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| Photo credit: Farnham Maltings |
Farnham Maltings Theatre Group is on tour, playing Yørgjin
Oxo, by Thomas Crowe.Directed by Gavin Stride & Kevin Dyer Tour Manager is Olly Jacques
As the audience arrives, the actors mingle with them, offering them delicious twig tea and Marshland cakes.
The story is about Marshlanders and it is as much a celebration of sound effects – sometimes singing without words – as it is of the characters and landscape.
Uncle Quagmire teaches our eponymous young hero about the delights of mud and boggy ground.
When danger appears, it is brutal and shocking. Many Marshlanders are taken as prisoners to Firmland, where they have to work as slaves in the mud mines to make bricks, to create a vast cathedral.
Yørgjin is discovered to have special powers which only operate when he is asleep. The elements play important roles – the water of the ocean, the earth bricks of the tall cathedral that rises high up into the air, the fire that razes villages and the rain that is the ultimate saviour, after the resolute courage of a sword-wielding mouse.
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| Yorgjin climbs the church steeple. Photo credit: Charlotte |
The acting is excellent and the plot is constantly surprising. The actors sometimes move through the audience and you feel very much a part of the story. All your emotions are drawn in. There's fear and horror inspired by Simeon, the Viking-like leader of destruction. Yet even he comes to realise he has a soul, darkened by his misdeeds but able to let him glimpse the possibility of how love could transform him.
Love in its different forms – for landscape, elements, other people and other species – creates the threads that hold the story together and brings the triumph of justice at the end.
This is a superbly-acted and warm-hearted production. Go and see it if you can.
Tour Dates here (19th February in Wigtown, Dumfries & Galloway)
And Yørgjin (Robert Durbin) survives to ........ enjoy a morning bowl of porridge
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