Nancy Smith & Tracy Elster in rehearsal
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A Bavarian Mystery in Suffolk

Last year the East Anglian-based Common Ground had a successful tour of Dark Tales which combined myths from several cultures. This summer the company is staging a new play by Pat Whymark called The Bell, It’s partly based on a real story and is set in imperial Germany just before the outbreak of the First World War. A young man has disappeared during a walking holiday in Bavaria; his brother goes in search of him.

Enquiries lead the young man to a mansion inhabited by two widows and their children. That’s the mystery part of the play, but it tackles wider moral issues including what pressures can goad individuals or indeed entire communities into violence. Three local teenagers join the professional actors and harpist Xenia Horne for this blend of narrative, surrealism, physical theatre and live music.

This one-act drama has been written to provide strong parts for middle-aged women and begins its tour at The Cut Arts Centre in Halesworth on 18 June before continuing to the Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft on 30 June, the Seckford Theatre in Woodbridge on 2 July and the Sir John Mills Theatre, Ipswich on 16 and 17 July. It ends at Great Hockham Village Hall on 31 July.

- by Anne Morley-Priestman

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