FREE READING AT SAX FEST

SHAKE is delighted to announce a rehearsed reading of The Horse in The Furrow by George Ewart Evans, as part of the second Saxmundham Arts Festival, on Saturday 8th June.

The reading boasts a superb cast, led by Alex Jennings (The Crown, Mr Bates vs The Post Office) Charlie Haylock (voice coach on The Dig) and Barbara Ashfield (née Tilney, Akenfield).

These three iconic stars are joined by three talented teenagers from Thomas Mills, Alde Valley Academy and Woodbridge schools. Tickets are free.

The reading from Evans’ book about Suffolk farm life in the horse-drawn era, is scheduled to take place at the WORD SPACE, in St John’s Church Saxmundham, from 12 noon to 1.45pm. Entry is free of charge.

George Ewart Evans lived five miles from Saxmundham in the village of Blaxhall. He wrote The Horse in The Furrow in 1960, as a faithful account of the heavy horses on the farms of East Suffolk, and the horsemen who tended them.

Evans interviewed horsemen, grooms, farmers and even their clothiers, at the end of a fast-vanishing era, as the tractor was changing the face of the countryside for ever. His book is brim-full of fascinating detail that brings old Suffolk vividly to life.

SHAKE is a Saxmundham-based theatre company led by director Jenny Hall, who has abridged the book with Katrin Williams (BBC Radio Book of the Week).

Past readings produced by SHAKE have starred Geraldine James, Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall, Oliver Cotton and many local Suffolk actors including Tim FitzHigham.

Part of SHAKE’s remit is to teach verse-speaking (the techniques of speaking Shakespeare’s verse) to a new generation, and to give outstanding opportunities to Suffolk performers.

SHAKE also produces weekend festivals of Shakespeare. Past festivals have featured Dame Harriet Walter, Ed Hall, Geraldine James, Sir Stanley Wells, Lucy Bailey, and Dame Janet Suzman.

Jenny’s father, born in Bury St Edmunds, directed the film of Ronald Blythe’s Akenfield in 1974, in which both she and her grandfather Reg Hall appear “very briefly!”, she says.

International Suffolk horse societies in North America and Australia have signalled their interest in SHAKE’s reading of The Horse in the Furrow –particularly now that the beautiful chestnut-coloured Suffolk Punches have become a critically endangered species.

SHAKE’s performance of The Horse in The Furrow is sponsored by Knock on Wood, the musical instrument company based in Saxmundham. Sax Arts Fest is run by The Art Station, Saxmundham, led by Clare Palmier, and supported by East Suffolk Council and Saxmundham Town Council.

* For more details on Sax Arts Fest visit here.

* For Shake Festival, visit here.