For us at St Mark’s, music and drama are wonderful ways of meeting each other, of engaging with the deeper questions, and exploring faith. Our wide ranging events bring people together both within the church and the wider community. Over the years we’ve produced and hosted plays, musicals, revues, film evenings, concerts, choral extravanganzas, organathons and much more besides.
Upcoming events:
BOUND BY LOVE
Friday 13th February, time TBC
A words and music concert with Jane Bower and friends
Past events:
A Theatrical Christmas
After seeing the show at Histon, Nick Warburton wrote:
If you want a taste of real Christmas – joyful and uplifting – you should make your way to St Mark’s in Newnham for Bawds’ A Theatrical Christmas. We saw it last night, on its first outing (at Histon Baptist Church) and loved every minute. It’s a completely satisfying programme of seasonal pieces, some delightfully new to me, others familiar and well-loved, all beautifully threaded together in Madeleine Forrester’s clever script.
The cast were uniformly excellent and clearly enjoying themselves; it was an enjoyment they passed on to us. They all sang, and their singing was wonderful. They were, as I heard someone in the audience say, all so lovable. And you can catch them all in Newnham this coming Friday and Saturday.
The Beloved Son
The team of Murray Watts and Andrew Harrison has already delivered some impressive drama events at St Mark’s, with Darwin’s Tree and Fire from Heaven in recent years, and their talents as writer/director and actor came together this month in another impressive solo actor performance based on the life of the noted 20th Century Dutch Catholic priest, academic and writer Henri Nouwen. Nouwen achieved an international reputation with his bestselling books, of which two of the best known are The Return of the Prodigal Son and The Beloved Son.
Murray Watts borrowed the latter as a title for a dramatisation of Nouwen’s life and beliefs. Nouwen was famously frank in his writing about his personal problems, with a strongly disapproving father, awkward male friendships, his isolation as a celibate priest and periods of depression, to all of which he brought insight from his lifelong studies in psychology, as well as theology. Murray showed great understanding of all these complex issues in this dramatised life story, brilliantly acted by Andrew Harrison playing Nouwen himself at various stages of his life. His performance was a tour de force of 75 minutes of continuous talking, in which he also played all the other people in a conversation.
There were many serious issues Nouwen thought deeply about, such as God’s love for his creation and the part played in this by Jesus, the ‘beloved son’ of his book, and human love, which he saw as best represented in Rembrandt’s painting of the return of the prodigal son. Nouwen’s great compassion and long standing work with disabled people took its toll and he died far too young from a heart attack in his mid-sixties (in 1996).
But I shall also remember the humour, brilliantly enacted by Harrison (in Russian) when Nouwen went to St Petersburg just to study the Rembrandt painting and got involved with two irate gallery keepers when he moved the viewing chair a few feet. Another very funny scene was when he became the priest at a home for mentally damaged people called the L’Arche, a ‘community of the heart’ in Canada, when his first Communion was interrupted by inappropriate shouted comments from some of the patients, one of whom wanted him to introduce a joke at the most solemn moments. The comedy was entirely in the way Nouwen was thrown off balance and nonplussed by this, but he learned from it that love for the patients was more important than the interruptions they provoked.
There were many other thought-provoking moments in the play, and it just remains for me to thank Murray and Andrew for a most memorable evening, happily with a full and very appreciative audience. I recommend that, if you ever have another chance to see it, you should take it, though you will now have to travel to a more distant venue on their national and international tour this spring!
Derek Cumminngs
Let There Be Light
On Twelfth Night, 5th January, to celebrate both the installation of our new lights and Epiphany, St Mark’s Arts & Events team presented a delightful entertainment of words, music and art works.
Nick Warburton compiled an eclectic programme which evoked key moments of transformation. Who would have thought Toad of Toad Hall, Caravaggio and the prophet Isaiah would ever share the same spotlight?
We are grateful to pianist Marcus Cox, soloists Eleanor Toye Scott and Felicity Parker and Nick and the Arts & Events team for an illuminating winter’s afternoon treat.
Hints and Revelations: Festival of Drama
St Mark’s Church in Newnham, Cambridge, is used to hosting audiences as well as congregations, and did so again on Saturday 12th October, for a Festival of Drama. The event was presented by Radius, a national organisation which explores spiritual, religious, social and ethical themes in performance media. Members and non members from around the country attended.
The first session was billed as a masterclass on The Tempest given by husband and wife actors Martin Delaney and Emerald O’Hanrahan. But this was no mere acting class for the two Cambridge actors Jane Bower and Guy Marshall working with Emerald and Martin on the stage, but for the
entire audience.
The themes of the play were identified, and members of the audience were invited to help create a series of two-person tableaux illustrating the themes of forgiveness and power. Then, working on the opening speeches of Prospero and Miranda, we were all invited to take part in exercises using voice and actions, which required concentration, co-operation and constant eye contact with a partner. Even more challenging for many of us was speaking Shakespeare’s lines voiced as vowel sounds with the consonant sounds left out.
Before a final reading of the speeches from Guy and Jane, to help with interpretation we discussed the function of some of the lines expressed as a verb: this line is ‘chastising’, that line is ‘reassuring’.
The masterclass ended with an exercise in creating in our minds an experience of entering an enclosed space in a state of anxiety, gradually fading to a more settled state of mind – a metaphor for Miranda’s progress through the play.
Before the lunch break there was a presentation to the winner of the 2024 Radius playwriting competition. The award was made to Kit Walkham for her play Holly and Lichen, which Kit explained was inspired by the experience of settling an elderly relative into a care home. She had started writing it as part of a playwriting workshop in 2009, and took it up again much more recently. She felt the theme of the play is ‘Truth’. It has not yet been performed.
After an excellent lunch prepared by St Mark’s, a strong cast of Cambridge actors gave a very well- received performance of A Hint of the Unknown God, taking its title from John Betjeman’s poem The Mistress. This dramatisation of Betjeman poems, many with a link to faith and church life, was devised by Rex Walford in 2009 for performance at St Mark’s. Tricia Peroni adapted it to a shorter version with musical links added for the Radius Festival.
The final session was a discussion with a panel comprising actor Amanda Root, Jane Bower, and The Right Reverend Rob Gillion, President of Radius, and chaired by Sean Lang. A lively discussion ensued on the theme ‘experiences in religious drama’.
This was a stimulating afternoon. Local thespians were fortunate to have it taking place in Cambridge in a church with a proud history of supporting drama.
Graham Waterhouse
Henrietta’s War
Tim Verney writes, ‘We were transported to the Second World War and the seaside town of Budleigh Salterton in Devon for this hour-long, one-woman play based on books by the artist, illustrator and novelist Joyce Dennys.
Songs and old news recordings rang out to evoke the spirit of the time as residents of a tranquil community rally to the war effort. The characters, all chronicled by the wife of a local doctor, are affected in different ways – there is real humour but it’s also a place on the edge, maintaining the mundane niceties, but behind which may lie a well of worry or grief.’
After the performance, the audience was invited to offer feedback to the actor and director. There were many recollections of being a child evacuee and a lively discussion was had about the challenges of writing a play, performing a one-woman show and the different acting styles demanded by TV and theatre.
Alan and Eleanor Jones spoke for many when they said they thoroughly enjoyed the evening even though we were without the planned evocative screen images.
The event was special for St Mark’s in that it was a preview, the first public performance ahead of the play’s launch at the Corpus Playroom from 24th to 27th July.
Canterbury Tales
Joy and energy came to us in March when the multi-talented cast and crew of Half Cut Theatre brought us their new production of The Canterbury Tales. Four performers, all brilliant actors, musicians and dancers, brought Chaucer’s stories of human frailty to hilarious life. We saw our modern life of greed, debauchery and the battle for power portrayed by the Pardoner, the Miller and the Wife of Bath. And who could forget the preening Chanticleer’s glorious coxcomb represented by a bright yellow rubber glove? Supported by Arts Council England and a Pay As You Decide ticketing system Half Cut Theatre started their East Anglia and Home Counties tour in February and ended it on 7th April in Canterbury. We are very fortunate they included us in this venture and do hope they come again.
Desert Island Picks
Another in our occasional series of conversations with members of the St Mark’s community was held on Saturday 24th February at 7.30pm in the Community Centre. Hosted by Mike Thompson, the evening saw Alison Rose and Nick Warburton choosing music and readings.
Birds and Beasts
The Birds and Beasts words and music evening in January 2024 was warmly received and was a delightful reminder of things to come as the bleak winter days give way to the lively sounds and sights of nature. Nick Warburton’s programme provided a range of moods for our talented in- house performers and the interval mulled wine gave everyone a chance to catch up after the Christmas holiday.
Fire from Heaven
Some years ago we were delighted when Andrew Harrison came to St Mark’s with Mr Darwin’s Tree, a one-man play written by Murray Watts. Since then Andrew has performed the play in many countries throughout the world including China, Korea, and the United States.
Both writer and actor are now being celebrated with their brilliant new show which illuminates the career of Michael Faraday, the religious non-conformist and largely self-taught physicist, whose innovative scientific research formed the foundation of electric motor technology.
This compelling piece of storytelling and mesmerising acting was presented at St Mark’s on Friday 7th July at 7.30pm.
Radius Festival of New Plays
St Mark’s was delighted to host the 2022 Radius festival. The event was open to all who are interested in how drama can present issues of faith and belief and all the mysteries and paradoxes of being human. There were specially commissioned dramas, panel discussion and shared meals.
Radius is the religious drama society of Great Britain. They are a volunteer-run, ecumenical charity, bringing together people with a shared interest in religious drama – this they define broadly as not only drama about religious stories, but that which “illuminates the human condition”, to quote their second president, E. Martin Browne. They do not mount their own productions but work with local groups who ask for assistance in putting on a performance or festival event. Check out their website for more information: https://www.radiusdrama.org.uk.
Radius Festival of New Drama – promotional video.
St Mark's, Newnham 