Farther Ground

Crude Apache Theatre Company return to their community roots with this year’s production, a new play by long-time member Joanna Swan, called Farther Ground. While the company have recently presented shows at The Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich City Centre, they feel it is important to continue to highlight and champion local community spaces that are often overlooked and underused, so Farther Ground will take place at Wensum Community Centre in Hotblack Road.

Farther Ground takes inspiration from the plot of Peter Bellamy’s folk opera, The Transports, which the company have produced twice, in 2011 and 2017. Writer Joanna Swan explained “In The Transports, we get a broad overview of the lives of some real-life characters who were incarcerated in Norwich Gaol in the late 18th century and later transported to Australia. It’s a great piece as it is, but I saw an opportunity to dig deeper into the experiences, thoughts, feelings and motivations of those characters, as well as to imagine the stories of people surrounding them, and even of their descendants and those responsible for their legacy. Farther Ground is literally my further exploration of this fascinating piece of history.”

Farther Ground is a play rather than a musical or opera, but still contains plenty of musical moments, drawing on popular songs and spiritual music that would have been popular at the time the story takes place. It also includes extracts from a traditional Romany folk tale of the type collected by Norfolk’s own George Borrow. There is a large cast drawn from the local community, including many new faces and a few Crude Apache stalwarts.