| There is a revival of Dennis Potter's best known play
Blue Remembered Hills at The Mission Theatre, Bath from next Tuesday.
If you haven't yet formed an attachment to this
state-of-the-art theatre just opposite Avon Street car park now may be
the time to do it.
Next Stage Theatre Company is one of the best amateur
companies in the west country and, thanks to Ann Garner, the company now
has a theatre space to die for.
 Blue
Remembered Hills follows the fortunes of a group of seven year olds one
summer's day in wartime Britain in 1943.
They fight, play, argue, romp around, joke and even
cry. But the children are all played by adults.
By using this device Potter intended an audience to
see "innocence shot through by experience, the naivety of childhood
juxtaposed with the awareness of adulthood".
Throughout Blue Remembered Hills, the audience is
drawn into the totally convincing world of childhood but sees through
adult eyes that the cruelties, alliances and tragedies endured at seven
are actually no different from those experienced at any other time of
life.
 In
the constant shadow of wartime activities the children wage their own
war against the fearful and tearful Donald whose tragic experiments with
matches in the barn lead to the chilling and thought provoking climax to
the play.
Some time ago Next Stage performed the play at the
Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough where they got rave reviews from
the local evening paper. Next week sees the same cast as before and the
same ingenious set which even manages to create in the round the blazing
barn which marks the tragic ending of the story.
Tickets for the show cost £9 and £7 concessions. Call
the Next Stage box office on 01225 428600 or Bath Festivals box office
on 01225 463362. |
