Our June's Wedding is a cheeky yet poignant play touring at rural venues around Surrey until July 12 - but what does it mean to be a rural touring play?
June and Richard are finally about to get married. It's the happiest day of their lives... but are they really getting hitched for the right reasons? Is Richard's tightly-wound mother going to explode? And how exactly did June's late father manage to make it to the venue?
Our June's Wedding was a hit at the Brighton Fringe with Surrey-based company Theatre Exchange, and now it's touring rural venues around Surrey, tailoring each show to the local church in which it takes place. The audience - seated on pews - are part of the play itself, the invited friends and family of the happy (and somewhat frantic) couple.
- July 4, 2.30pm: St Nicholas’ Church, Charlwood, RH6 0DS
- July 5, 2.30pm: St Mary’s Church, Byfleet, KT14 7NF
- July 11, 2.30pm: St Peter’s Shared Church, Guildford, GU1 1NP
- July 12, 2pm: St Jude’s United Church, Englefield Green, TW20 0BZ
It's a beautiful (not to mention rather funny) story, suited for all the family... but what does it mean to be a rural touring play?
Traditionally, life in any community revolved around the village hall, church and local school. With time, though, our villages grew into towns and from there into cities, with dedicated theatres and music halls and cinemas. We've become ever-more connected by roads and trains - and, more abstractly, by the invisible links of radio, satellite, and the internet.
In a way, though, the more connected we are, the more isolated we've become - why get together with your local community, fellow families and friends, when all your entertainment is piped into the TV, or available a car-ride away at a cinema full of strangers?
Rural touring arts aim to bring professional performances back to the ancient hearts of village life, thereby filling the gap for those who can't easily reach the big performance halls of London and other cities, and giving others a local, community-friendly alternative to those bigger, impersonal venues.
There are a huge array of arts groups who work on these principles, providing professional groups (often fresh off a Fringe Festival or similar event) with the opportunity to play to smaller, more personal audiences - and giving communities the chance to enjoy high-quality work just a stroll away, in beautiful local surroundings.
It was Arts Partnership Surrey who commissioned Theatre Exchange to tour Our June's Wedding around Surrey, with the help of Tandridge Trust, for example - you can find other ongoing and future projects on their website. This isn't just a local idea - as far afield as the West Midlands, you can find groups like Arts Alive putting on over 140 events at rural venues each year, catering to scattered villages that would otherwise never be able to enjoy shows of this quality.
"We're essentially a partnership between us as a professional agency and our volunteer promoters", explains Sian Kerry, director of arts at the charitable trust. "There’s no way I could do it without the volunteers, they’re fantastic."
"We cover music, dance, puppetry, theatre... It’s a really good way to keep a community vibrant."
You can book tickets for Our June's Wedding by calling 01883 724 599
