Crude Apache's Farther Ground

Crude Apache Theatre Company return to their community roots with this year’s production, a new play by long-time member Joanna Swan, called Farther Ground. While the company have recently presented shows at The Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich City Centre, they feel it is important to continue to highlight and champion local community spaces that are often overlooked and underused, so Farther Ground will take place at Wensum Community Centre in Hotblack Road.

Farther Ground takes inspiration from the plot of Peter Bellamy’s folk opera, The Transports, which the company have produced twice, in 2011 and 2017. Writer Joanna Swan explained “In The Transports, we get a broad overview of the lives of some real-life characters who were incarcerated in Norwich Gaol in the late 18th  century and later transported to Australia. It’s a great piece as it is, but I saw an opportunity to dig deeper into the experiences, thoughts, feelings and motivations of those characters, as well as to imagine the stories of people surrounding them, and even of their descendants and those responsible for their legacy. Farther Ground is literally my further exploration of this fascinating piece of history.”

Farther Ground is a play rather than a musical or opera, but still contains plenty of musical moments, drawing on popular songs and spiritual music that would have been popular at the time the story takes place. It also includes extracts from a traditional Romany folktale of the type collected by Norfolk’s own George Borrow. There is a large cast drawn from the local community, including many new faces and a few Crude Apache stalwarts.

Director, Lucy Stevens, said “The characters that Jo has created are deep and powerful; they reflect the constant contradictory struggle many of us recognise, between knowing who we are, where we came from and who we want to be. It examines loss and recreating ourselves anew, as well as self-sacrifice and the bonds we create with those around us. I am so honoured to have had the opportunity to work with Jo’s words and the actors embodying them”.

The show takes place at Wensum Community Centre, Hotblack Road, Norwich NR2 4HN on Thursday 26, Friday 27 and Saturday 28 June at 7.30pm and on Sunday 29 June at 4pm. There is parking at the venue and Crude Apache will be running a bar.

Tickets cost £10/£7 concs (plus booking fee) and are available from https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/crude-apache-theatre-company