REVIEW: Eastbourne Soup
By Gary Murray, volunteer theatre reviewer
Eastbourne has a story to tell.
Eastbourne Soup is a community play based on shared stories of the people of the town. Written by playwright Suzi Hopkins, it is based on workshops and recorded conversations with reminiscences about Eastbourne and its people past and present, plus input from local historians.
After all, a lot has happened over the centuries!
There’s a cast of 50 actors and music from Eastbourne Silver Band and the Cuckmere String Quartet alongside Printers Playhouse Community Choir and Concentus Choir.
Directed by Printers Playhouse’s John and Viv Berry and Stephen Israel, it’s set in an Eastbourne community kitchen.
Bella (Teresa Husher) is worn down with running the place and the ceaseless worry in keeping it open.
She is assisted by a disparate group of individuals, like Carol (Fiona Daly-Butler) a recovering alcoholic, and Samira (a lively, assured performance from Eve Cranston). They all turn up every day to ensure that those who need it get a hot meal.
But a dodgy cooker puts everything in peril. Will they get the meals out today? And how do they cope with the most irritating doorbell this side of Bexhill?
"A celebration of the very best of the people of Eastbourne and everyone involved in creating it should be very proud"
Among it are historic scenes. There’s the war, when many bombs fell, and the Eastbourne riots of the 1890s when the Salvation Army clashed with the ‘Skeleton Army’ of publicans and various violent individuals over the right of the Salvationists to march and spread their temperance message.
Also featured is the rescue of the ship New Brunswick in 1883, when the brave volunteer lifeboat crew carried the lifeboat overland for five miles from Eastbourne to Birling Gap.
We meet a local hero too. George Meek (Julian Rivett), a lifetime socialist, operated a bath chair on the seafront.
Musical interludes underscore scenes in the play. Hearing “where are the plastic lids?” sung by a choir in the style of Mozart was hilarious.
The Winter Garden, a long space with a wide stage, presents challenges. Here’s where I don’t think the staging helped much: with the action in the kitchen up on stage, historical scenes took place on platforms out in the audience so the action was happening behind much of the audience and out to the side.
The rescue of the New Brunswick took place on a central platform: much easier to see and one of the most moving scenes in the play.
I also think that a narrator would have tied the whole thing together.
But this is a celebration of the very best of the people of Eastbourne and everyone involved in creating it should be very proud.
Go to celebrate the best of the town. You’ll see a real community play, talented artists and one of the most joyous curtain calls I’ve ever seen in a theatre.
:: Tickets for tonight and for the two shows tomorrow (Saturday 6 June) at the Winter Garden can be bought via Trafalgar Theatres' website.
:: Gary Murray was a professional actor for 14 years in theatre, radio, TV and even a couple of operas. After many years on the tech side of the ticketing industry, he now works at Tech Resort and is a volunteer reviewer for Eastbourne Reporter
