News
Clio’s Company goes to Sussex
April/May saw the staging of our latest venture at Nymans Gardens in Sussex. We were commissioned by the National Trust to work on a new project focusing on the time when the plant hunter Harold Comber was sending home new, exquisite and fragile specimens from all over the world for his head gardener father to beautify the garden that was his life’s work and to boost the social status of his employers.
In “Growing On”, an interactive, outdoor production, the audience found themselves attending a charity open day of 1932, encountering characters of the time and seeing some of the garden’s exotic rarities through the eyes of the people who risked their lives to find them. The cast was Lissa Chapman, Mark Fairclough and Jay Venn. Plans are now underway for further projects at Nymans in 2012 and beyond.
Continuing City: Arts in Education at All Hallows by the Tower
All Hallows by the Tower has been part of the City of London landscape for thirteen hundred years, and people have lived and worked there for far longer. Clio’s Company and the community of All Hallows have been working together since 2001 on a series of arts in education projects, some also involving the Company of Watermen and Lightermen. In the current series, we use a combination of known historical and imagined but possible events to stage a series of site-specific plays and complementary workshops for primary school children to bring to life the rich and complex history of the church in its context.
In November 2011 London primary school children took part in “Ultima Britannia”, a project focusing on London 2,000 years ago when it was a raw, new, dangerous town on the edge of the known world and All Hallows was a building site where a Roman villa was being constructed.
March 2012 will see a production of "Baited Hooks" an interactive theatre project and workshop set in Tudor London. Children become London apprentices of 1533, and are caught up in the controversies and dangers of the months when Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn is only a rumour.
Hackney Tudors
Local children are building up their own picture of their home town as it was five centuries ago in this unique project, which uses Hackney’s buildings and streets, new research and participants’ imaginations to produce high quality drama and artwork. This year the children made connections between the village of Hackney and its neighbours, walking a Tudor road in Essex to Ingatestone Hall to make discoveries about life and work in a great house. They used their discoveries to devise their own piece of musical theatre, which was staged in the historic rooms of Sutton House.
Next year we plan to involve more schools in this project, and to publish a series of booklets that will support the learning of other London children.
Children’s work from previous stages of the project can be seen on www.hackneytudors.co.uk, and we will be adding this year’s work and reports soon.
A Humble Companion?
The house of Dr Samuel Johnson is tucked away just north of Fleet Street. We are currently working in partnership with Dr Johnson’s House on a project focusing on the extraordinary and sometimes chequered life of Francis Barber who started life as a slave on a Jamaican sugar plantation but was brought to London and given as a present to Samuel Johnson. In the following years Barber was in turn schoolboy, valet, apothecary, sailor and schoolmaster, becoming in turn Johnson’s servant, friend and eventual heir.
Garrick Revisited
David Garrick’s reputation as actor, producer and theatre manager has always been high, but his plays are often overlooked or dismissed as pot boilers. We think this should be changed, and as a first step we are staging a rehearsed reading of his fast-moving and witty comedy, “The Clandestine Marriage” on Thursday 16th February at Dr Johnson’s House. The characters include a City millionaire, his minx-like daughters, his socially ambitious sister, a lowly clerk in his employment and two town fops….
Rehearsed Readings
Clio’s Company stage an occasional series of rehearsed reading of plays that were smash hits in their day, but which have been long forgotten. We aim to discover whether their obscurity is deserved, or whether these are shows that would appeal to a modern audience. The readings take place at various locations around London, including Sutton House, Dr Johnson’s House and All Hallows by the Tower – please email for details of the next one.
Cass Tercentenary Year
2010 was full of special events at Sir John Cass’s Foundation primary school to mark their 300th birthday. The celebrations began in January with a visit by Sir John and Lady Cass and their coachman (played by Mark Huckett, Vic Bryson and Will Birch respectively) who arrived in a coach and four to inspect the school and begin the year with a flourish. In February a group of children devised a play looking at Cass’s childhood in Restoration London; in May six and seven year olds sang, acted and danced round the school’s newly acquired maypole, and December saw a Christmas celebration 1710 style.
For further information on any of these projects and events, please contact us by email.