Welcome to the Common Ground Theatre Company website. Use the navigation bar below to find out about the company, it’s productions, latest news & how to book tickets.
COMMON GROUND THEATRE COMPANY

A Gallows Song

A tale of crime & punishment in Victorian Suffolk.

Execution - the great public spectacle. Drunken crowds gather, fights break out, beggars, peddlers and pickpockets ply their trade, while balladeers sing hastily composed songs about the felon and his heinous crimes. Is the next gallows song to be the sorry tale of Will Mayhew?

A farm hand in the 1850s from just outside Ipswich in Suffolk, Will has a dysfunctional family, and the only entertainment he has is going to watch the hangings of criminals. He idolises his older brother Jem, but when the two argue, Will befriends a  mysterious vagrant living in the woods. When Jem and his gang try to make money through robbing the local rectory, it all starts to go wrong for Will. Wrongly framed for murder, he waits in the condemned cell of Ipswich jail, and recalls the events that brought him here. Is there hope for him? Can he survive the material and spiritual poverty of his upbringing? Or does his fate lie at the end of the hangman’s rope, dancing the “Paddington Frisk”?

Gallows Song was the first show produced by Common Ground Theatre Company, back in Autumn 2008. It was written by Common Ground founders and resident directors Pat Whymark and Julian Harries. Creative input was also received from Neena Simms, Lynn Whitehead and Michael Platt. It toured Suffolk and London, showing at the Sir John Mills Theatre, Ipswich; Farlingaye High School, Woodbridge; The New Cut, Halesworth; and The Bridewell Theatre, London. Complimenting the youth cast were three professional actors, Tom Peters, Tracy Elster and Martin Belville, and musician and voice coach Ashley Howard. For this show, Pat and Julian were able to secure folk singer Eliza Carthy and former Doctor Who Sylvester McCoy as company patrons. The play was based on information gathered from Pip Wright’s book Death Recorded.

Performance venues

            • Sir John Mills Theatre, Ipswich, 10th - 13th September 2008
            • Victorian Open Day, Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, 14th Sept 2008
            • The New Cut Arts Centre, Halesworth, 21st September 2008
            • Farlingaye High School, Woodbridge, 26th September 2008
            • Bridewell Theatre, London, 5th October

Click here to read a review of the London performance of Gallows Song.