Arabian Nights

Adapted from original stories by Dominic Cooke

13th to 15th March 2014 | Lincoln Drill Hall

Su Toogood directed this ambitious and spectacular show which featured a cast of thousands, colourful costumes, music, belly dancing, executions, monsters, magic and more!

Arabian Nights – Or One Thousand and One Nights – is an ancient collection of tales, many of which are familiar to modern audiences: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, for instance, and The Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.

Sasha Drennan took the leading role of Shahrazad, the young woman who marries the cruel king and tells him magical stories every night to save herself from being executed like hundreds of brides before her.

As usual we welcomed lots of new faces to our cast as well as not one, but two dancing groups who helped us to give the proceedings an authentically Middle Eastern feel.

As is often the case we made no money on the production but we were pleased with some of the feedback we received from our audiences! Here’s a brief selection:

“It was very entertaining, very professional and looked so good. You must have put in so much work on the costumes, apart from everything else. Congratulations!” Pat Shirley

“Truly a brilliant show. Beautifully crafted. It really seemed to flow so well. So many wonderful performances. The time really flew by. Great ending scenes. So effective. We really did enjoy it so much and talked about it all the way home and much of this morning too. Such a wonderful team piece with so many lovely touches. Costumes look stunning too. Congratulations to you and everyone involved.” Graham Turner

“Congratulations on a wonderful performance of Arabian Nights. It was a real treat and obvious that everyone must have worked really hard to put on such an entertaining play.” Jane Lund

“Su Toogood’s competent direction of Arabian Nights with a cast of what seemed like thousands (eat your heart out Attenborough) was a pleasure to watch. Magical and entertaining, Su’s vision was brought to fruition by her very talented cast complemented by exquisite costumes. An evening well spent, all in all we were delighted and would watch it again. Congratulations Common Ground.” Val & Brian Petty

“Anybody coming to see you all over the next two days is going to see a really great and fun production. The whole thing flies by and I was mesmerised by it a bit – a real escape into imagination.” Andrew Jordan

“It was interesting to see the show from a new perspective – it was a large cast to manage and not the easiest space to work in, especially with limited rehearsal time in it. You must have worked hard.” Beverley Anthony (who directed Arabian Nights at Nottingham Lace Market)

We were very sorry to lose a cast member during the rehearsal process: long-time member Sheila Thomas was to have played some small roles in the stories but sadly passed away in February 2014.

Two

by Jim Cartwright

10th to 12th October 2013 | The Room Upstairs, Lincoln Drill Hall

We returned to The Room Upstairs at Lincoln Drill Hall for our autumn production in 2013. This intimate space was perfect for Jim Cartwright’s two, a spell-binding two-hander set in a northern pub in which the actors play landlord, landlady and all the regulars who come and go.

Gaynor Little made a welcome return to Common Ground in the director’s chair, while Colin Brimblecombe made his debut with the company as the landlord. Juli Charlton, who appeared in our first ever production in 2001, was cast as the landlady.

The play requires two versatile and convincing character actors, and Colin and Juli fitted the bill perfectly. During the course of the evening they took the roles of bickering husband and wife, an abusive bully and his cowed girlfriend, an old man daydreaming about his dead wife, a frustrated mistress, two innocents enjoying a film and a packet of crisps, and many more besides.

Against this backdrop of everyday life in the pub the relationship of the landlord and landlady was slowly laid bare: the recriminations, the jealousies, the misunderstandings and the hardened hearts all caused by a family tragedy years earlier, the wounds from which had never been allowed to heal.

Gaynor, Colin and Juli all deserve our congratulations for staging one of the finest theatrical experiences we have achieved in our short history.