Diss Community Partnership

Speed the Plough
Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds

“Odds dickens and daizeys! Zoo it be, zure enow!” Ah, they knew how to write dialogue in early 19th century plays.
This was another script-in-hand session aimed at Restoring the Repertoire. Thus the theatre has uncovered the plays that would have been performed there in the early years.
The actors have not seen the script until that morning, so we are privileged to see the rehearsal process at an early point.
All takes place on the stage, with the audience for once upstaging the actors, who speak into microphones as though it was a radio recording.
Any production gains but also loses something as it heads to performance. When Gielgud directed Richard Burton as Hamlet he asked the actors to try and retain the feeling of the run-through.
After that the show becomes ossified by costumes, make-up and the real props. At Bury they have caught the early freshness, the first moments of creation, but with an audience as well.
The plays can seem funny old stuff, with comic yokels, aristocrats with secrets, a ploughboy who turns out to be nobly born, a fire at the castle; but they are of their time.
The actors, directed by Tim Welton, perform with their customary verve and energy, firing your imagination for a full production.
There will be further script-in-hand presentations on 7 March and 18 April.

Basil Abbott

REPORT on January Waveney Litter-pick.
Luckily the first Saturday in January (7th) was a warm, sunny day – for January! – which may have encouraged so many people to turn up for the monthly litter-pick at the river Waveney. Meeting at the rear of Morrisons’ we were supplied with picking sticks, gloves, litter bags and hi-vi waistcoats, and given Health and Safety instructions. After some posing for the local paper, we split into 2 groups – one starting from the Lows footpath bridge and the other group to start from Denmark bridge – working toward each other.
The good company made work quick and easy and soon many black rubbish bags were filled and glass gathered into safely buckets, and luckily nothing more sinister was found!
As the first Saturday of the month clashes with volunteering at the Diss Woodland it was decided that future litter-picks would happen on the 2nd Saturday in the month from Feb 11th. Anyone wishing to help should meet at the rear of Morrisons at 10.00am. See you there…..

The museum is closed for the winter but the work goes on. The builders are repairing the pillars and roof, while the volunteers create new displays inside.
They will feature sporting memories, royal celebrations, the 150th anniversary of Diss Church Junior School, the 70th anniversary of the Friendly Invasion of Americans and the history of local Freemasonry.
In the past year flints, fossils and thatching gave a traditional sturdiness to the displays, thanks to the volunteers and the geological knowledge of Peter Perkins.
The Manning exhibition colourfully re-created Thomas’ 1811 meeting with the Dalai Lama while the 20 events of the Friends in High Places festival were well attended by the public.
In the summer some of the High School teachers adapted material from our murder mystery, featuring the Mannings, and used it for a problem solving day for feeder schools.
Some pals and I took part in the carnival again, representing the museum, and the Denny Centre will have their annual pantomime before Christmas.
Recently, for the High School, I showed 26 European exchange students around the town.
The same week I gave a presentation, in top hat and tail coat, on Victorian Childhood to the delightful Mellis Brownies.
The historical project handbook from Brownie HQ was obviously not designed to stretch them too much. When studying the Ice Age they played with bits of ice. (Truly.)
The Victorian section mentioned only games. So at least they learned something from the museum. I was bombarded with questions, as they found that their lives were not so far from the 1800s.

Basil Abbott

Mozart’s Requiem
& Respighi’s Nativity
Burgate Singers
Diss Corn Hall

The 1790s were an extraordinary period. The world was in ferment, with war on land and sea, the French Revolution, Rights of Man, Mary Wollstonecraft’s works, the Gothic novel and secret societies everywhere.
The flames of the dying century produced a Requiem by the dying Mozart, around which a mythology of subterfuge has grown. Was he poisoned? Did someone else complete his work?
The Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) section would have apocalyptic significance for many at the end of a century. The hell and pit language of the Offertorium picks up on the Gothic style of the time.
As balm for troubled times it never dates. Under Alain Judd’s direction the singers, soloists and orchestra seemed to pick up on the zeitgeist of those days.
Stormy, with visions of fire and brimstone, pleas for divine mercy, gratitude for the coming of grace – all these moods found high expression.
Ask any musician – Respighi’s Nativity needs good soloists, a strong male section, Italian lessons, fine oboists and two complementary pianists.
Apart from having just one pianist, the performance featured some of the most musical shepherds who ever burst into song.
It had murmuring warmth, full-throttle praise and the gentlest of Amens, impassioned solos from Aurelia Jonvaux and Catherine Parkin and woodwind with hints of the Renaissance.
This was a concert at times almost overwhelming in its emotion and depiction of the world at the brink.

BASIL ABBOTT

The Blue Angel
Open Space Theatre Company
St. Edmund’s Hall, Hoxne

Tacky decadence is the keynote of Pam Gems’ version of the well-known von Sternberg film.
Thin as a play, thinner as a musical, it uses explanatory vignettes, like film scenes, between production numbers.
It may not have the crackling menace of Cabaret but there is something about it, an odd glow of appeal.
Director David Green may have seen parallels with pre-war Germany and our own difficult times, echoed ironically by the tinny refrain of Happy Days Are Here Again.
Following the iconic Marlene Dietrich is well nigh impossible, not least since Lola seems an androgynous figure. All the best Dietrich impersonations are by men.
Not that you would want to miss Emma Martin, an easy girl to become obsessed with. Tall and attractively hetero, with a Vogue face, she is a star turn.
Then, as now, there was no fool like an old fool when a girl flashes her suspenders. Paul Baker charts the downward path of the stuffy professor with painful transparency.
Dafydd Westacott, Jake Kubala and Zack Flegg give pleasing energy and cheekiness to the roles of the students.
Some of the actresses must have thought that their days as cabaret dancers were over. But the mixture of bimbos and mature women helps to re-create the atmosphere.

Basil Abbott

The Tempest
WARTS
Redgrave Church

WARTS can usually be relied upon to do something out of the ordinary.
How many other local groups would present Twelfth Night in the style of Casablanca, or Our Country’s Good in the round?
Tim Hall’s production of The Tempest takes its tone from silent, Gothic films and movies like The Abominable Dr. Phibes.
One innovation is having three Ariels (Kathy Mills, Lynn Wilson and Carys Allen), like pesky WI members who have been at the parsnip wine. Their breath is the tempest and they control the hapless castaways like puppets.
An impressive cast is led by Steve Humfress, bringing all his experience to the magus-like Prospero.
Rob Johnson’s wild, Neanderthal Caliban is full of rage and pain, as well as being a dab hand at the organ. The live music is actually played by Peter Creswell.
Rhiannon Ellis (Miranda) and George Eddy (Ferdinand), young lovers in Our Country’s Good, again bring youthful freshness to their roles.
The group is blessed with a strong male contingent – Dave McGeevor, Richard Telford, Keith Charman, David Neeve, Graham Freeman, Derek Mitchell, John Tate, Mike Daly – all performing up to the hilt.
But a special word for Phil Isbell (Antonio), who had never acted until the previous production; but already has the assurance of a veteran.

Basil Abbott

Diss Museum’s Manning family commemoration celebrated local heritage, brought visitors to the town and had great educational value. The residency of the Tashi Lhunpo monks was a notable heritage partnership with the Corn Hall.
It is often forgotten that projects like this can boost the economy. From the museum’s estimates: the Spice Cottage restaurant made £500 from a commemorative meal, while the church banked about £700 from the Murder Evening. The Nepal in Need charity took home £268 when a Sherpa came to speak. Festival takings of £500 helped to finance the monks. They were paid £3,000 (largely funded) and made about £500 selling their merchandise. A local landlord received £630 for the monks’ accommodation. The Corn Hall and museum shared £3,200 in takings, with the museum making a further £90 from a raffle. This is not to mention the people who bought drinks at the Corn Hall, went into local shops and restaurants and (in the case of at least one family) stayed in the town for several nights.
By the end of the project about £9,000 had changed hands. Thus, in difficult financial times, an imaginative festival can create wealth.

The Tashi Lhunpo monks endeared themselves to the people of Diss during their week-long residency at the Corn Hall. Their beautiful sand mandala was the talk of the town; and about 100 people came to witness its destruction. Many then followed the monks to the Mere, symbolically to deposit some of the sand in the water. Their workshops and concert were well attended; and the Friends in High Places festival proved another winner for Diss Museum.

After a successful meeting in September, we have what looks like a good basis for celebrating the Diamond Jubilee. Oliver who runs the Park Pavilion is going to head up a committee to co-ordinate events; apart from our own Diss celebrations in the park we hope to join in with nationwide initiatives such as the ‘facebritain’ project for schools and the Eden Project’s Big Lunch.
Dates are 2nd-5th June 2012 and you can get in contact via this website if you’d like to join in.

See also www.facebritain.org and www.biglunch.org

Museum manager Basil Abbott has identified his father, Pip Abbott, as the boy sitting on the ground on the right. The boy behind him is Alfred ‘Teddie’ Nunn. But who are the others? Can anyone spot fathers or grandfathers on this Diss Church School picture from 84 years ago?

Bike race in Diss

The Tour of Britain bicycle race came through Diss on 17th September. Rarely have I seen Diss so busy, as crowds lined Park Road and Denmark St., to catch a glimpse of the race. And it only lasted a few seconds!!

There was a lot of activity going on in Diss Park to mark the occasion, and Diss Community Partnership had a stall, where we offered free apple juice, freshly made, and other free food, provided by volunteers.