Falling is part of The Trench. The Trench Bodmin is an immersive theatre project for 2018 by Collective Arts, Cornwall’s Regimental Museum and Bodmin and Wenford Railway.
Mary Godwin Director of Cornwall’s Regimental Museum says:
’The Trench project has enabled the museum to engage with many new people from the local community who are involved as researchers, actors and audiences. It’s enabling us to bring Cornwall’s World War 1 story to life in new and exciting ways, and bring new perspectives to our collection and historic site.’
FALLING
By Emma Spurgin Hussey, Directed by Sally Crooks
Produced in collaboration with Dreadnought South West
2, 4, 6, 7 July. 5:00pm start. £5
Run time approx. 45 mins.
For more info look here: www.thetrenchbodmin.co.uk
For more info about Falling by Emma Spurgin Hussey and how to buy tickets look here: www.thetrenchbodmin.co.uk/falling
EMMA SPURGIN HUSSEY
Emma is an actor, writer, director, audiobook narrator and workshop facilitator. She is based in Cornwall.
As an actor, Emma has worked extensively in theatre, and more recently in film. On TV, she plays Mrs Zacky Martin in Poldark and Claire Milson in Doc Martin. She also works regularly on script workshops and rehearsed readings of new work.
She has written stage plays for schools, youth theatres and community projects. Her first radio play, The Churchill Barriers, was shortlisted for two awards, the Imison and Best Original Single Drama, at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016.
Her directorial work has taken her to a variety of schools, youth theatres and community spaces throughout Cornwall and the south west.
The Trench is a Heritage Lottery Funded Project.
Audiobook narration is a fairly new venture. Over the past eighteen months, Emma has narrated twelve audiobooks – novels (often Cornwall-based), history, psychology and ‘social health’. It’s a strange job, involving showing off in a small cupboard-like room, but strangely rewarding…
Emma is co-director of Bedlam Theatre Company of Cornwall, and runs a wide range of theatre- and writing-based workshops, often working alongside fellow co-director Rory Wilton. For over twenty years, on term-time Saturdays, Emma and Rory have been running Bedlam Youth Theatre at Penrice Academy in St Austell. Emma teaches students of all ages, from primary up to university students, as well as adults no longer in education.
When she’s not working, Emma’s often to be found signing and sharing petitions about many different issues – especially those in support of women’s rights – and eating cake.
ABOUT WRITING FALLING
Last September Natalie McGrath was asked to recommend a woman writer to create a 50-minute play as one of four to support a project called The Trench, which looks at the lives of men from the Bodmin area during the First World War. Very kindly, she suggested me and, over the next few months, I was in regular contact – and sometimes meetings – with the project partners: Natalie (Dreadnought), Jason Squibb (Collective Arts) and Mary Godwin (Cornwall’s Regimental Museum). All the other plays were by men, so I was asked to write something which looked into the lives of women in the same time and place.
It felt a huge responsibility, knowing that mine was the only play to be consciously putting women’s lives at its centre. Hard facts weren’t always easy to find, and when they did emerge it wasn’t always possible to shape a story from them. So, in the end, I just started writing very fast to see what would happen. I felt a bit like some sort of Victorian medium, automatic writing to see if anyone wanted to talk to me. Luckily, someone did! Liv emerged, a young woman of our time, and it was through her that I began to meet the (entirely fictitious) Landry family, and their stories started to unfold. From there, I was able to support my imagination with research. After slow beginnings, the story emerged quickly, and I was delighted to find that the process – and, I hope, the end result – was a lot more fun than I’d feared from the subject matter. Natalie was kind enough to read an early draft and give me feedback, particularly on the women’s movement of the time, and I’m sure the play is less flawed as a result of her input. I hope that audiences enjoy Falling and – if I’ve got it right – might find it thought-provoking, funny and surprising too.
Emma Spurgin Hussey, June 2018