A series of 10 podcast plays written by David Rudkin which explore the hidden histories of places around the British Isles. His umbrella title for the series is 'Placeprints', and this indicates that a real or perhaps imagined impression of the past takes form and hold in our now, leaving an imprint inside us; a 'placeprint'.
The whole set of 10 plays - or actually more accurately audio-guides - are produced by New Perspectives Theatre and are available to listen to on most podacst providers.
In the 6th of the set, "These Clouded Hills", we find ourselves in Wales. The play is performed by a Welsh actress (Hedydd Dylan), and is also available to listen to in the Welsh language.
Dylan plays the role of a 16 year old girl, Mari Jones, who lived 200 years' ago in a little village in Snowdonia. In the summer of 1800 she makes her mind up that she will walk the 25 miles from her village to Bala, over the mountains, mostly barefoot (in order to preserve her clogs), to buy her own copy of the Welsh-language Bible.
The play follows her footsteps for those 25 miles. Her thoughts, her fears and her imagined encounters. To say that she made the journey at all, in such unforgiving terrain and partly in downpour is a feat in itself. However for her, the journey was something of a religious one, as she likens the happenstances of her journey to biblical parallels, as she becomes her own martyr to her own cause.
Sometimes, like when she counts her own steps or we hear her disbelief at how far she still has left to travel, the language she uses is quite natural and befitting a 16 year old early 19th century young lass. However, I did feel that for the majority of the time during this lengthy monologue, the language she uses is far too adult and discerning; and perhaps even too modern. It made the listening much harder as the verbiology used was not easy to listen to.
Dylan however had a lovely delivery, and as we followed her on her journey she was most convincing in her character portrayal.
The next podcast play in the series, 'To The Waters And The Wild' we stay with the Celtic heritage of our wondrous country, but head over to Northern Ireland and The Sperrin Mountains. Here, the play takes the form of a narration, but narrated by two different characters who never acknowledge each other or talk to each other but simply narrate a story to us, the listener, from two different perspectives. First we hear from the lake, Lough Fea, (Frances Tomelty), where the protagonist would cycle to as a youth. He remembers the lake's beauty but also it's power and remoteness. The other narrator is the boy himself, but now much older as an adult (Stephen Rea) as he returns to the lake as a kind of pilgrimage. However the lake and surrounds are now vastly different from both how it actually was and how he remembers it being.
Somehow I have the feeling this might in some part be autobiographical. A young boy living in England vsiiting his grandparents and cycling through the countryside full of imaginings and fancies; stories of ancient settlements on the lake's tiny island, and initiation ceremonies; a sense of belonging and connecting. Myths and truths intermingle as the man takes on the boy's mantle and returns to the place he took his own religious rites ceremony all those years' ago.
It was intelligently interpreted and performed by both Tomelty and Rea, with some well-placed incidental music and sound from Adam McCready. Both plays were directed with realism and sincerity by Jack McNamara.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 7/7/20
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