Harvest Home

HARVEST HOME

With ‘Harvest Home’ we have tried to re-create the atmosphere of a country village 100 years ago. Thomas Hardy wrote much about West Country life and we have used his writings as a focus for this production. The style of tonight’s presentation is that of ‘Parlour Theatre’ where readings, songs, scripts, etc are handed round for anyone wanting to perform. Not all of the action takes place on stage and the audience will be very much involved in what goes on!

November 1899

We have been blessed with a good harvest in this last year of the 19th Century and it is with great pleasure that you can put aside your daily routines and join us this evening to celebrate the harvest and the drawing to a close of an important farming century.
To add to our pleasure we have been fortunate to gain the acceptance to be with us tonight from that well known author and poet — Mr Thomas Hardy. He will be bringing some of his writings with him from London.

Our local singers and musicians will also be on hand to provide us with a bit of entertainment.
We hope that some of our farm-workers with special talents will perform their party pieces. We have also acquired one of them new fangled ‘magic lanterns’ that will show pictures on the wall.
When we have supper, wenches from the farm will bring it round to you and Doris has made some of her special mustard sauce to go on the meat.
Grace will be spoke by Reverend Ironmonger.
The landlord from the local hostelry has provided us with some good ale which you can get from the tapmen at the bar, along with other drinks for them that want them.
I hope you all enjoy yourselves.

Rufus dowdy

This is CADS 5th production and the fourth to be written by one of our own members - in this case, Alan Willens. We are grateful to Peter Govey (Head of Drama at John Hanson School) who came and gave us a wonderful evening which helped us to develop our ideas. We also benefited from several workshops run by Forest Forge - with whom we have kept in touch since the Millennium Pageant in 2000.