Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens
Adapted for the stage by Nick Ormerod and Declan Donnellan

25th to 27th November 2010 | Lincoln Drill Hall

Our 20th production was an ambitious one: an adaptation commissioned by the RSC of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.

It required a cast of 27, countless changes of Victorian costume, complex sound and light effects, original music and a set which had to transport our audience to the Essex marshes, a prison, a forge, a country mansion, a London lawyer’s office, the river Thames by night and much else besides.

Director Dave Lintin, ably assisted by producer Su Toogood and a hard-working cast and crew, achieved a production which ranks among the best Common Ground has staged.

The play also gave us an opportunity to welcome a number of new members who made a name for themselves on stage, including Dom McAndrew as Bentley Drummle, Adrian Snow as Herbert, John Beverley as Magwitch and Janet Marshall as Miss Havisham.

And we mustn’t forget youngsters Alfie Lewis and Emma Street who acquitted themselves admirably as young Pip and young Estella.

Be My Baby

by Amanda Whittington

7th to 8th May 2010 | Croft Street Community Centre, Lincoln

Be My Baby is a short period piece featuring an all-female cast and a nostalgic 1960s sounddtrack. For our small-scale spring / summer production in 2010 we returned to our spiritual home – Croft Street Community Centre in Lincoln – and paired up this touching play with a cabaret-style selection of music and comic turns.

Dave Lintin directed the first half of the evening, bringing together many of the women who had made their Common Ground bow in Cider With Rosie. Alex Thornton took the lead role of Mary, the teenager who falls pregnant and has to give her baby up for adoption, while newcomer Val Petty played the matron at the home for unmarried mothers.

The second half of the evening featured comic monologues by members past and present, a tribute to Flanders and Swann and a guest appearance by folk singer and musician John Pape.

Writing in the Lincolnshire Echo Sheila Jamieson described the show as ‘a sparkling night out’ which was ‘the perfect antidote to the damp weather’.

An Inspector Calls

by JB Priestley

29th to 31st October 2009 Bishop Greaves Theatre, Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln

Common Ground Theatre Company had a new director, four newcomers on stage and a brand new venue when we staged the JB Priestley classic ‘An Inspector Calls’ in autumn 2009.

Tony Smith, who had taken a leading role in ‘Cider With Rosie’ in the summer, took his place in the director’s chair for our first appearance at the Bishop Greaves Theatre at Bishop Grosseteste University College in Lincoln.

Appearing on stage with us for the first time were the inimitable Mary Scott and Nicola Stocks and Stephen Gillard, most recently seen appearing with Indulgence Theatre and the Lincoln Shakespeare Company respectively.

The new venue proved a great success, with 470 people attending over four nights – including a special performance for students from Lincoln Minster School.

The Market Rasen Mail described the production as ‘one of Common Ground Theatre Company’s greatest success stories to date’ – and in financial as well as artistic terms it certainly was.

by Laurie Lee | Adapted by James Roose-Evans

23rd-25th July 2009 Drill Hall, Lincoln

For our summer 2009 production we opted for another ambitious and innovative staging with a cast of thousands – James Roose-Evans’ adaptation of the first part of Laurie Lee’s autobiographical trilogy, Cider With Rosie.

Once again Common Ground Theatre Company proved itself to be a group which can absorb new members and take on complex and at times daunting productions: of the 21 actors in the cast 11 were newcomers to the company, and between them they tackled some of the trickiest bits of stage business Common Ground has attempted to date!

Tim Bradford held the show together with a star turn as Laurie Lee narrating the action, and he was ably supported by Teana Hutchinson (Mother Lee) and the rest of the family.

One of the biggest challenges faced by the cast – apart from recreating rural Gloucestershire between the wars with only a few props, costumes and 18 wooden chairs – was the fact that all the children were played by adult actors, including some as young as three or four.

The Market Rasen Mail described the production as ‘a worthy introduction to Laurie Lee’s trilogy, which will have made many in the audience want to read or re-read the book’.

The Turn of the Screw

Adapted from the novella by Henry James

6th-8th November 2008 Broadbent Theatre, Wickenby

‘The Turn of the Screw’ is a spine-tingling tale which Vicky Ashberry has long wanted to bring to the stage; a dark and windswept Broadbent Theatre just after Hallowe’en proved to be the perfect venue for such an atmospheric ghost story.

Henry James’ novella has been adapted and reworked many times: it became ‘The Innocents’ starring Deborah Kerr on the silver screen in 1961 and was also the inspiration for ‘The Others’ starring Nicole Kidman.

In the play a young governess is appointed to educate two orphans alone in a rambling country house which, it appears, is haunted by the ghosts of two former employees who met untimely deaths.

At the heart of James’ tale is an ambiguity which provides the kernel of the story: are the ghosts real, and do they mean to harm the children? Is the governess mad, and the ghosts a symptom of her hysteria? Or are the children playing a diabolical trick on poor Miss Grey?

The play provided an opportunity for two Common Ground members – Sarah Holt as the governess Miss Grey and Chrissie Hughes as the kindly housekeeper Mrs Grose – to tackle meaty roles which are all too rare for female actors.

It also gave youngsters Fern Rodgers and Jamie Bendy the opportunity to make their Common Ground debuts with mature performances which belied their tender years.

The Lincolnshire Echo described the play as “tense and chilling” while the Market Rasen Mail saluted “a great success” and “an excellent choice of play for this time of year”.