Lark Rise To Candleford
by Keith Dewhurst, adapted from the novels by Flora Thompson
by Keith Dewhurst, adapted from the novels by Flora Thompson
Lark Rise to Candleford is a two-play adaptation of Flora Thompson's trilogy that vividly portrays rural life in late 19th-century Oxfordshire through dynamic staging and live folk music, highlighting the cultural transition of a vanishing England.
About The Play
About The Play
WINNER OF THE PETER BROOK EMPTY SPACE MARK MARVIN AWARD
TIME OUT CRITICS’ CHOICE
Lark Rise to Candleford is a lively two play adaptation for the theatre of Flora Thompson’s classic trilogy of Oxfordshire life at the end of the 19th century, recalling an era when the traditional ways and values of rural society were disappearing beneath the clamour of modern life and finally vanishing forever in the carnage of the First World War. The two plays can be seen in any order, separately or together.
Shapeshifter’s dynamic promenade staging, featuring extensive live folk music, immerses the audience in the forgotten communities of a vanishing England. Lark Rise to Candleford creatively reinvents the tiny Finborough theatre as the highways, outhouses and smoky taverns of Flora Thompson’s Oxfordshire hamlet, bringing every aspect of this lost lifestyle to the stage, from the midwinter fox hunt to the midsummer harvest, from climbing trees to throwing snowballs.
Connecting with our continuing struggle for a national identity, the two plays are a unique opportunity to experience the rites, rituals, poverty and celebrations of a true rural community. In a period of great debate about the national values that we practice at home and abroad, they are a fond but painfully honest recreation of the sensory world that underlies the concept of what it is to be English.
Reuniting the team behind the Time Out Critics’ Choice production of Rolf Hochhuth’s Soldiers, a sell out at the Finborough Theatre in August 2004, the Finborough Theatres Artistic Director, Neil McPherson, has now commissioned Shapeshifter to bring this hugely ambitious revival to the stage as part of the 25th anniversary year the very first time that both parts of the play have been seen together since the 1978 National Theatre production.
This production has partly been made possible by the award of the 2004/5 winner of the Peter Brook Empty Space Mark Marvin Award, judged by such theatre luminaries as Thelma Holt, Peter Wilson, Blanche Marvin and Michael Attenborough, specifically designed to support and develop an existing partnership between an outstanding new company and a producing theatre presenting a new project. The production is also supported by the Jerwood Space.