Going for a sonnet
December 12 at 5pm and 8pm Sonnets, in Action, With Actors Via Norden Farm
“In 1593 The Earl of Pembroke’s Men were doing just fine, playing at court for Queen Elizabeth, they had two young writers by the name of Marlowe and Shakespeare writing for them, and no less a star than Edward Alleyne as their leading actor. By the August of that year, due to plague, their tour raised virtually no cash, and they returned to London bust and had to pawn their costumes...”
Phillip Breen is the director of the Sonnets cast. A group of actors come together to recite Shakespeare in a completely unique performance, all in the aid of charity.
The performers include Steffan Rhodri (Gavin and Stacey, Harry Potter), David Neilson (Roy Cropper from Coronation Street), Miles Jupp (The Thick Of It, Rev, Greed). Other actors have played at National Theatres from Ammanford to Tokyo, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the West End and Broadway.
Philip said: “We’re playing this little anthology of sonnets at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts. We’re doing it to raise money for a charity set up by one of our actors Christian Patterson and his wife Michelle McTernan, also
an actor.
“When five-year-old Harry Patterson died in a tragic accident outside the family home, his mother, father and brother were plunged into the most extreme grief. There was precious little help available to get them through their darkest hours so they decided to set up a charity in Harry’s name to help people who have lost children in sudden or accidental death circumstances.”
Harry’s Fund was founded in 2011 and has funded private grief counselling for parents and children, as well as residential courses for those who have experienced sudden or accidental loss. Harry’s Fund has also employed grief specialists to work with school teachers so they can tell when a child is struggling as a result of losing a parent or a sibling and how best to help a child through the grief process.
“We’re also playing to help Norden Farm stay open. Local arts centres are bearing the brunt of budget cuts. But big theatres also close in times like these and like local arts centres, when they’re gone, they’re gone.
“Jane Corry and her brilliant team are just one group of hundreds of like groups nationwide fighting to keep these important buildings open and producing work, in the face of this epochal crisis.”
The evening is billed as a fun, unpretentious, accessible, clichebusting, myth torpedoing introduction to playing Shakespeare.
W Visit norden.farm/pages/ norden-s-ark-appeal for tickets.