Derby in 1913.

Following the fate of two sisters, one of whom opts to take a path of militancy and the other of peacefulness to achieve their aims, it uses live music, songs, some slick scene shifting and swift costume changes. Audiences see how their relationship changes along the way while being reminded of the struggles the suffragettes suffered in pursuit of their cause.

Wearing black arm bands, the minute's silence they observe in respect of Emily Davison is perhaps the most poignant of the play's many moving moments.

As well as wanting the vote, among their objectives they also want to end child poverty, to stop the white slave traffic and to end sweated labour. As we know, they eventually achieved their main aim but, sadly, a century later, the other problems they campaigned against are still with us.

A word for everyone involved with this admirable production, but particularly for the players, Rebecca Hulbert, Michelle Ridings, Rachel Rose Reid, Carolyn Tomkinson and Stevie Thompson, who are riveting.

The company continues its tour throughout Cornwall with a mix of indoor and outdoor episodes and full performances. A "must see" production for both women and men – especially those who don't bother to go out and vote.

Posted in Reviews of Oxygen

Oxygen Review – The Stage

Natalie McGrath’s beautiful and uplifting play celebrates a group of women who walked from Land’s End to Hyde Park in the Great Suffrage Pilgrimage of June 1913.

It was a call answered by women all over the country, who converged on London in their tens of thousands six weeks later to press for votes and an end to child poverty, sweated labour and white slavery. They wanted to show that the suffrage movement was law-abiding and utterly determined, but not dependent on the firebrand, high-profile suffragettes demonised by the media.

In a sequence of intense and conjoined episodes, the play focuses on two sisters and what happens to their relationship when one chooses militancy and the other peaceful protest.
With nothing more than a bicycle, banners, hats and sashes, the cast magically create an ‘everywhere’, with pavement scenes and public meetings the settings for intimate conversations and a painful dilemma.

The ensemble effectively conveys the characters’ emotional resilience with astonishing delicacy, tenderness and subtlety – an unsentimental testimony to the courage of women who braved weather, hostility and sickness for their belief.

Claire Ingleheart’s music perfectly captures the rapture and exhilaration of the dream as well as the poignancy of loss and exhaustion it demanded. Songs in which the women sing in harmony are especially moving, seeming to say, ‘We walk for the women who cannot’.

Indeed, it’s a sign of Dreadnought’s commitment to the play’s values that the company has organised a remembrance walk as part of a series of waymark events following the route of the pilgrimage and the play’s tour.

Posted in Reviews of Oxygen

Oxygen Review – Rougemont Gardens

article1-1A week ago today, just as the sun started shining on Devon I went to see Oxygen at the Rougemont Gardens in Exeter.  Not only was the weather perfect, but the location couldn't have been more historically ideal; the Rougemont Gardens were originally part of Exeter Castle's moat, and it was within the castle walls that the four ‘Devon witches’ were tried in the 1680s, before becoming the last women in England to be executed for witchcraft. As a final bonus, it was also Independence Day which, while predominantly an American day of remembrance, it struck me as being pretty appropriate, as what else were these women marching for, 100 years ago, if not independence?

Read more ›

Posted in Reviews of Oxygen

Katie Newstead – blog entry

I’ve known Natalie McGrath for eight years now, since she taught me AS-Level Film Studies, and have always admired the passion and enthusiasm she brings to any project. So last summer, when she first told me about Dreadnought South West, and asked me if I’d like to be involved, I immediately, and very excitedly, said YES.

Since then, I’ve played a small role in helping to promote Dreadnought via social media but, due to issues regarding my disability and care, I’ve been unable to take part in the 'bigger picture'. That is, until last Friday, when I was invited to a rehearsal of Oxygen at Exeter Phoenix.

I’ve not been to a theatrical rehearsal since my long-ago days of studying Drama and, as I opened the door to the Phoenix’s Auditorium, I was hit with the most amazing sense of nostalgia for a medium I’d found so therapeutic; along with a strong whiff of stale beer – nothing to do with Dreadnought! Two of the cast, Rachel Rose Reid and Carolyn Tomkinson, were rehearsing one of the three songs featured in Oxygen, with the Musical Director, Claire Ingleheart, while playwright Natalie proudly watched over them from the sidelines.

Natalie introduced me, and my enabler Ally, to the cast and Claire, all of whom were very lovely and welcoming, and we then settled in to watch the brilliance of Oxygen and its performers. The morning was largely made up of song rehearsals. I’m not a huge fan of musicals, or musical theatre, probably because I haven't had much exposure to it, but hearing the girls’ voices live, particularly when they came together as a harmony, genuinely gave me goosebumps. I ended up with the songs well and truly stuck in my head for at least the next 48 hours and, when I saw my enabler yesterday, she said that, like me, she was still singing them!

Following a few run-throughs of each song, and in the last 20 minutes before we took a lunch break, Claire asked the actors to read the scene immediately before one of the songs known as 'Lament', so that she could get a sense of its voice, and how it fitted into the emotion of the play. This scene, performed by Michelle Ridings and Carolyn, involved Carolyn's character; a suffragist, trying to persuade Michelle's character; her lover, trapped in an abusive marriage, to join her on the pilgrimage. Just reading the words on the page is moving enough, but watching them perform really was amazing. Particularly as, from where I sat, I could see that Carolyn was becoming increasingly emotional as she read the scene – whether this was intentional or not, I'm unsure – but, like yawning, crying can be contagious, and by the time the cast began singing the 'Lament', most of us were weeping! I tend to judge things on whether they can reduce me to tears, as I think it's the mark of great writing and acting to be able to influence and change a spectator's mood – especially when said spectator is quite hardcore! Moreover, when an actor is so visibly moved by the script, not only is it a sign of great writing, but of incredible acting talent too; the ability to shut out the real world, and completely lose yourself within what’s ultimately a fantasy, while believing in that world and the characters in it, takes a lot of skill and imagination. So, basically, it bodes well that Oxygen made me sob!

After a 'working' lunch with Natalie, director Josie Sutcliffe and Waymarker artist Nicci Wonnacott, it was back to rehearsals, this time upstairs in one of the Phoenix's drama studios. Beginning with a couple of warm-up exercises – including running around as cats and 'mouses' (cue more student nostalgia) – the cast recording themselves singing the songs that they had practised throughout the morning; nobody cried this time. This was followed by a read-through of some of the 'Newsies’; the suffragettes would take to the road (it was illegal for them to stand on the pavement) to sell newspapers with stories of their cause. It was really interesting to listen to these; like taking a step back 100 years in history.

Unfortunately, this is where my time at the Phoenix had to end, although I could easily have stayed all day, and come back again the next; and for every rehearsal after that! I'm really excited to see Oxygen when it's finished, and am already planning on which performance(s) to go and see. I haven't stopped talking about my day last Friday to everyone I've spoken to since, as well as on twitter, and was really pleased when Natalie asked me to write a blog post about it, so that I could share what a brilliant day I had and, hopefully, give you all a sense of the magic that is Oxygen.

Katie Newstead / 30th May 2013

Posted in News

Rebecca Hulbert

cast-Rebecca-HulbertRebecca Hulbert trained for three years at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in acting. She has worked extensively in theatre, film, television and radio in London before returning to Cornwall where she has worked with local theatre companies such as cube theatre and Miracle.

After living in Costa Rica and India working on water and sanitation projects for the charity Raleigh International, she has recently qualified as a ShelterBox Response Team member. For more details of this disaster relief charity please visit www.shelterbox.org

Posted in Cast

Michelle Ridings

cast-Michelle-RidingsMichelle Ridings is a theatre artist based on the Devon/Somerset Borderlands. A performer and director, Michelle trained in theatre and writing for performance at Dartington College of Arts where she also specialised in Vocal Studies. She has worked on productions ranging from street theatre, processional performance, cabaret and new circus as well as plays and new writing projects, leading projects both in the U.K. and Europe. Experienced in interactive, site specific (indoor and outdoor), physical & devised performance, Michelle is a skilled improviser who is also competent in mask and clown work. An accomplished facilitator and educator, she is passionate about the transformative power of theatre arts and her work often addresses important social issues – for example: immigration, homelessness, mental health, social disadvantage, and domestic violence.

Michelle delivers workshops in voice/singing, theatre, performance skills, and writing for both professional and community projects. She facilitates regular vocal development workshops as well as working on a one to one basis with individuals to aid personal and professional development.

Michelle is interested in creating work which discusses and promotes political change as well as collaborative work with other practitioners from all disciplines.

Posted in Cast

Rachel Rose Reid

cast-rachel-rose-reidAs an actress, Rachel has appeared in productions including The Wild Party (Riverside Studios); Pins and Needles (Cock Tavern, Time Out Off-West-End Musical of the Year); The Folk Contraption (Old Vic Vaults  / London Wonderground).

She has toured internationally in her own works I'm Hans Christian Andersen ( National Tour; ACT Theatre, Australia; WORDSFestival, Denmark); London Stone (Latitude Festival; Old Vic Tunnels).

As a storyteller and performance poet she has been commissioned by Billy Bragg, BBC Radio 3, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Southbank Centre, the Charles Dickens Museum, the English Folk Dance and Song Society and hip hop group Dizraeli and the Small Gods.

In 2012 she was shortlisted for the 'Best Female' and 'Trailblazer' categories of the British Awards for Storytelling Excellence.

Posted in Cast

Stevie Thompson

Stevie trained in Performing Arts at the University Of Northumbria and then in Commedia Dell’Arte with Antonio Fava at the Scuola Internazionale Dell’Attore Comico, Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Theatre includes: numerous shows for the Rude Mechanical Theatre Company, including ‘The Odyssey’, ‘The Fairy Queen (or Oberon’s Cure)’, ‘Five Get Famous’, ‘The Dressing Book’ and the title role in ‘The Wife Of Bath’. Recently, she was resident at Kensington Palace as a Detector in ‘The Enchanted Palace’ for Wildworks Theatre. She had the pleasure of touring The Netherlands in a new opera, ‘Wake’ with a libretto by David Mitchell and music by Klaas deVries and René Uijlenhoet for the Nationale Reisopera. She toured nationally and internationally with Travelling Light in ‘Clown’ (winner of the Acting Award at Bucharest Children’s Theatre Festival 2005) and ‘Shadow Play’. She was in the original cast of ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’ for the Bristol Old Vic. For Theatr Iolo; a one woman show,  ‘Whose Shoes?’ and ‘Bliss’, a new play for Platform 4. She played Pantalone and La Zagna in ‘Modern Times’ for Commedia Project. For Kaos theatre she played Lady Bracknell in ‘The Importance Of Being Earnest’ (Winner of The Stage Awards, Best Ensemble) and appeared in ‘Hard Muscles, Glass Jaw & The 48hr Liquor Cure’.

Stevie is a member of The Playground devising network and is part of a piece in development based on Nabokov’s novel, ‘An Invitation To An Execution’ and played Penelope in a promenade production of ‘The Odyssey’.

As puppeteer: Stevie co-devised ‘Genesis, an object theatre show for CTC Theatre Co. She was part of State Of Play’s international devising project with Lunatique Fantastique and John Wright, and also performed at the Sydney Opera House in ‘Charlie And Lola’s Bestest Best Play’ for Watershed.

As director: ‘Mickey and the Emperor by David Almond with Theatre Of Incurable Players and ‘Flights Of Fancy’, an international commedia show for Playing For Time. Most recently, she has directed ‘Jack and The Beanstalk’ for new company, Theater Wolke. Stevie regularly runs drama and commedia workshops for groups of all ages.

Posted in Cast

Carolyn Tomkinson

cast-Carolyn-TomkinsonTheatre:  Irish Blood, English Heart (Trafalgar Studios); 1984, Northern Broadsides; Great Expectations and Tom's Midnight Garden, Library Theatre, Manchester; Under The Blue Sky, (u/s Catherine Tate), Duke of Yorks Theatre; Night Bruises The City, Southwark Playhouse; The Recruiting Officer and The Constant Couple, Farquhar Festival, Derry; Frozen, London Classic Theatre Company; Debris, Traverse, Edinburgh and Battersea Arts Centre – Time Out Critic’s Choice Season; The Comedy of Errors and The Winter’s Tale, Oxford Shakespeare Company; Matches for Monkeys, Chelsea Theatre; Modern Man, New End Theatre; Extraction (reading), The Old Vic; Five Kinds of Silence, Miles Toyne Associates – Old Red Lion; Lear’s Daughters, Cirque des Femmes; Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens, Counterpoint Theatre; Appetite, Warbox, At Sea, The Amazing Adventures of Monkey Boy and Angel (readings), Soho Theatre.

TV and Radio: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher : The Murder in Angel Lane (Hat Trick Productions); Call The Midwife series 2 (Neal Street Productions, BBC); Law & Order UK (Kudos); The Bill, (Talkback Thames), The Colony, (BBC Radio),

Film: The Manual (OXV), A Very Important Cake, Thomas, Dead Hungry, Swinging With The Finkels, Friends In High Places, The Optician, Sex With The Finkels, Disconnected, Postcode, Can You Take It?, Marilyn, Why Jason Died, Dreamer, Lonely Girl.

Posted in Cast

DSW first blog

As the very first full DSW blog I thought I would just say a little bit about how the project itself got started.  Partly because I am responsible for us being where we are.  Other partly because it just seems like a good place to start, before I tell you about developing 'Oxygen', or about being in development with actors and creative team.

In 2008 I saw a printed copy of a photograph, of a group of people, who were predominantly women and children, holding a banner saying – 'National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies – Land's End to London'.  They were held in sepia.  Another world staring back at me, and I began to wonder who they were.  What they were doing, as some of the women steadied their bicycles, a very modern mode of transport at the time for women, as they waited for the camera to flash its light. 

I was intrigued and I wanted to know more. 

Read more ›

Posted in News

Josie Sutcliffe – Director

josie-sutcliffeJosie has over thirty years experience as a director, performer and lecturer, working in education, the arts and communication for business in the UK and internationally. In the UK this has included work with Theatre Clwyd, Derby Playhouse, Chichester Festival Theatre, Theatre Royal, Stratford East and Plymouth Theatre Royal.

She has worked in Higher Education, as Head of Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, as a Director in the professional theatre, as a coach and facilitator/trainer in both public and private sectors and as an advisor/mentor to creative and other industries.

She is a founder member and partner of Theatre 4 Business – a facilitation and performance coaching consultancy.  She is currently Joint Programme Director of two Open Programmes at Cranfield University, School of Management.

Josie believes the empowerment of women and girls is fundamental to the changes needed in our world and she is committed to enabling women to develop their courage and confidence and to speak up and out!

Posted in The Team

Natalie McGrath – Playwright

natalie mcgrathNatalie is currently working on 'Oxygen'; for Dreadnought South West, Summer tour 2013.  She is also Joint Project Director for DSW.  Most recently she wrote 'Exodus' for Box of Tricks Theatre Company's Word:Play/NWxSW tour 2013 www.boxoftrickstheatre.co.uk .  Natalie is a collaborator with Blind Ditch ; for 'This City's Centre', in Exeter, 2013 www.blindditch.org .  ‘Rift’; was produced at the Brewhouse Theatre & Arts Centre, Taunton in 2012, awarded the Inspire mark, as part of the Cultural Olympiad.  ‘Coasting’ was developed through Bristol Ferment and produced in the studio as a Bristol Old Vic www.bristololdvic.org.uk production, 2011.  'Wild Doves', was produced at Bristol Old Vic as part of their Short Fuses season, 2010.  'Scottish Kiss', Paines Plough's www.painesplough.com  Come To Where I'm From, 2010.  ‘Metal Remains’, was produced by Theatre West at the Alma Tavern, Bristol in 2008 and shortlisted for the 2009 Meyer Whitworth Award. Natalie is a fellow of the Hypatia Trust and an Associate Lecturer in Theatre & Performance at Plymouth University.

On Coasting: ‘There’s no mistaking the distinctive timbre of McGrath’s voice’ – The Guardian

‘McGrath is a playwright of promise’ – The Times

Posted in The Team

Kerrie Avery – Creative Producer

kerrieHaving a wide experience of project and production management in theatre, production touring, live music, site specific productions, public space works, television and live events; Kerrie has developed a considered and knowledgeable practice for producing creatively admired and functionally balanced projects both in the UK and Internationally.  She has considerable financial management, public consultation and reporting experience across a broad range of arts practices.

Her recent clients include the BBC, MAYK, Mayfest Contemporary Theatre Festival, SC Productions, SWN Music Festival, Sunday Best Record Label and Sidewinder Management.

Posted in The Team

Charlotte Bister – Stage Manager

charlotte-bisterCharlotte graduated from Royal Welsh College of Music and drama and got her first touring job with Miracle Theatre, Cornwall in 2008. She then went on to form Cornish-based company 'Owdyado Theatre, of which she is co-artisic director, actor and stage manager. 'Owdyado's second show "Wrongdoings and Wake Up Calls at the Stop-Off Motel is re-touring in the autumn of 2013.

Posted in The Team

Catherine Cartwright – Waymarker Artist

catherineCatherine is an artist, facilitator and tutor and a Director for Double Elephant Print Workshop, Exeter, UK.  Through her artist practice Catherine explores, document and raises awareness of human rights through creating work and exhibiting, art action and participatory workshops.

Women’s rights are human rights and Catherine has been involved in Exeter’s Annual International Women’s Day celebrations since 2007, as a project coordinator, artist, and participant, she works closely with co-collaborator, artist Nicci Wonnacott.

Posted in The Team

Sophia Clist – Designer

SophiaFrom a background of sculpture Sophia creates installations, sets and objects, puppetry and costume for performers and audiences to inhabit, manipulate and transform.  Much of her work is participatory and interactive, collaborating with artists in dance, theatre, music, film, and with the general public. Recent work includes The World At Your Feet – The Barbican Theatre, Plymouth; And The Horse You Rode In On – Told By An Idiot; Phenomenal People – Fuel, WOW Festival.  Sophia co-created the award winning Mischief with Theatre-Rites & Arthur Pita.  She is currently working with Sadler’s Wells, Uninvited Guests, Jane Mason, Impermanence Dance Theatre and Told by an Idiot.

Posted in The Team

Sally Crooks – Production Manager

Sally CrooksSally has over 10 years of experience in managing touring theatre and comedy. She is also an established actor, producer and teacher. She trained as a clown at the school of Philippe Gaulier, Paris, in 2007 and graduated with a BA Hon’s in Drama in 2003.

Sally has toured nationally with many diverse companies including; Miracle Theatre Company, Rogue Theatre Company, Cube Theatre Company, O-region, True West and South West Screen Ltd.

Sally is also the company manager and one of the core actors for her own theatre company, Trifle Gathering Productions; A Curious Evening of Trance & Rap with the Ogden Sisters by Nick Whitby (Smack the Pony, Eddie Izzard and channel 4) and Kyla Goodey, Charity Shop Cabaret, Edinburgh Fringe, Hendricks Library of Peculiar Writings Brighton Fringe, Mock the Strong Cabaret, Larmer Tree Festival and Port Elliot.

Posted in The Team

Belinda Dillon – PR and Marketing

belinda-dillonBelinda has more than 20 years experience in the publishing industry, as a journalist, feature writer, copyeditor and editor, working on daily, weekly and monthly titles including: The Oil Daily, Financial Times Telecoms & Media, Neon, Cable Guide, Devon Life, Exeter Life, and Taste Buds. Belinda writes about theatre in the South West for Exeunt (www.exeuntmagazine.com), and most recently devised, contributed to and edited Wildfire  a daily critical review of Exeter¹s Ignite theatre festival. Other projects include Exeter Insider (www.exeterinsider.co.uk), a blog that focuses on arts and cultural activities in Exeter; social media workshops for the arts and charity sectors; and freelance performing arts marketing.

 

Posted in The Team

Claire Ingleheart – Musical Director

Claire-IngleheartMusical Director, Multi-Instrumentalist, Choir Director, Workshop Leader, Associate Lecturer.

Shows with Wildworks Theatre:  Musical Director for Babel, The  Passion with Michael Sheen, Beautiful Journey Plymouth and Newcastle. Musician in Souterrain in Colchester and Hastings. Musician and choir leader in Souterrain Cornwall.

Other work, starting with most resent:

Associate  Lecturer in Music Theatre at Univercity Falmouth.  Musical Director and performer 'Imagine That' National Theatre.  Musical Director for 3 community choirs Cornwall (ongoing).  Musician 'The Underbelly' funk band signed to Record Kicks.  Musician 'Braga Tanga' Klezmer and world music.  Musical Director Communtiy Youth Choir supporting Peter Gabriel.  Musician on sound track for 'Taming of the Shrew' and 'Government Inspector' for Miracle Theatre.  Musician and performer in 'Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me' Travelling Light Theatre. Musical Director and workshop leader Central Television Workshop's productions of: Burying your Brother, Dark of the Moon, Measure for Measure, Last in the Sack Race,  A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Chrysalides, The Midwich Cuckoo, Equus and Hiawatha. Musical Director for short film "Tim Evans LLB'.  Musician and maker 'Fergal's Folly' Dodgy Clutch Theatre. Musician and maker 'A Strange and Unexpected Event' Horse and Bamboo Theatre. Musical Director, performer and maker 'Visions of Hildegard' and 'Roses and Castles' Horse and Bamboo Theatre.

A multi-instumentalist musical magpie who plays: tenor, soprano, alto and baritone saxophones, clarinet, vocals, flute, piano, accordion, melodica, harp, penny whistle, percussion, glockenspiel, busilacchio….

Other work:  Music Specialist and Training Facilitator in using music to develop language, communication and interaction for children with Autism.

Posted in The Team

Erika Lindahl – project intern and Assistant-Director

Erika LindahlErika Lindahl is our project intern and Assistant-Director for Oxygen.  She has travelled from Sweden to be with us on our adventure.  Her work and dedication to the project has been amazing, and we have thoroughly enjoyed working and collaborating with Erika.  We have learnt much from her presence and ways of seeing in the rehearsal room.  Erika is a theatre practitioner in her own right and her play Fireflies has been performed in Sweden and Plymouth and is published.  

 

Posted in The Team

Sarah Scaife

sarah-scaifewww.sarahscaife.co.uk

Sarah is a visual artist and freelance community curator, often exploring memory and sense of place. She uses a range of media and processes, but the intimate acts of drawing and careful listening are her most frequent starting points.

Mapping intrigues Sarah in the way it at once reveals and obscures worlds. She has worked with maps for a while, often with a focus on collecting stories and community heritage.

And now, swarming over the earth with our tiny insect bodies and putting up flags and building houses it seems that all the journeys are done.

Not so. Fold up the map and put away the globe. If someone else had charted it, let them. Start another drawing with whales at the bottom and cormorants at the top, and in between identify, if you can, the places you have not found yet on those other maps, the connections obvious only to you. Round and flat, only a very little has been discovered.

Jeanette Winterson
‘Sexing the Cherry’ p.81

Posted in The Team

Diana Theodores – Choreographer

Diana_Theodores-2012Diana Theodores, PhD. trained with the visionaries of the American Modern Dance, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. She has worked with many inspirational artists in theatre and dance over the years and has staged works at the Abbey Theatre, the Gate Theatre, the Royal Court and many others. She has taught in Dance and Theatre at universities and conservatories internationally including Trinity College Dublin, The University of Texas, Austin and Dartington College. Diana has written extensively about dance as a journalist and is author of several books including First We Take Manhatten: Four American Women and the New York School of Dance Criticism, Writing Dance: Righting Dance and Dancing On the Edge of Europe. Diana lived in the South West for many years and is a native of New York and now resident of London.

Posted in The Team

Nicci Wonnacott – Waymarker Artist

nicci1Nicci works as a political artist, practicing in art action and the manifesto through performance, participation and mapping the body. Working in text, film, theater, textiles, drawing, sculpture, photography and in sonic arts; to create social commentary, documentation and exhibition.

Nicci reflects on ritual and peace, sometimes paying homage to political women, resurrecting their words back into public space as an act of re-enchantment.  The archetype of the woman in white is a recurring theme, which manifests as feminist discourse.

As a freelance lead artist/educator and creative consultant Nicci visualises and directs partnership projects and works as a lecturer, tutor and mentor within Fine Art education.  As co-founder of International Women’s Art, Nicci has directed International Women’s Day events in Exeter with Catherine Cartwright.

Posted in The Team