Cherie Hughes will be making her way to Lambeth Fringe in October and I have chatted to her about ORDINARY by Bespoken Theatre (written and directed by Cherie Hughes) The Bread And Roses Theatre October 12th at 3 pm.
What was the inspiration behind your show?
We as a company love defiant women!
Helen Duncan is one of those women who will not be silenced even after her death. There are still public campaigns to clear her name and accusation of being a Witch during the Second World War.
Ordinary tells the fascinating story of Helen Duncan, a Scottish working class Medium and the last woman to be tried and imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act of 1735. Helen was charged with this act in 1944 and imprisoned in Holloway.
Whether her talents were borne out of a time of hysteria and the psychological moral injury of two world wars we will never know for certain but for some reason Helen was feared, scrutinized and labeled a witch, a fraudulent criminal and German Spy.
A woman to be silenced and made an example of in the public eye through a horrific and very public witch-hunt in the media and courts.
We feel that media witch-hunting is prolific today and still tries to publicly assassinate public figures particularly through misogynistic hate language.
In 2023 Jeremy Clarkson publicly declared in the Sun Newspaper that he was “ dreaming of the day when [Meghan Markle ] is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”
Also the play is a loving tribute to my own Grandmother who had similar abilities to Helen and was called a Witch by family and acquaintances.
How long has your production been in progress?
Since 2021.
We tried it out at The Old Operating Theatre in London for a festival of science and seance. We sold out! And had brilliant feedback and reviews. We had plans to bring Ordinary back but Covid happened and life. The reemergence of the Witchcraft narrative is a perfect time to share her story again.
Where are planning on taking the play next?
Ordinary has also been selected by Grimfest for the annual horror theatre festival at Old Red Lion and Barons Court theatre. We then plan to extend the tour to other festivals .
What would you like audiences to take away from your show?
We want them to be inspired by theatre that is raw imaginative and creates a powerful story with simple props and physical theatre. We want to inspire new theatre makers.
Every prop is made with love and care and is sacred to the story as I believe the props would have been in the actual Seance’s that Helen participated in.
We are also an older female led company that are at the age that Helen was when she died (54) and she was still still performing her Seance’s even though she was advised by the government not to and they kept raiding her events.
Although she was publicly humiliated by the media she had many followers who loved her and were comforted by her strange antics. She died doing what she loved and believed in passionately.
We want to be visible as older women doing what we love most too.
What are you looking forward to most about performing your show?
Bringing Helen’s story back. There seems to be new interest in Helen again. (She will not be quiet bless her) And it is a really fun and physical show that has been described as ‘Brilliant and bonkers’ We use puppetry and mask and theatrical illusion, exactly what Helen would have used in her Seance’s to create the materialization of the dead. And there is lots of fun with ectoplasm on stage and audience interaction. Plus it’s the season of the witch so its celebration of life and death and the transitions between.
A perfect show for autumn and Halloween.
Why did you choose your particular Fringe venue?
We know it has an excellent reputation for staging plays by older women. Including work by the brilliant Liz Tait last year. We are honoured to work at The Bread and Roses because it promotes such fantastic new writing.
Which shows at the Fringe are you planning on watching?
Bog Woman , Rebel Rebel and Wilt . The Lies of Patrick Hamilton looks very interesting to our ideas and the projects we are interested in.
Have you had any major hurdles to overcome to get this production on the stage?
Maybe a few years ago when Helen’s story was considered niche but we chose a venue in the past that would promote and love her story.
It has been much easier applying for the current fringe festivals There is an expansion of interest in Witch-herstory and also the feminist reclamation of the word witch. Also of course more female horror writers and directors in films which is wonderful to see. The horror genre is back and glorious in its many guises. Folk, Black etc… So the timing is perfect.
Also Sian Eleri recently made a documentary with BBC about her interest in Helen Duncan so there is definitely a younger audience who want to hear the story.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00298y6
What other productions have you previously been involved with?
Not at Lambeth Fringe but we are an award winning female led theatre company that creates performances and workshops in hospitals education and community settings (We began our projects at The Bethlem Hospital as resident theatre company so many of our stories have an underlying theme of gendered injustice particularly within mental health.
We are also currently running a school theatre tour on WINDRUSH GENERATION that tells the story of one of our performers, Grandmother. Grandmothers are a bit of a theme for us as we love to bring those unheard voices of herstory back to modern audiences.
We are professional artists who have a long history of working as performers, writers and directors with many other companies including MamaQuila Initiative, Spectrum Theatre Theatre Clywd Leap Theatre and Random Acts.
/Insta@bespokentheatre
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