The Martinsey Isle Trust

Colder Than Here

Natural Burial honouring
life's sacred thresholds

Creating an idyll of
Martinsey and Lidney Islands

Colder Than Here

by Laura Wade

Quoting John Peter of The Sunday Times:

Laura Wade's play is a 90-minute masterpiece, a jewel, dark but translucent. It is a play of love, death and grief that is hardest to bear, because it begins before the loved one dies... this moving, funny, brave and beautiful play.

Synopsis

First performed for the professional stage in London and off-Broadway; now in amateur production by the Taboo Theatre Company - an exciting new company created especially for the play and now considering other taboo subjects - and promoted by The Martinsey Isle Trust under the guidance of Judith Pidgeon.

This play has been touring the South West and London, as part of the Trust's 'The Art of Dying (and Living) - What Makes a Good Death' project for almost two years now. It has played in hospices, a prison, to young adults and to the general public as part of the educational programme.

The play deals with a mother dying of cancer and how she helps her dysfunctional family to cope with their forthcoming loss, and separation by the choices and responsibility she takes - which include looking for a green burial.

Stereotypical male, Alec, unable to interact on an emotional level, turns to fixing the heating as his way of dealing with this difficult situation. The sisters, with a history of jealousies and spats, are very different from each other. One, a tearaway, causing endless difficulties at home, the other apparently less selfish and more capable, begin to change.

Gradually we see the family mature and become closer and it is this journey towards death which is so engaging and thought provoking. In this poignant and often mordantly humorous play, delicately handled by Laura Wade, less than 30 when she wrote this play, we move through varying emotions: "...and she's sat in the coffin, middle of the living room floor and she's - she's watching Have I Got News For You and she's laughing, sitting in it, laughing". "Alec. It doesn't go away if we don't... [talk about it]" and everything between.

The production is followed by an optional discussion with the cast, Linda Cowley, Robert Cowley, Annie Henschel, Helen Dodds, director Craig White, and producer Judith Pidgeon; and occasional pre-production play reading workshops.

The Martinsey Isle Trust

Ivy Cottage, Bath Road
Sturminster Newton, Dorset DT10 1DU, UK

Telephone: 01258 475 125 |