I confess that before this press night I had neither visited Gallion’s Reach, way beyond Canary Wharf, in the heart of Newham, and nor had I heard any of the sequence of ‘The Newham Plays’, which seek to explore the cultural and political histories of this area of East London in site-specific locations, through the eyes of local community performers. I know better now. This evening was a revelation, driven by the technical skills of professional actors and creatives, all supporting the impressive efforts of local youngsters to produce some moments of thought-provoking and compelling drama.
The focus for this play is the life of the ‘outsider artist’, Madge Gill (1882-1961) who spent much of her life in and around Upton Park. Her start in life was harsh – illegitimacy, followed by care homes in this country and Canada; a tough working life as a seamstress and nurse, and the loss of an eye and a child, with limited support from her husband. She even risked certification from unsympathetic medics. All this changed in a flash when she experienced a vision of Christ while doing the laundry, after which moment she began to engage in obsessive artistic creation under the influence of an angel or ‘spirit guide’, whom she named ‘Myrninerest’ – ‘my inner rest.’ She produced coloured postcards and, later on, illustrated rolls of cloth so vast that they could only be unrolled in her garden. While some of her work was exhibited in her lifetime, she refused to profit by it commercially, and remained a locally admired but nationally invisible figure. She also developed a reputation as a medium.
There is almost a superabundance of material here, and James Kenworth does an admirable job in placing a plausible dramatic framework around it. With the epxerience of – now – five other local plays behind him he gets the balance more or less right between ‘showing’ and ‘telling’, creating some truly memorable moments along the way, whether the emergence of the ‘spirit guide’ on a balcony, or the creation of one of the huge unravelling artworks. It is something of a drawback that we do not – for licencing reasons – have more examples of Gill’s artwork on the set, and an intriguing patchwork coat stood to the side remained unexplained; but ultimately that does not matter. There is a huge amount to think about here in terms of the nature of the creative process and its relationship to mental health, and the power of art in therapy, quite apart from the celebration of a rich local community identity and setting.
The venue at Art in the Docks is white box with balcony and huge windows through which many passers-by were observing proceedings. Designer Hardy Gru has done a fine job in suggesting Gill’s unique angle on the world by festooning washing lines with white clothing, and keeping furnishings to a minimum – just a bed and some chairs, as needed, and a table to one side which acted as a narrator’s creative vantage point for Anna Marks Pryce, who plays Madge. Director Dario Knight keeps things moving all the time, with one short, snappy scene succeeding another. The professional actors mostly double-up in various roles, which are well distinguished from one another. Eric Colvin conjures up a sequence of unappealing professionals, while developing a more nuanced characterisation for Gill’s husband, Tom, sympathetic, but essentially out of his depth. Bryony Tebbutt develops a number of forceful subordinate roles, whether the intellectually curious Dr Helen Boyle, who treated Gill before going on to found MIND; a haughty art appraiser, or a mother seeking to contact her son beyond the grave.
Lucy Gray as the spirit guide retains an element of mystery but also takes on the narrator’s part at the half way point, another compelling theatrical device on the part of Kenworth. She has a fine rapport with Pryce, who hold the whole evening together with a gutsy yet wryly humorous portrayal of a figure who must remain in some ways beyond rational explanation. She also relates particuarluy well to the two young men playing her sons, Laurie and Bob, played by Pijus Okuneviciute and Ridouane Abdou, whose confidence belies their lack of stage experience. Indeed one of the most heartening aspects of the evening is the clear evidence of the impact this production is having in the community in bringing talent to frution and enabling all sorts of personal growth, points that also came over strongly in the Q&A after the end of the show.
This wholly absorbing evening is a wonderful demonstration of something Alan Ayckbourn said in a recent interview: ‘I think all you need is a little forum in every community – it doesn’t need to be a huge space – where people can take the time to discuss the things we do to each other and what it means to be human.’
Writer: James Kenworth
Director: Dario Knight
Cast includes: Eric Colvin, Lucy Gray, Anna Marks Pryce, Bryony Tebbutt
Until 1st September 2024
90 minutes, no interval
Photo Credit: Luke Jones