Out & About September 2017

ask me afterwards when we have all got through it intact.” So what should we, the audience, expect when we come along to the performances on September 8 and 9? “I hope that it will feel like a mass coming together, a celebration of what exists today on the common, and the enormous courage shown on this piece of land over the years. I hope also that everyone taking part and everyone watching will simply have a brilliant night. “Something they will remember for years to come.”

one person, a woman born in 1920, who grows up on the common during its pre-war days of innocence, and then lives through the war, the arrivals of the Ugandan Asian refugees and the arrival of nuclear weapons. “I didn’t want to be seen as taking sides in the debate about the peace camp, because everyone I have ever met here has a different take on it.” And so the story evolved. Writing for a large-scale production is very different from anything Beth has done before, but she relishes the challenge. “For a large-scale show like this, you can’t

really have any dialogue like in a normal play. This was new to me. I had to think of ways of telling the story across a massive open space with potentially thousands of people watching. “The hardest thing has been leaving so much out: there are important stories that I haven’t been able to include because there isn’t time or resources… or because we can’t actually do a plane crash… but there is a whole series of talks and discussions going on around the main event and I hope very much that they will fill the gaps that I have had to leave.” So far the production is going well, but is Beth enjoying the process? She realises the magnitude of the event: “It’s terrifying! Please

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