MESH Theatre Co is a place where history speaks, performing conflict-related dramas in significant locations and at seminal moments directly relevant to the play's origins. Adhering to the highest standards of professional theatre, whilst remaining proudly low tech, we breathe life into our collective past in intimate spaces evoking multi-sensory events which only live theatre can achieve. Our critically-acclaimed productions are considered "not so much must-see shows as must-have experiences".
R C Sherriff's WW1 masterpiece JOURNEY'S END was our début production in Ypres, Belgium, at the epicentre of the WW1 battlefields, in 2017: a century after Sherriff himself was wounded there on the first day of Passchendaele. This seminal event - the play's first ever production on the Western Front - took place in Ypres Kruitmagazijn (Gunpowder Store), a 200-year-old bunker which has survived three wars in this embattled region.
This five star show returned to Flanders in 2018 to mark the WW1 Armistice and again, by popular demand, in November 2019 to the historic Skindles Ballroom, former WW1 officers club in Poperinge, near Ypres, adjacent to the extraordinnary Talbot House "Everyman's Club".
Rachel Wagstaff's THE SOLDIER, inspired by the life of poet Rupert Brooke and his eponymous war sonnet, opened in December 2018 to an invited audience in The Rupert Brooke Room at The Orchard Tea Garden in Grantchester, bringing the WW1 Centenary to a close. Brooke was a student lodger at the Orchard in 1910, before moving next door to The Old Vicarage, Grantchester - title of his other much-loved poem.
In 2019 THE SOLDIER toured the UK & Belgium to places relating to Brooke and the play, including St George's Memorial Church in Ypres (truly that "corner of a foreign field that is forever England"); The Macready Theatre at Brooke's alma mater Rugby School; Kings College Cambridge where he spent his idyllic student days; Salisbury Playhouse, home of the Neo-Pagan group of artists who held their meetings on Salisbury Plain; the Malvern Festival of Military History, close to the village of Dymock where Brooke and his fellow Dymock Poets (a splinter group to the Bloomsbury Set) shared ideas and honed their art; and the magnificent Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College Greenwich where Brooke and fellow naval officer Denis Browne, his closest friend from school and university, joined the Royal Naval Division which took them to the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 en route to their graves in the Aegean at the tragically young age of 27 years.
We are excited to confirm two new MESH productions for 2020 and 2021:
Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Frank McGuinness's compelling hostage play, at the Zoukak Theatre in Beirut at the Sidewalks Festival of International Drama in November 2020. This brilliant multi-award-winning piece about three men in a prison cell in Beirut was inspired by the ordeals of 1980s hostages, John McCarthy, Brian Keenan, Terry Andersen et al. It will be supported by a series of workshops around the subject of arbitrary detention as a human rights abuse.
The Unknown Soldier by French playwright Paul Raynal - to mark the centenary of the burials of the unknown warriors of in England and France - will premier at the Finborough Theatre London in November 2021. This hidden gem was first performed in 1924 at the Arts Theatre Club in London, translated by Aces High writer Cecil Lewis from Raynal's original under the title Le Tombeau Sous L'Arc de Triomphe.
MORE INFO HERE.
R C Sherriff's WW1 masterpiece JOURNEY'S END was our début production in Ypres, Belgium, at the epicentre of the WW1 battlefields, in 2017: a century after Sherriff himself was wounded there on the first day of Passchendaele. This seminal event - the play's first ever production on the Western Front - took place in Ypres Kruitmagazijn (Gunpowder Store), a 200-year-old bunker which has survived three wars in this embattled region.
This five star show returned to Flanders in 2018 to mark the WW1 Armistice and again, by popular demand, in November 2019 to the historic Skindles Ballroom, former WW1 officers club in Poperinge, near Ypres, adjacent to the extraordinnary Talbot House "Everyman's Club".
Rachel Wagstaff's THE SOLDIER, inspired by the life of poet Rupert Brooke and his eponymous war sonnet, opened in December 2018 to an invited audience in The Rupert Brooke Room at The Orchard Tea Garden in Grantchester, bringing the WW1 Centenary to a close. Brooke was a student lodger at the Orchard in 1910, before moving next door to The Old Vicarage, Grantchester - title of his other much-loved poem.
In 2019 THE SOLDIER toured the UK & Belgium to places relating to Brooke and the play, including St George's Memorial Church in Ypres (truly that "corner of a foreign field that is forever England"); The Macready Theatre at Brooke's alma mater Rugby School; Kings College Cambridge where he spent his idyllic student days; Salisbury Playhouse, home of the Neo-Pagan group of artists who held their meetings on Salisbury Plain; the Malvern Festival of Military History, close to the village of Dymock where Brooke and his fellow Dymock Poets (a splinter group to the Bloomsbury Set) shared ideas and honed their art; and the magnificent Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College Greenwich where Brooke and fellow naval officer Denis Browne, his closest friend from school and university, joined the Royal Naval Division which took them to the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 en route to their graves in the Aegean at the tragically young age of 27 years.
We are excited to confirm two new MESH productions for 2020 and 2021:
Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Frank McGuinness's compelling hostage play, at the Zoukak Theatre in Beirut at the Sidewalks Festival of International Drama in November 2020. This brilliant multi-award-winning piece about three men in a prison cell in Beirut was inspired by the ordeals of 1980s hostages, John McCarthy, Brian Keenan, Terry Andersen et al. It will be supported by a series of workshops around the subject of arbitrary detention as a human rights abuse.
The Unknown Soldier by French playwright Paul Raynal - to mark the centenary of the burials of the unknown warriors of in England and France - will premier at the Finborough Theatre London in November 2021. This hidden gem was first performed in 1924 at the Arts Theatre Club in London, translated by Aces High writer Cecil Lewis from Raynal's original under the title Le Tombeau Sous L'Arc de Triomphe.
MORE INFO HERE.
Sally Woodcock is founder and artistic director of MESH Theatre Co. Born in Pakistan and raised in Kenya to an Anglo-Irish, Africa-born father and Australian mother, her upbringing and subsequent work across five continents drives a passion for stories which emerge from cross-cultural identity and the free movement of people. Hear Sally talk about her heritage in Come to Where I'm From (Gate Theatre London & Latitude Festival for Paines Plough).
Sally's first full-length play Fanta Orange (Finborough Theatre; developed at the National Theatre Studio) won Little Brother's Big Opportunity II, Exeunt Critic's Pick 2011, nominated for Best New Play by Offwestend and Time Out and co-winner International Playwriting Festival (Warehouse Croydon). Other plays include Blue Whales (winner of Luton Script Lab; RADA Festival / Soho Theatre / Luton Library Theatre); Pink Gin (Salisbury Playhouse); Kitchen Sink Drama / Oxymoronic (RADA ); The Trouser Department (Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh), All the Wrong Reasons (Bridewell Theatre); Wedding Belles (Gilded Balloon & Hill Street Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe / 78th St Theater Lab, NYC). Other work includes U-Bend (rehearsed readings at Royal Court Theatre and RADA); Shamba (TV drama commission for Little Brother Productions); Horses For Courses (shortlisted for Papatango) and Clever (RADA, directed by Sam Yates, shortlisted for Menagerie Sparks).
With Toby Guy Parsons Woodcock Sally co-founded HORSESHOE theatre co, staging modern curriculum dramas and running workshops for schools.
Woodcock is a graduate of Tamasha Playwrights and the Royal Court Invitation Group. She has an MA in Text and Performance (RADA / Kings College London); MPHIL in Arts Education (Trinity Hall, Cambridge) B Ed English & Drama (Homerton College, Cambridge); Post Graduate Diploma in Acting and Musical Theatre (Hertfordshire Theatre School) and NCTJ Certificate in Newspaper Journalism. See more at www.sallywoodcock.com
Sally's first full-length play Fanta Orange (Finborough Theatre; developed at the National Theatre Studio) won Little Brother's Big Opportunity II, Exeunt Critic's Pick 2011, nominated for Best New Play by Offwestend and Time Out and co-winner International Playwriting Festival (Warehouse Croydon). Other plays include Blue Whales (winner of Luton Script Lab; RADA Festival / Soho Theatre / Luton Library Theatre); Pink Gin (Salisbury Playhouse); Kitchen Sink Drama / Oxymoronic (RADA ); The Trouser Department (Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh), All the Wrong Reasons (Bridewell Theatre); Wedding Belles (Gilded Balloon & Hill Street Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe / 78th St Theater Lab, NYC). Other work includes U-Bend (rehearsed readings at Royal Court Theatre and RADA); Shamba (TV drama commission for Little Brother Productions); Horses For Courses (shortlisted for Papatango) and Clever (RADA, directed by Sam Yates, shortlisted for Menagerie Sparks).
With Toby Guy Parsons Woodcock Sally co-founded HORSESHOE theatre co, staging modern curriculum dramas and running workshops for schools.
Woodcock is a graduate of Tamasha Playwrights and the Royal Court Invitation Group. She has an MA in Text and Performance (RADA / Kings College London); MPHIL in Arts Education (Trinity Hall, Cambridge) B Ed English & Drama (Homerton College, Cambridge); Post Graduate Diploma in Acting and Musical Theatre (Hertfordshire Theatre School) and NCTJ Certificate in Newspaper Journalism. See more at www.sallywoodcock.com
COMPANY ANGELS
Margery Holland
E.M. Stanley
Stanley John Draper
H. George Ronaldson