A NEW community play by MED Theatre ? The Ragged Walkers by John Young ? is premiered next week. MED Theatre is a Dartmoor theatre company dedicated to the creation of new drama, music and movement, both for stage and film. This play is written by John Young, who has lived on this moorland edge for over forty years, and knows the locality, its history and its people very well. MED Theatre?s plays focus on Dartmoor material. The Ragged Walkers is a tale based on the abandoned medieval village which lies on the edge of the moor a mile and a half above Okehampton. The story starts in modern day times, but The Ragged Walkers are an ancient ghostly procession that trouble the villagers in the thirteenth century as well as in the present, and soon the play has switched to the year 1291. At that time, Hugh de Courtenay, aged seventeen, inherited the Castle and Manor of Ocmenton. When a young man has so much wealth, people around him become ambitious. This inevitably affects the people of the village on the hill. John Young says: ?The play was written to entertain, not educate, so the characters portrayed are varied, some funny, some good, others less so. People living in medieval times were not so very different to us.? The play is performed by a cast trained in the MED Theatre tradition, with costumes designed by Fiona Avis and a floor canvas designed and painted by Olivia Young and Sandy Berridge. The Ragged Walkers is directed by John Young and Mark Beeson. ?At the northern tip of Dartmoor sits the the ancient ruined castle of Okehampton. Just south of that, on the bleak fields and moorland hills, between the villages of Meldon and Belstone, another village stood,? said Mark. ?The fallen ruins of old houses, and traces of groups of hut circles remain. Over the centuries, these were the homes of many types of settlers, all leading their lives, all with their stories to tell, but now they are past. Their names forgotten, their memories dead, they have left only their ghosts to walk the lonely hills, and sometimes trouble the living.? The Ragged Walkers Dates and Venues: March 11, 12 ? Manaton Parish Hall; March 15 ? Chagford Jubilee Hall; March 17 ? Belstone Village Hall; March 18, 19 ? Moretonhampstead Parish Hall. All performances start at 7.30pm. Booking: tel 01647441356, email [email protected]">[email protected]
