Please come to see The Cracked Pot

Since January,  Jane has been directing the cast and production team of Grassington Players and putting them through their paces every Monday and Thursday evening at rehearsals for this period comedy with its roots firmly in Craven…..
The Cracked Pot, by internationally acclaimed local playwright and author Blake Morrison, is set in 1810.  Based in Skipton, the play has been adapted from Heinrich von Kleist’s Der Zerbrochene Krug into an entertaining Yorkshire dialect version of the original tale.

Earthy and satirical it features Judge Adam,  Skipton’ s sole agent of justice (played by Mark Bamforth), who is visited by the investigating magistrate Walter Clegg (Andrew Jackson) seeking out signs of malpractice and watched with interest by his ambitious clerk Bright (Les Kerkham).

The trial that Walter oversees seems uncomplicated at first: the formidable Martha (Paula Vickers) is suing her daughter’s fiancée, Leslie (Will Davison) for breaking her precious family heirloom jug.  The plot thickens as the identity of a mysterious but strangely familiar man becomes crucial to the case…

Director Jane Ellison-Bates is excited to be staging another play with strong local connections following the success of Follow the Fleece in 2010. Blake Morrison was born in Skipton and educated at Ermysteds Grammar School before studying at Nottingham University, McMaster University and University College, London. After working for the Times Literary Supplement, he went on to become literary editor of both The Observer and the Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer. Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. His best-known works are probably his two memoirs, “And When Did You Last See Your Father?” and “Things My Mother Never Told Me.”  He is currently Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College.

The ribald comedy of The Cracked Pot will be staged in the main hall at The Town Hall in Grassington (the Devonshire Institute) from Thursday 26th April to Saturday 28th April, and will feature an unusual blend of ‘theatre in the round’ and traditionally staged scenes.  The audience will effectively be the courtroom spectators and are invited – if they wish – to come in nineteenth century period costume to add to the flavour of the evening.  A bar will be open in the hall and ‘victuals’ served in the interval.

Tickets are available from The Hub in Grassington on 01756 752222, £5 in advance or £7 on the door.