A Banbury youth-led, community theatre production is set perform for at historic, local Boatyard this summer!
Cherwell Theatre Company (CTC) are set to deliver their latest community-based theatre production in the heart of Banbury town centre this summer. The Mutineers: The Curse of Captain Crow is a passion project of our Youth Steering Board, with this pirate themed play written by one of our participants through our professional mentorship programme in lockdown, inspired by and performed in the dry-dock of Tooley’s Historic 18th Century Boatyard.
Building on their reputation for producing theatre in extraordinary places over recent years including Broughton Castle, an disused bunker underneath Banbury Town Hall and a local leisure centre, the Banbury based charity are excited to be performing in this thrilling, central location alongside the canal, next to the Castle Quay and just a stone’s throw away from the new Light establishment, bridging the old and new parts of the town centre and drawing upon new audiences and passing public.
‘The Curse of Captain Crow’ is a huge step for 19 year old company member Jon, who joined CTC in 2017 and has become a celebrated member of the CTC family. During his time with the company he has excelled at acting, filmmaking, stand-up comedy and now playwrighting with the company and is soon to study acting at Coventry University. As a good example of our young people’s ownership of CTC’s programme, our members approached the Artistic Director with a petition signed by over 30 people back in June asking that we stage Jon’s play in 2022!
“It's hard to put into words how much this play means to Jon and all of us” said another CTC participant, aged 15 “The anticipation and build up to hopefully performing this has been incredible and has lasted so long too! Everyone is the most invested I've ever seen when it comes to embodying their characters and the script contains everybody's input and involvement. To be able to stage this in real life would feel so surreal after doing unofficial read throughs in break times, to putting on a show in front of an audience”
Having developed the script with our youth theatre and young company groups, CTC also formed a partnership with Banbury Folk Club, Chenderit School’s Musical Theatre Society and Hill View School who recently performed traditional sea shanties alongside our core groups, at the Folk Club's Afternoon Delightful event at the General Foods Sports and Social Club.
“I think it would be great for Banbury,” said another CTC participant aged 16 “as it would be performed in such a different place, and for a lot of people it would be great to finally see some theatre after so long, especially such a fun and enjoyable play.”
Jon himself says “Captain Crow is the first writing project I've created that has gone beyond just being on paper and it's transcended all expectations I've had when I started writing it. To see it develop and grow over time has gone hand in hand with my development and growth from a writing perspective. It's given me so much to work on over the course of 2020-21 and to see it come to fruition will be such a huge accomplishment”.
The play will be performing at Tooley’s Boatyard on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th August with shows starting at 6.30pm. Tickets are £2 per person and can be booked at www.cherwelltheatrecompany.co.uk/the-mutineers
This project has been made possible due to generous funding and donations from Cherwell District Council, Banbury Town Council, Didymus Charity, Project Spark, Pye Charitable Trust, The Boris Karloff Foundation and Moto in the Community Foundation Grant.