Braunston 1920s – 2020s

We set out to tell the stories of Braunston in the 1920s with a focus on the impact of the strike by boatmen on the village and exploring the parallels with the 2020s.

The writers group plus drama workshops for community and the primary school all contributed to three new shows telling the stories from different angles.

‘Rats Ropes and Revolution’ – a new play by Kate with original songs by Janul, tells the story of the 1923 boatmen’s strike though the eyes of a boatwoman at the heart of it.

Such important social history and told so compellingly – congratulations!

Remarkable one hour drama. Really enjoyed it. No exposition!

Years 4, 5 & 6 at Braunston Primary School explored the story of the strike from the children’s point of view. Their show, ‘The Day The Boats Stopped’, was performed to packed audiences of family and friends over four days.

Children having the opportunity to perform in front of an audience, musical support given to the children, acting support given to the children (class teacher)

Here’s what the pupils liked:

singing and having fun

learning my lines and about the characters

working with my friends

being able to perform in a professional way

learning the history of Braunston

acting in front of an audience

They weren’t quite so keen on the having to sit still in rehearsals!

‘A Cut Through Time’ saw a cast of community actors, aged between 12 and 83, many of whom had no previous writing or performance experience bring the Braunston of the 1920s to life. Three sold out performances to an enthusiastic audience that included a number of descendents of our characters.

One young actor said:

… I enjoyed making new relationships with older generations. Being as my mum was in the play I thought and still believe that it was a really special thing for her and I to do together.

I enjoyed performing it to people who had a relationship with the character in the play e.g. one lady was Freddy’s niece and she was able to tell me – who played Freddy – about what he was like which was special, as it meant for the next couple of performances i was able to attach to him.

And one of the older ones said:

the reason I joined in was the fact that covid we’d been in here on our own for a long while and also id been ill and not been out and mixing with people and I’ve always wanted to do acting or whatever and thought it would be a nice thing to do and it turned out to be very good. 

New skills have been learned, new talents discovered, new friendships made and plans are underway for future productions including a murder mystery to be written by one of the writing group members…