THIN AIR by Berlie Doherty
Poster by Stephen Hepworth Photography
'Absolutely brilliant, moving, engaging... .Thanks for a great night out!'
'We were very moved by the play, the acting was brilliant. All together probably the best thing we have seen in ages.'
'I really, really enjoyed the play. Gripping stuff. And aren't Cotton Grass good!'
A young man’s dream of flight has ghostly consequences. Set in the shadow of two world wars, this haunting family saga is a tale of ambition and secrets and passion unspent.
Thin Air is a new play by Carnegie Award-winning author Berlie Doherty, directed by Joyce Branagh and presented by Derbyshire-based Cotton Grass Theatre. It is the supernatural story of a First World War fighter pilot who returns home from the horrors of the war. He is in possession of a secret that will haunt his community for generations to come.
Thin Air is set in the Dark Peak of Derbyshire and is inspired by the unique landscape, heritage and mythology of the Peak. The play uses theatre, projected imagery and live music to tell its ghostly tale.
Thin Air resonates with the mysterious atmosphere of this unique corner of England. The Peak District is an ancient geo-political frontier, the border of Mercia and Northumbria. It echoes with the stories of the many peoples who have lived, traded and travelled within its borders. In the last century it became synonymous with aircraft engineering: Rolls Royce at Derby, Barnes Wallace - born in Ripley; the wartime Dambuster practice flights over Ladybower reservoir and the many aircraft wrecks to be found on the forbidding slopes of Kinder Scout. This rich history is captured in the words and action of the play.
Berlie Doherty talks about writing Thin Air
Cotton Grass Theatre commissioned me to write a ghost play set in Derbyshire, where they and I are based. We talked about the many haunted houses and the various legends about ghosts in the county, but felt it would be exciting to write something completely original. I live in the Dark Peak, just below the brooding Kinder plateau, and I became interested in the many rumours and factual evidence of plane crashes in the area. I visited the site of one and was moved to discover that so much remains after sixty years that it has become a place of pilgrimage and reflection. It is easy to imagine how a plane could get lost up there on the high moors. Often when planes fly along our valley a trick of light or a swirl of curtaining mist will make them appear to fly right into the side of the mountain – I have seen this myself many times, and have caught my breath in disbelief. Not far away, over the Pennines in Manchester, A.V Roe was designing and building airplanes at the beginning of the twentieth century. I went to see a replica of his famous Avro tri-plane in the Manchester Museum of Science and Technology and there it was, waiting for me - the inspiration for my play! It is a dragonfly of a plane, beautiful and terrifyingly fragile. How could anyone dare to fly in it, so exposed to the elements? It had a range of only half a mile – but my play is fiction, and the pilot of my story may or may not have been alive, after all.
Creative team:
Director Joyce Branagh
Set Design Olivia de Monceau
Lighting Design Garry Preece
Photography/Publicity Stephen Hepworth
Sound Tom Chester (Blank Tape Studios)
Cast:
Laurence Aldridge (Tony)
Helena Coates (Clive/Sophie)
Susan Daniel (Helen/Woman/Landlady)
Mark Roberts (Peter/Will)
David Westbrook (Collie/Porter/Arthur)
The play is in two acts with a 20 minute interval - Act 1 (75 mins) and Act 2 (45 mins)
In support of Help for Heroes
www.helpforheroes.org.uk
For more information contact:
David Frederickson, Cotton Grass Theatre
Email: mail@davidfrederickson.com
Link:
www.berliedoherty.com
www.thornbridgehall.co.uk
www.stephenhepworth.com
A Review of 'Thin Air' by Holly Bee from Edale
Friday 24th February was an extraordinary evening; it was the first time in my life that I’ve ever arrived early to something. It was a good time to pick, as it meant that front row seats to Berlie Doherty’s new play “Thin Air” were available, but wherever you were sitting it was a wonderful performance. Our village hall was changed into eerie moorland, the confines of a boarding house and military base, even the boundless blue of the skies. “Thin Air” was described as a ghost story and technically it was, but, despite the supernatural element, nothing about the play jarred as unreal, for the theme of haunting was not explored in terms of creaky hinges and nightmarish portents, but rather the much truer and much deeper idea of being haunted by the past.
Berlie’s complex characters were brought to life beautifully by the Cottongrass Theatre Company. Only five actors played a variety of parts, each with their own dreams, longings, flaws, secrets and regrets that were revealed
with increasing emotion as the story unfolded. As I first sat down I thought how minimalist it seemed, but the small cast and space only made the performance better and brought it closer to the audience. A few crates and wheels made a wonderfully versatile and imaginative set, particularly effective in creating “Cobweb” the aeroplane – which became a character in her own right – and we immediately forgot that different characters had the same faces as we were transported into another time. The tale twisted through the war-scarred years, fascinating us as the threads that entwined the protagonists together and each individual’s hopes and heartaches were unveiled until the moving resolution.
With an insightful and emotive script, creative design and excellent acting Berlie and Cottongrass brought us a universally enjoyable experience, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who felt especially glad when the lights came up and the play opened with the word “Kinder”. To see such a great play set in our own home was a brilliant treat and we’re all eagerly looking forward to next one!
Holly Bee
All photographs by Stephen Hepworth
Laurence Aldridge and Sue Daniel
Mark Roberts and Helena Coates
David Westbrook as Arthur
Squadron Leader Anthony Spalding contemplates the bleakness of Kinder Scout
Helen (Sue Daniel) and Peter (Mark Roberts)
Tony (Laurence Aldridge) and Collie (David westbrook) build their aircraft
Anthony and Collie test their design
Takeoff
Sophie (Helena Coates)
SUMMER 2011: SHAKESPEARE AT THORNBRIDGE HALL
Poster by Stephen Hepworth
'It really was a cracker and we've talked about it such a lot, there was so much love and joy and poetry in that play last night.....it was astonishing - as we were leaving all the people were full of it, so delighted.' (email from an audience member)
About 900 people joined Cotton Grass Theatre in the topsy-turvy world of Twelfth Night where fools are wise and wise men are fools, where disguises and deceptions, mistaken identity, the folly of ambition and all the many guises and games of love take us on a journey through madness, laughter and tears to a happy ending for almost everyone . . .
Cotton Grass Theatre, the Peak District’s own professional touring theatre company, brought a new production of William Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT to Thornbridge Hall at Ashford-in-the-Water. We teamed up with Thornbridge Hall and Bakewell Arts Festival to present the play. TWELFTH NIGHT was directed by Sue McCormick. The Musical Director was David Westbrook. The play ran for 12 performances from Thursday July 28th until Saturday August 6th.
The Company
Orsino Lewis Marsh
Sebastian Gareth Cassidy
Viola Victoria Brazier
Sir Toby Belch Roger Bingham
Sir Andrew Aguecheek David Westbrook
Feste/Sebastian Howard Chadwick
Olivia Claire Disley
Maria Susan Daniel
Malvolio/Sea Captain David Frederickson
Production Manager Mark Alexander
Company Stage Manager Louise Manifold
ASM Emma Bright
Choreography Amy Rhiannon Worth
Production Photography StephenHepworth www.stephenhepworth.com
About 900 people joined Cotton Grass Theatre in the topsy-turvy world of Twelfth Night where fools are wise and wise men are fools, where disguises and deceptions, mistaken identity, the folly of ambition and all the many guises and games of love take us on a journey through madness, laughter and tears to a happy ending for almost everyone . . .
Cotton Grass Theatre, the Peak District’s own professional touring theatre company, brought a new production of William Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT to Thornbridge Hall at Ashford-in-the-Water. We teamed up with Thornbridge Hall and Bakewell Arts Festival to present the play. TWELFTH NIGHT was directed by Sue McCormick. The Musical Director was David Westbrook. The play ran for 12 performances from Thursday July 28th until Saturday August 6th.
The Company
Orsino Lewis Marsh
Sebastian Gareth Cassidy
Viola Victoria Brazier
Sir Toby Belch Roger Bingham
Sir Andrew Aguecheek David Westbrook
Feste/Sebastian Howard Chadwick
Olivia Claire Disley
Maria Susan Daniel
Malvolio/Sea Captain David Frederickson
Production Manager Mark Alexander
Company Stage Manager Louise Manifold
ASM Emma Bright
Choreography Amy Rhiannon Worth
Production Photography StephenHepworth www.stephenhepworth.com
Roger Bingham (Belch) and Susan Daniel (Maria)
David Frederickson (Malvolio) Roger Bingham (Belch) David Westbrook (Aguecheek) Susan Daniel (Maria)
Gareth Cassidy (Sebastian) and Vicky Brazier (Viola - as Cesario)
Lewis Marsh (Orsino) and Vicky Brazier (Viola)
Howard Chadwick (Feste) as Sir Topas visiting Malvolio the lunatic
Olivia (Claire Disley)
Revels? What shall we do else?
Sebasrian (Gareth Cassidy) and Olivia (Clare Disley)
Autumn 2010: Haunted by Chris Hawes
An evening of ghosts and apparitions from the stories of M R James dramatised by Christopher Hawes
The play is based on the ghost stories of M R James, the acknowledged master of this peculiarly English genre. James’s ghosts are never shocking in a ‘horror-movie’ way and there is rarely even any blood. But he plays, most skilfully, on the unconscious anxieties we all share – most particularly, our fear of death. In the play two friends, one of whom is M R James himself, comes together in an unspecified place which could be an academic common room or a private club. And they begin to tell stories.
Each Act contains two stories. Act One centres around ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ in which a lonely and repressed academic confronts his worst nightmares; and Act Two recounts ‘Lost Hearts’ - a tale of two murdered children, whose perturbed spirits cannot rest.
The Tour (2010-11)
Oct 15 Kidderminster Rose Theatre
Oct 16 Youlgrave Village Hall
Oct 21-23 Thornbridge Hall, Ashford Derbyshire
Oct 29 Kedleston Hall, Derby
Oct 30 Cannon Hall Barnsley
Nov 3 Palace Theatre Newark
Nov 17 Gregson Centre Lancaster
Nov 19 Waterside Arts Centre Sale
Nov 27 Buxton Opera House Studio
Nov 28 Buxton Opera House Studio
Feb 4 Whitworth Centre, Darley Dale
Feb 5 Goring Heath Village Hall
Feb 11 Edale Village Hall
Feb 16 Rotherham Arts Centre
Mar 25 Wirksworth Town Hall
Cast: Susan Daniel and David Frederickson
Director: Alan Meadows
Lighting: Garry Preece
Production Photographs: Stephen Hepworth
Our first production of Haunted toured in 2004 when the cast was Chris Wilkinson and David Frederickson. The director was Louise Page. These photographs are from that production.
The play is based on the ghost stories of M R James, the acknowledged master of this peculiarly English genre. James’s ghosts are never shocking in a ‘horror-movie’ way and there is rarely even any blood. But he plays, most skilfully, on the unconscious anxieties we all share – most particularly, our fear of death. In the play two friends, one of whom is M R James himself, comes together in an unspecified place which could be an academic common room or a private club. And they begin to tell stories.
Each Act contains two stories. Act One centres around ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ in which a lonely and repressed academic confronts his worst nightmares; and Act Two recounts ‘Lost Hearts’ - a tale of two murdered children, whose perturbed spirits cannot rest.
The Tour (2010-11)
Oct 15 Kidderminster Rose Theatre
Oct 16 Youlgrave Village Hall
Oct 21-23 Thornbridge Hall, Ashford Derbyshire
Oct 29 Kedleston Hall, Derby
Oct 30 Cannon Hall Barnsley
Nov 3 Palace Theatre Newark
Nov 17 Gregson Centre Lancaster
Nov 19 Waterside Arts Centre Sale
Nov 27 Buxton Opera House Studio
Nov 28 Buxton Opera House Studio
Feb 4 Whitworth Centre, Darley Dale
Feb 5 Goring Heath Village Hall
Feb 11 Edale Village Hall
Feb 16 Rotherham Arts Centre
Mar 25 Wirksworth Town Hall
Cast: Susan Daniel and David Frederickson
Director: Alan Meadows
Lighting: Garry Preece
Production Photographs: Stephen Hepworth
Our first production of Haunted toured in 2004 when the cast was Chris Wilkinson and David Frederickson. The director was Louise Page. These photographs are from that production.
Chris Wilkinson (Dr. M R James) and David Frederickson (Renfrew)
The piece of paper Karswell has given Dunning is hot to the touch
Dr James begins another macabre tale
Summer 2008: Look Sharp
A festival to celebrate the centenary of the visit to Winster of Cecil Sharp the great folksong collector and founder of the English Dance and Folksong Society. The celebration included a performance of song and dance by the children of Winster, Elton and South Darley Primary Schools and a mass Morris dance weekend involving six of the traditional teams documented by Sharp. One of these teams was Headington Quarry Morris Dancers from Oxford, whom Sharp had first seen dance at Christmas 1899.
The project was facilitated and managed by Cotton Grass Theatre with puppet-making workshops by Babbling Vagabonds and music workshops provided by Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham. Cotton Grass Theatre performed a biographical theatre piece about Sharp entitled A Nest of Singing Birds.
Dance Workshops; Winster Morris Dancers
Music Workshops: Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham
Puppet-making Workshops: Babbling Vagabonds
Photography: Stephen Hepworth
Cast of A Nest of Singing Birds: Stephen Tomlin, Susan Daniel and David Frederickson
Director: Alan Meadows
Music: Keith Kendrick
Links
www.babblingvagabonds.co.uk
www.stephenhepworth.com
www.keithkendrick.com
The project was facilitated and managed by Cotton Grass Theatre with puppet-making workshops by Babbling Vagabonds and music workshops provided by Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham. Cotton Grass Theatre performed a biographical theatre piece about Sharp entitled A Nest of Singing Birds.
Dance Workshops; Winster Morris Dancers
Music Workshops: Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham
Puppet-making Workshops: Babbling Vagabonds
Photography: Stephen Hepworth
Cast of A Nest of Singing Birds: Stephen Tomlin, Susan Daniel and David Frederickson
Director: Alan Meadows
Music: Keith Kendrick
Links
www.babblingvagabonds.co.uk
www.stephenhepworth.com
www.keithkendrick.com
Leon Hoskin-Stone and Richard Bryant of Winster Morris are photographed in the spot where Cecil Sharp took a picture of two Winster men in 1908
Cecil Sharp (Steve Tomlin) arrives at Darley Dale station as he did in 1908
Sue Daniel, Steve Tomlin and David Frederickjson perform their biographical play about Sharp in the Festival marquee
Keith Kendrick leads the procession through the village with the traditional King and Queen of Winster Morris paraded by local school children
Autumn 2006: Sherlock Holmes and the Final Problem
by Justin Webb
Sherlock Holmes – the most famous man who never lived. A unique and enduring literary creation.
He ‘lived’ in the pages of Strand Magazine, the office of which once stood bolted against a mob of protesters, who mourned the ‘death’ of their beloved hero at the hands of Professor Moriarty. Holmes was based on a real life deductive genius – Dr Joseph Bell, and Holmes’s creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, was himself involved as an amateur detective in some of the sensational police cases of his day. Aspects of Doyle and Bell abound in the complex character of Holmes, and the tales themselves reflect darkly the mind of his creator.
The fire crackles in the grate, the lamps burn low, the fog is a real pea souper and the game is always afoot!
Cast: David Westbrook, Susan Daniel and David Frederickson
Director: Alan Meadows
Lighting Garry Preece
He ‘lived’ in the pages of Strand Magazine, the office of which once stood bolted against a mob of protesters, who mourned the ‘death’ of their beloved hero at the hands of Professor Moriarty. Holmes was based on a real life deductive genius – Dr Joseph Bell, and Holmes’s creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, was himself involved as an amateur detective in some of the sensational police cases of his day. Aspects of Doyle and Bell abound in the complex character of Holmes, and the tales themselves reflect darkly the mind of his creator.
The fire crackles in the grate, the lamps burn low, the fog is a real pea souper and the game is always afoot!
Cast: David Westbrook, Susan Daniel and David Frederickson
Director: Alan Meadows
Lighting Garry Preece
Holmes (David Westbrook) and Watson (David Frederickson) - first meeting
Holmes solves the mystery of the House of Roylott at Stoke Moran
Conan Doyle (David Frederickson) and Dr Joseph Bell (David Westbrook). Dr Bell was Doyle's model for Holmes
Mrs Hudson (Susan Daniel) upbraids Holmes for firing a pistol at the wall
Autumn 2004: The Compleat Angler by Louise Page
The world premiere of this exciting new play took place, appropriately, at the Izaak Walton Hotel in Dovedale on Friday October 1st 2004. The show toured village halls and arts centres, completing its run at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford.
Written during the uncertainties of the English Civil War, this is the fisherman’s tale to end all tales. As Izaak Walton fights the unequal battle between man and fish he regales the audience and his companion with jokes, songs and jigs. Constantly disappointed by his failure to get a bite, Walton finds other consolations in the countryside surrounding him. Go pike fishing with him and he will tell you his secret recipe for cooking pike, a recipe never to be divulged except to anglers, honest men and milkmaids. Derbyshire-based playwright Louise Page has won awards with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre. She invites you to while away ninety minutes on the riverbank while Izaak Walton baits his hook and waits to see what bites.
Louise Page has won awards at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court for her writing.
Cast: David Frederickson (Piscator) and Chris Wilkinson (Viator)
Director: Chris Hawes
Designer: Tricia Donnison
Lighting: Garry Preece
Written during the uncertainties of the English Civil War, this is the fisherman’s tale to end all tales. As Izaak Walton fights the unequal battle between man and fish he regales the audience and his companion with jokes, songs and jigs. Constantly disappointed by his failure to get a bite, Walton finds other consolations in the countryside surrounding him. Go pike fishing with him and he will tell you his secret recipe for cooking pike, a recipe never to be divulged except to anglers, honest men and milkmaids. Derbyshire-based playwright Louise Page has won awards with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre. She invites you to while away ninety minutes on the riverbank while Izaak Walton baits his hook and waits to see what bites.
Louise Page has won awards at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court for her writing.
Cast: David Frederickson (Piscator) and Chris Wilkinson (Viator)
Director: Chris Hawes
Designer: Tricia Donnison
Lighting: Garry Preece
Piscator shows Viator how to do it on the River Bradford - a trout stream known to Izaak Walton
But it is not until near the end of the play that Piscator actually catches something
Piscator and Viator dance the Morris
Worms
Spring 2002: La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler
Adapted by John Barton
from a translation by Sue Davis
Director: Sarah Bradnock
Lighting: Garry Preece
The play is a sexual carousel set in Vienna about 1900. Early performances of Schnitzler’s controversial masterpiece were met with censure. The Berlin production of 1920 was banned and the company prosecuted for obscenity. La Ronde is a funny, yet poignant comedy of manners exploring the follies of men and women in lust through a cycle of ten seductions.
David Hare’s reworking of the play, The Blue Room, starring Nicole Kidman, received ecstatic reviews during its London run. But Schnitzler’s original play still has real power
Cotton Grass Theatre’s production was enthusiastically received when it opened at the Pauper’s Pit Studio in Buxton in 2001. The Derbyshire Times said of the show: ‘Susan Daniel and David Frederickson are a tour de force…the most fun you can get with your clothes on.....plenty of dirty dancing and laugh-outloud comedy.’
Crucible Studio, Sheffield
April 11th - 13th 2002
Cast: Susan Daniel and David Frederickson
from a translation by Sue Davis
Director: Sarah Bradnock
Lighting: Garry Preece
The play is a sexual carousel set in Vienna about 1900. Early performances of Schnitzler’s controversial masterpiece were met with censure. The Berlin production of 1920 was banned and the company prosecuted for obscenity. La Ronde is a funny, yet poignant comedy of manners exploring the follies of men and women in lust through a cycle of ten seductions.
David Hare’s reworking of the play, The Blue Room, starring Nicole Kidman, received ecstatic reviews during its London run. But Schnitzler’s original play still has real power
Cotton Grass Theatre’s production was enthusiastically received when it opened at the Pauper’s Pit Studio in Buxton in 2001. The Derbyshire Times said of the show: ‘Susan Daniel and David Frederickson are a tour de force…the most fun you can get with your clothes on.....plenty of dirty dancing and laugh-outloud comedy.’
Crucible Studio, Sheffield
April 11th - 13th 2002
Cast: Susan Daniel and David Frederickson
The Soldier and the Parlour Maid
The Husband and the Sweet Girl
The Wife and the Husband
The Count and the Prostitute
Summer 2001: GARDENS OF DELIGHT
adapted from Boccaccio's Decameron by Caroline Small
The Decameron is a collection of stories written about 1350 by the Tuscan writer Giovanni Boccaccio. The stories are told by twn young people who have decamped to the hills outside Florence to escape the plague. Each tells the others a story every evening for ten nights. Famous for their earthy humour these one hundred tales explore the themes of sex, love and human foible and since the Middle Ages they have provided the raw material for European literature from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to Keats.
Gardens of Delight is set forty years later when Filostrato, one of the original story-tellers returns to the place where the Decameron was told and with his servants re-enacts some of the stories. The play was performed in the open-air on a farm in the Derbyshire countryside of the Peak District and, after sunset, in a candle-lit courtyard.
Cast: Dan Armour, David Barber, Penny Capper, Susan Daniel and Julie Higginson
Director: Caroline Small
Original Music: Nick Stacey
Lighting Design: Garry Preece
Stage Manger: Penny Edwards
Set and Costumes: Jenny Snape
Link to Decameron website: www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/index.php
Gardens of Delight is set forty years later when Filostrato, one of the original story-tellers returns to the place where the Decameron was told and with his servants re-enacts some of the stories. The play was performed in the open-air on a farm in the Derbyshire countryside of the Peak District and, after sunset, in a candle-lit courtyard.
Cast: Dan Armour, David Barber, Penny Capper, Susan Daniel and Julie Higginson
Director: Caroline Small
Original Music: Nick Stacey
Lighting Design: Garry Preece
Stage Manger: Penny Edwards
Set and Costumes: Jenny Snape
Link to Decameron website: www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/index.php
The rural setting of the play in the Derbyshire Peak District
Filostrato (Dan Armour) and friends
Julie Higginson and David Barber
Filostrato and his friends at dinner
Death appears - but is she really?
A lustful priest (David Barber) and two (not altogether unwilling) supplicants (Susan Daniel and Penny Capper)
December 1999: Into The Rose Garden by Caroline Small
'Footfalls in the memory
Down the passge which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose garden'.
TS Eliot
Into The Rose Garden was created by the company through role-play, reminiscence and discussion. Performed in an art gallery using the pictures of local artists. The evening also included chamber music, mulled wine and mince pies. The play was presented in an arts studio on a farm near Youlgrave, Derbyshire
A woman wanders into an art gallery on the opening night of an exhibition by visual artist Jo Swann. It is Jo’s mother whom she has not seen for twenty years. Together they re-enact the story of how they came to drift apart and of the former life they led with Jo’s father.
“Imaginative and innovative….spot-on comic timing….warm and welcoming atmosphere” Derbyshire Times
With special thanks to Iris and Peter Pimm
Down the passge which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose garden'.
TS Eliot
Into The Rose Garden was created by the company through role-play, reminiscence and discussion. Performed in an art gallery using the pictures of local artists. The evening also included chamber music, mulled wine and mince pies. The play was presented in an arts studio on a farm near Youlgrave, Derbyshire
A woman wanders into an art gallery on the opening night of an exhibition by visual artist Jo Swann. It is Jo’s mother whom she has not seen for twenty years. Together they re-enact the story of how they came to drift apart and of the former life they led with Jo’s father.
“Imaginative and innovative….spot-on comic timing….warm and welcoming atmosphere” Derbyshire Times
With special thanks to Iris and Peter Pimm
Artist Jo Swann (Susan Daniel) and her mother (Caroline Small)
Jo Swann's art
Christine Gregory
Ann Kettle
Lynne Wixon
Chris Bennett
Jane Edwards
Pauline Rignal
Christine Arnold
Stephen Hepworth