The Great Middlemarch Mystery - A Whirlwind Experience
I’ve just emerged from six wonderful weeks in Coventry with the Great Middlemarch Mystery. It’s been a complete whirlwind and an immense production.
There are so many highlights from our time…. To name a few:
Zip-zap-boom
Seeing how on the first morning of our full run through the cast and our community cast (our Middlepeople) had seated themselves at separate tables and by lunchtime, our huge ensemble was fully integrated, eating together, swapping line-learning tips, playing mass games of zip-zap-boom and partying together late into the night.
The Set Design
Walking into Alex Podger and Siena Tone’s first set to be completed, Bulstrodes Bank, and being blown away by the sheer level of detail and artistry that had gone into the design of the show.
The Team Making things Seamless
Watching our brilliant Deputy Stage Manager, Emily Davis, carefully and mathematically piece together our 5 concurrent locations so that our actors could seamlessly walk out of one location and enter another on cue.
Seeing the way that our absolutely unflappable production and design team changed the location of the Green Dragon pub on the eve of the dress rehearsal and how incredibly generous and understanding the Coventry Cathedral team was by accommodating us yet further in St Michael’s House.
Audience Members Getting Very Involved
Overhearing an audience member say to another, as they left Mrs Vincy’s Living Room after a particularly emotional scene, “wow – it’s like Eastenders, everywhere!’, watching an audience member – turned trainee journalist – armed with a pen and pencil, request an impromptu quote for the Ladislaw’s Pioneer Newspaper as she found herself in the middle of a key dramatic development, and listening to a collective sharp intake of breath from everyone in the room, as Rosamond delivered a killer rebuke to her husband Dr Lydgate in the middle of the bank surrounded by the audience.
Meeting an audience member who had been so intrigued by watching the show in his capacity of volunteer Coventry City of Culture City Host that he had bought a ticket to attend the next evening.
The Production Evolving and GrOWING
Enjoying watching the cast find more and more humour in the script and their improv as the production bedded in, and our Middlepeople become more and more boisterous in their performances as our Middlemarch Community grew in spirit!
Observing Dr Lydgate race between Coventry’s Cathedrals as he dashed between locations trailed by more than 20 audience members, engaged in a conversation about the merits of marriage.
It is truly an extraordinary privilege to experience a dream, initially developed over zoom with my brilliant writing-partner-in-crime Ruth Livesey, turned into a living breathing reality thanks to the extraordinary support of so many wonderful partners and friends.
There are many many thanks to distribute, including thanks to The Very Reverend John and Ricarda Witcombe for the loan of their front room for Mrs Vincy’s Living Room, Julia Carruthers and David Coates for generously enabling our rehearsals to take place at Milburn House, University of Warwick, all the participants and actors who were part of our early workshops for the show, the AHRC and all the wonderful funders and donors, the show’s patient and absolutely brilliant stage management team lead by Rachael Head, Coventry City of Culture City Hosts, Connor Alexander, Wes Finch and his many sound recordings, Alex Podger and his design team, all our amazing Middlepeople, the cast, Dash board members and the whole Dash Team (Cristina, Bethany, Jane, Sarah, Natalie, Georgina, Rachael, Rob, Jo and Beth) for enabling the production to happen at all.
