The Fields Beneath
Summer 2009 saw another successful run of our outdoor production in Greenwich Park. Set in 1896, The Fields Beneath involves its young participants in the tensions between Londoners’ sometimes conflicting needs for open spaces and for new housing, all in the months leading up to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Children take on the roles of a Victorian school group on a nature walk, and are asked to make their own judgement about some topical questions.
In this production, Greenwich Park, like the rest of London’s open spaces, is under threat. The inexorable growth of the world’s first metropolis means that any not-yet-built-on land is a target for developers and as a source of building materials. In 1896 the open spaces movement was new – the infant National Trust, run by four unpaid campaigners, has £300 to its name, a few hundred members and no office. Every Sunday and bank holiday, tens of thousands of Londoners travelled on packed trains to spend their precious free time in Greenwich and the other parks. Yet all too many of those Londoners were sleeping up to twelve to a subdivided room. Meanwhile in Windsor, Queen Victoria was taking huge pleasure in personally directing every detail of the celebrations to take place all over the British Empire to mark the 60th anniversary of her accession.
The participants meet two characters whose agendas, needs and view of the world will never coincide. What is more important to a city, new homes or open spaces? Still a controversial issue all over the world.
Click here for more photos Back to Projects Page
