The Coombe was concieved as part of English Touring Theatre’s Nationwide Voices, an mid-scale talent development programme for playwrights from across the country.
The year-long development programme aims to nurture and amplify a cadre of three exciting new voices, helping to bring their work onto mid-scale stages across Britain. This year, the programme is focusing on people-based work: finding innovative new ways to integrate community- and audience-groups into the creation of plays for main stages.
Year three of Nationwide Voices was led by ETT in collaboration with Birmingham Rep, Manchester Royal Exchange and tiata fahodzi, with venues and companies offering an attachment for their chosen playwright, who each have a meaningful connection to the local area. This year the playwrights are Ashlee Elizabeth Lolo (Birmingham Rep), Malaika Kegode (tiata fahodzi) and Joshua Val Martin (Manchester Royal Exchange).
The coombe
“This village is old - almost as old as the skies and streams that frame it. It holds forgotten histories - stories that have folded into air, burrowed and twisted with the roots, embedded themselves in bark. This village sometimes forgets, but all the people who have roamed through belong to it still. Even the voiceless, the lonely or weary have left traces of themselves across the landscape. That’s what land is for…”
The Coombe is a work-in-progress exploration of how the privatisation of land impacts rural communities.
I am examining the links between health and nature through engaging with Right to Roam activists and global majority walking groups.
Taking inspiration from fairy tales, folk horror, and traditional rural storytelling, I hope to develop a new piece of work where music, modernity, and myth become intertwined.
The Coombe was workshopped in November 2023 at Trinity Centre in Bristol, with musician Dominie Hooper and director Jenny Bakst.
Workshop cast:
Eoin Slattery - David
Jyuddah Jaymes - Leo
Kezrena James - Storyteller and Sara
Kuda Robinson - Steve
Choir:
Emmy Broughton, Handina Dutiro, Joe Williams, Otty Lippell, Freya Widd, Eryn McDonald, Aniya, Bibi Convert, Rebecca Gibbs, Molly, Deanna Cooke, Nina Lifely, Jan Lee, Julia Loveless, Neil McKay, Lucy Radmore, Neil Johnson, Mia Macleod, Zoe Carr-Smith, Zoe Cormack, Ace Taylor, Charlie, Neill Jones, Jude Merril, Anthony Stephenson, Stan Elliott, Aisha Ali, Georgia, Taran.