Words from
Playwright Imogen Stubbs (written in 2004)
Several years ago, my eye was caught by a photo in a newspaper of a group of women loading hampers
into a Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce. A brief article explained that these seven women were the Osiris Players, a troupe
of semi-strolling players led by a Miss Nancy Hewins who travelled across Britain taking theatre to people throughout the
country who otherwise had no access to the arts at all. The photo was dated to the 1940s and although the Osiris company lasted
for more than thirty years, the article focuse on the war years. Between 1939 and 1945, these seven women had travelled
tens of thousands of miles giving 1500 performances of a repertoire of over thirty-five plays. So I decided to write
a play inspired by the Osiris story. My play is a fiction; it is not in any way a documentary drama about 'Osiris'.
My impression was that Nancy was a great pioneer in terms of theatre in education, and the notion of aspirational culture.
It seems that from unpromising and often farcical beginnings, she developed a company that through 'blood, toil, tears
and sweat' became a force to be reckoned with.
Notes from Director Simon James
What drew me to this script was its wide canvas and its small portraits.
Here is a story set against perhaps the most dramatic of backgrounds - war. And here is a general plor full of smaller
stories. We see a group of ordinary people surviving in extraordinary circumstances, and we learn some important and
some everyday things about all of them.
This is an epic tale told fromt he present by the spirits of the
past. Our production creates impressions of the era and leaves the focus on the characters to tell their stories.
It is a big production in terms of costumes, props, scenery, lighting and sound. It is a big production in terms of
the stories that hte actors tell. I would very much like to thank each and every person involved in this production
for their dedication, hard work, 'can-do' spirit and, of course, the obvious talent they have put into creating the
show.
