Baebes Herald a Busy Season for Moor Venue
By Simon Parker
C ornwall’s moorland theatre kicked off its summer season at the weekend with an appearance by chart-topping classical musicians, the Mediaeval Baebes.
Choosing lyrics from medieval texts and setting them to original scores using medieval and classical instruments, the Baebes entertained a huge crowd under Sterts’ covered amphitheatre at Upton Cross, near Liskeard.
The all-female group, whose work on the BBC’s Virgin Queen earned them an Ivor Novello award for best television soundtrack last year, sing in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Gaelic, and Swedish. And, for one of their number, the Sterts gig was a kind of homecoming – Emily Ovenden grew up at nearby St Neot.
Joy Dent, a Sterts volunteer, said afterwards: “It was an excellent night and a lovely way to start the summer season. The audience had a great time and the Baebes really loved performing here. They wrote us a thank you note, describing Sterts as ‘the best venue in Cornwall’.”
The iconic venue, nestled in lush countryside below Caradon Hill, has been in operation for more than two decades, providing theatre, music, dance, exhibitions, films and other entertainment throughout the year. The busiest period is the summer season, which continues this week with a visit by what promises to be an irreverent version of Shakespeare’s A Comedy Of Errors.
Presented by Full Tilt Theatre Company and adapted by Gunduz Kalic, a 36-strong cast will combine aspects of energetic physical theatre with music and song. It can be seen this Thursday and Friday at 7.30pm.
The in-house Sterts Theatre Company is a mainstay of the summer, with up to four different productions running from June to September. This year it is presenting The Importance Of Being Earnest, Oliver: The Musical, Stepping Out, and Strangers On A Train.
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest is as fresh and witty today as it was when first performed on Valentine’s Day 1895. It remains one of the few great modern social comedies to have survived the period in which it was written – and includes the most famous handbag in English literature. The author himself, in typically modest style, said of it: “The first act is ingenious, the second beautiful, the third abominably clever.”
Food Glorious Food and Where Is Love are just two of the popular songs from Lionel Bart’s musical based on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Directed by well-known Liskeard performer and drama teacher Andrew Hawkins, Oliver: The Musical follows on from recent youth theatre successes like Bugsy Malone and The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe.
By contrast, Strangers On A Train, presented by Fourthwall Theatre Company in association with Sterts, is a dark, psychological thriller. Two strangers meet in the dining car and confide their hatred of a domineering relative. They jokingly hatch a plan to kill the other’s troubles – thus concealing a motive. However, one is deadly serious.
Finally, Stepping Out finds nine slightly dysfunctional women and one shy man in a church hall as they laugh, cry, shout and dance their way through a weekly evening class in tap. It is set in 1983 against a backdrop of Shergar’s kidnap, Blackadder and Roland Rat on television, Michael Jackson and Boy George in the charts, CD players and My Little Pony in the shops, shoulder pads, sweatbands and Margaret Thatcher.
Other highlights include Selah Theatre in The Baker’s Wife by Joseph Stein; Jason (and the Argonauts) by Miracle Theatre; Ellingtonia Big Band; Polperro Fishermen’s Choir; City of Plymouth Concert Band; Rotary Club Singer of the Year contest; St Cleer School Summer Show; Sacred Sounds of Tibet; A Midsummer Night’s Dream by English Touring Shakespeare Company; Squashbox Theatre Company; Sgt Pepper’s Only Dart-Board Band; and C-scape Dance Company.
For a free copy of the summer programme or to book, call 01579 363334. Visit www.sterts.co.uk for more details.
(c) 2008 Western Morning News, The Plymouth (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.