Spoken Word, Spooky Folk and Wild (Norfolk) Women- The Full Story With Rock Pics

REHEARSALS IN ANCYRIA

Jo and another wild woman of Norfolk (Boudicca) rehearsing the show in our front room.

TOUR DATES AND MATCH REPORTS

THE GIN TRAP INN RINGSTEAD, APRIL 10, 7.30 pm. £6

3rd round. We kick off the tour on a tour-green sunny April evening in 'The Room' at the Gin and the intimacy of the space along with the home venue vibe makes this feel more like a conversation with friends old and new than a performance. We put the wild in woman and the spooky in folk. We may have been a bit loud.

MARRIOTT'S WAREHOUSE, KING'S LYNN, FRIDAY APRIL 11, 7.30 pm £7.50

Jo and Tom perform The Prick of Love here

4th round. Jo's voice is as wild and true as the women we're celebrating. Tom plays guitar for Abysynnia. Lynn gets its first view of our Margery play and its movers and shakers get behind the project, putting Lynn's money where its mouth is. The after show party moves through the Hanse House bar to Ancyrian and three very excited (and very drunk) performers go to bed at quarter to four.

GREAT MASSINGHAM SOCIAL CLUB APRIL 21 (EASTER MONDAY) £6 members free

Fifth round. I love this venue. It helped we had more stage room and a bigger audience, which included old and young faithfuls and (as on every tour) further new faces, and even some Everton supporters which was never on the business plan but will be from now on. Finally got the Boudicca right.

ANTEROS MUSIC ROOM, NORWICH THURSDAY 24 APRIL 1 pm* (matinee) £5

Quarter final. The most attractive space of the tour to date, staged amid the rafters and mullioned windows of this beautifully restored Tudor building.  This was a lighter version of the show, trimmed to a comfortable lunchtime 45 minutes and with no interval. (Actually an hour but no-one had to leave) And a lighter look to match.

Jo and Tom paid suitable homage to the spirit of Agnes Leaman, whose ducking stool was a stone's throw from where Jo sang her song.

Then we went and had lunch at the Bike Shop. 'See that poster for Sunday's band. Yeah, well, that's us.'

OLIVER CROMWELL HOUSE, ELY, THURSDAY 24 APRIL 7.30 pm £7.50
The band putting the wild in wild women...

Semi final.  Oliver Cromwell - and not a lot of people know this - admired strong women, married one and raised some. His beloved daughter Elizabeth was named (as was his mother) after his avowed model of Protestant stateswomanship Good Queen Bess, and her modern day equivalent Tracey Harding who runs the East Cambs Tourist board from here. So I was not surprised this celebration of female power in Old Noll's Tithe Room felt so welcome. The after party had to be distilled into one ale at the Cutter on the River Ouse but when a bevy of Ben Shermans stripped off and skinny-dipped under the stars, our day was complete. So we've won the semi final. Now it's all on the big game at 'Wembley' (ie the Bicycle Shop, Norwich.)

THE BICYCLE SHOP, NORWICH, SUNDAY 27 APRIL 7.30 pm £7.50

The Cup Final.  Job done.

The show celebrates women who defied empires; gave their hearts to poets and lost their heads to kings; endured the ducking stool; confronted a corrupt education system and, in the case of burgess’s wife turned visionary Margery Kempe of Lynn, challenged the entire basis of mediaeval society. (Oh and we give some ‘witches’ the chance to put their side of the story too.)

"Calway performs his own dramatic and lyrical verse, the poetry of Elvis Costello and joins Joanna Swann in a stand-off between Margery Kempe and her dubious scribe, a preview of the large Marriott's Warehouse Trust production Margery Kempe of Lynn coming to Lynn's historic waterfront on August 2 and 3. The music includes exciting new performances of traditional material, three new Calway-Conway songs, two from Margery Kempe of Lynn, and three Swan-Conway Familiars favourites. Hear a recording of rehearsal of The Prick of Love, one of the show songs here- http://youtu.be/gilJjVtamfY "


The set (correct at time of going to press) (Familiars music *)
• The Clash Between Boudicca And Rome (punk storytelling)
• The Shaming of Agnes Leman*
• Martyred Heart*
• Dr of Physik*
• Norfolk Girl
• Rise Of An April Leaf
• The Ballad of Anne Boleyn and the Burglar (Blicking Hall ballad)*
• INTERVAL
• Green Shirt (E Costello lyric)
• Homage to Fanny Burney
• Sons of Clovis*
• Witches' Reel*
• Lady of Walsingham
• Nut Job In A Nutshell: Ye Norwich Press Interview Mother Julian
• Margery Kempe of Lynn 1 – The Prick of Love*
• Margery-Priest dialogue
• Margery Kempe of Lynn 2 – The Crown of Thorns*

See Margery in the national press: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/20/margery-kempe-first-autobiographer-digitised-british-library#start-of-comments