A theatre built by prisoners, but you’ll be happy to stay
Prisoners’ Theatre, Portchester Castle, July 28-31 ticketsource.co.uk/ssa
When performers from the Southsea Shakespeare Actors take to the stage in Portchester Castle next week, they will be harking back more than 200 years.
The company will be performing on a recreation of the stage in the castle’s keep, originally built in 1810 by French prisoners of war held there during the Napoleonic Wars.
The programme includes the comedic play Black-Ey’d Susan and a selection of Victorian music hall entertainments.
Staging the show is the realisation of an ambition for producer and codirector Nick Downes since he first saw the stage in 2018. He says: ‘When the Napoloenic Wars were coming to an end in 1814, the prisoners were all repatrified to France or wherever and the theatre fell into disrepair and was eventually stripped out. English Heritage decided a few years ago to build a mock-up of the theatre so people could see what it would look like.
‘I was a bit over-optimistic. I wondered whether we could get permission to do something in 2019. It soon became clear we weren't going to be able to complete negotiations with English Heritage in time. So, then we felt confident we could do it in 2020 – how foolish were we?’ he laughs.
Undaunted, they continued working on the show: ‘We had to make a decision, and that was, let's go for it until we're stopped in our tracks.’
In 2017, a team from the University of Warwick and Past Pleasures staged Roseliska, one of the original plays performed by French POWs, in the theatre. But no one has used it since.
Nick and his co-director Steve Blackham picked Black-Ey’d Susan, which dates to 1829, but has a plot set during the then-fresh Napoleonic Wars.
‘It was a massive hit play for almost 100 years, up until the First World War. Then it just went out of fashion, that style of theatre. Steve and I worked on an even shorter version of it for street theatre about 15 years ago.
‘When I showed Steve this theatre for the first time, I said it's crying out to put something on it, but I'm not sure exactly what. I think it was his idea to say: “Black-Ey’d is roughly the same time, shall we blow the dust off that?”
‘We're using a lot more of the play this time, it was a very heavy edit we did 15 years ago – there's more of the original left in, but it's quite wordy stuff, and I think it would be tricky to do the whole thing for the modern audience.
‘It's the soap opera of its age, it's a complete rollercoaster of disaster and triumph, laughter and tears.’
The run is near to sold out, but more tickets may be released on Monday.
It's the soap opera of its age, it's a complete rollercoaster