Southwark Playhouse Borough Archives

14Oct

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London

Lifers – Southwark Playhouse Borough

As part of my drama degree in late ‘90s Liverpool, we were required to complete a Theatre In Education project (TIE). The aim was to bring live performance to a civic space where such larks are rare or unlikely. Stage a grime-infused Macbeth at an inner-city school. Perform avant garde ballet in a local authority funded care home. That type of thing. Together with my crew of fellow misfits on my course, we opted to bring our theatrical talents to the most captive of audiences, prison inmates. The concept shattered when faced with the complex, frustrating and brutal reality of staging anything in a prison. Simply visiting an inmate at a UK correctional facility is never less than a bureaucratic, dystopian terror trip. Do-gooding, weed-fuelled drama students are likely fall hard at the fi...

The Trials – Southwark Playhouse Borough

Southwark Playhouse Young Ensemble is a brand new theatre company comprising of young people 19-25yrs from South London; with the aim of giving young people an opportunity to take the next steps into a performing career. The Trials is a revival of Dawn King play previously staged in 2022 which takes you into the future and a lookback at the catastrophic effects of climate change. This play is not only thought provoking its hard hitting, but you also cannot hide away from the consequences. The serious impact of climate change on future generations, “the ones most affected by it” and planet earth is laid out clearly in Trials. The play focusses specifically on three people the ‘Dinosaurs’ the older defendant’s explaining within 5 minutes their actions as to why they ‘personally’ co...

Joanna Carrick, writer, and director of The Ungodly at Southwark Playhouse Borough

As we move towards winter with its dark nights; Halloween, or to give it its Celtic name, Samhain; is our first festival to celebrate ‘as the dead walk the earth’ according to ancient myths. Witches have become a part of this festival, undoubtedly due to the witch trials, and the many ‘witch’ deaths. The Ungodly delves into the mid-17th century era of the witch trials, focusing upon Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins’ stepsister Susan Edwards. North West End UK’s Deputy Editor, Caroline Worswick, discussed the witch trials with the play’s writer and director Joanna Carrick. The Ungodly begins its story in 1645, set in the village of Mistley, on the Stour Estuary. Can you explain how the Witch Trials were introduced into 17th-century England? It was a t...