We have traveled from the blinding sunshine of London’s heatwave in June at our little rehearsal room in Ealing, through the sudden downpours and drama of the Edinburgh festival, and finally come to rest in the midst of the beautiful Shropshire hills in a brand new theatre.

Theatre Severn has only been open since March, and it is fantastic to be performing a show in a space so relevant to Darwin. His school, the church where he was christened and the streets he grew up in are all just around the corner, and are all mentioned in the play.

We are also delighted to have our own Charles Darwin - Harry Arkwright - back with us, having recovered from his attack of appendicitis. As one of the cast commented recently, it was Darwin himself who determined that the appendix is of very little or no use to modern humans, dating back to a time when we mostly lived on grass. It is a pity therefore that it had such a big effect on a re-telling of his own life story…

After having to seriously re-work several performances in Harry’s absence, the production is firmly back on its feet and has really been able to evolve this week. With more resources available to us we have increased lighting and sound, added more special effects, lengthened the script, and ended up with a show that is bigger and better than ever. The cast have spacious dressing rooms, there is a workshop for mending and improving props, we have an on-site laundry for the costumes and a very smart restaurant and bar too. Which is all quite a contrast to Edinburgh…

Theatre productions generally need a little time to bed in and adapt to a space. After a couple of dress rehearsals or performances, sound levels are sometimes tweaked, lights re-focused, or scenes re-rehearsed to be as polished as possible for the next performance. In Edinburgh, there is no time to do this. No-one can physically enter the performance space until it is time to perform, meaning that there was very little time to make alterations or repairs.

We had to be good at putting up our entire set, along with costumes and props in just fifteen minutes before the audience arrived. As soon as the audience sat down the show began, and as soon as the show ended the set, props and costumes were all cleared away again. If something went wrong it had to be dealt with on the spot. If the show started late, we might lose audience to one of the several hundred other shows performing at the festival, not to mention the knock-on effect of making the six other shows that were on after us late as well.

In Shrewsbury, we are the only theatre production here this week. The pressure is still there to create a fantastic experience for the audience, but the absence of such rigid time constraints makes for a much more polished and relaxed production. There is no risk of complacency setting in though, when we all know we could revert back to our Edinburgh ways and finish putting the set up just before the audience arrives…!

And with a whole week of performances left, who knows what could be around the
corner? To paraphrase our writers: That is all in the future. And as we know, we
can’t predict the future so there’s no point in trying. In the meantime however,
please take this final opportunity to visit us and witness what further twists and
turns, what further anomalies and mutations await the young, curious and rather
exceptional, Mr Charles Darwin.

Caroline Meer
ORIGINS Stage Manager