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Robert Leach: Original plays |
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The
Wellesbourne Tree
A musical documentary play
Large cast, mixed; with doubling, about 12 minimum. The play tells the story of
Joseph Arch, founder of the National Agricultural Workers Union at
Wellesbourne in Warwickshire in 1872, and later M.P. for Norfolk North West.
The drama has a vital topical resonance, and takes the perhaps unfashionable
view that trade unions are an essential and constructive element in a
democratic society. The play includes seventeen songs – chorus, small group
and solo – in a nineteenth century folk idiom.
When
Arch beneath the Wellesbourne tree his glorious work began, A thrill
of hope and energy through all the country ran, But
farmer, parson, squire and lord looked on with evil eyes, Some
looked with hope, and some with rage, and some with dumb surprise, Though
rich and great our cause may hate we care not for their frown, The
strongest are not strong enough to keep the lab’rer down! They
thought they’d kept us down so low our manhood was starved out, So
ignorant we should not know the task we were about, But now no
longer they despise the men who strive with wrong, Men they
thought fools they find are wise; men they thought weak are strong. Though
rich and great ... The squire
and parson for our sin give no more soup and coal, And poor
old folks with Union kin are stopped their parish dole, Their Poor
Law traps they slyly lay when threats and lockouts fail, And on the
wife force parish pay to thrust the man in goal. Though
rich and great ... When Arch
beneath the Wellesbourne tree his glorious work began, A thrill
of hope and energy through all the country ran; Now
farmer, parson, lord and squire, our lives give you the lie, And from
you all shall yet be wrung the justice you deny. Though rich
and great ... |
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The
Brummagem Fancy
A play with songs
Large cast, mixed; with doubling, about 12 minimum. Set in the 1850s, The Brummagem Fancy explores
the flash world of pugilists and cockfighting, good time girls and ‘free and
easy’ singing pubs, and the lives of those who inhabit them. It centres on
the lives of Bob Brettle, factory worked turned prize fighter, whose early
backer was Palmer the notorious Rugeley poisoner; and Constable Coverside,
Brettle’s boyhood chum now turned policeman. The play climaxes with Brettle’s
fight for the championship against the great Tom Sayers. This play has
fourteen songs in a music hall and popular folk tradition. (from The Brummagem Fancy) (Bluey Boston and Dolly are suspended in harnesses under their
armpits – it is a way of keeping the drunks upright. Enter the Brewer’s Boy,
whistling, with a broom. He sweeps up.) BOY : Come on, you two. Last to go. We’ll be charging you ground rent if you’re here much longer. Oh, you’re a lot of filthy buggers – look at all this spew splattering the floor. Eh, Bluey, what do you do it for? BLUEY : What? BOY : Get drunk. What do you do it for? BLUEY : What do I breathe for? BOY : You can’t breathe down here – the stink’s so rich. Dolly – DOLLY : Bugger off. BOY : No, I’d like to know. I’m only young. What do you do it for? DOLLY : Free night’s lodging here. It’s comfortable as a bed in Buckingham Palace. BOY : Disgusting, I call it. Bloody disgusting. A couple of horny sinners like you. You ought to be shot – have done with you. BLUEY : Shut your gob – you bleeding varmint. BOY : Who’s calling who names? I don’t spend my nights strung up in the drunks’ cellar like a tart’s silk stockings. But I do have to sweep up after youse, and it’s disgusting. Do you hear, you nasty old bag of bones? Why don’t you stay with your rats in the sewers? Eh? BLUEY : Bugger off. (The boy sweeps
once more, then exits.) DOLLY : All the same, Bluey, this ain’t no life. BLUEY (snarls) : Yarrr. DOLLY : I mean, I’m a star of the stage, I’m adored by thousands – and look at me at this moment. I get to feel ashamed sometimes. BLUEY : Get away. I know what you’re after – the Flash and Fancy. Well, take it from me – a smart weskit and enough to gamble on the fists don’t change a man from what he is. DOLLY : But anyone who spends a night down here, Bluey – they’re the lowest of the low. BLUEY : You ought to know – you’ve spent plenty. DOLLY : Ah – and you’ve been here most of ‘em, an’ all. (A silence. Then they begin to hum Summer Lane, swaying in rhythm in their harnesses.) See the palm trees swaying, down in Summer Lane, Every Saturday night there’s a jubilation, See ‘em all a-jazzin’ in the Salutation, There’s no snow in Snow Hill, there’s no need to catch a train, On a Saturday night when the weather’s all right, It’s summer in Summer Lane. BOY (re-entering) : Come on, you lazy vermin. Get out of here. Shut the bleeding row and get out. Singing in a respectable house – I never heard the like. It’s bloody morning, you know. Now, get out. (He has unhitched
them from their harnesses. They stumble and stagger out.) |
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Robin Hero A ballad opera
Large, mixed cast; with doubling, can be performed by a company of ten. This story of Robin Hood comes from the very earliest ballads about the popular hero. Yeoman, archer, outlaw, this Robin has a touch of the ancient magical Green Man, and more than a touch of the peasant in revolt. His identity is shifting, elusive. On one level this is a fast-paced action drama, but on a deeper level it is perhaps a meditation on law and law-makers, democracy, popular rights and people’s ability to own their own lives. (from Robin Hero) KING : Whoever brings me Robin
Hood can have this knight’s lands to him and his heirs for ever. 2nd SINGER : The king of all England is angry,
His rage like a boil is inflamed;
It spreads and it festers inside him,
Till the whole of his kingship is maimed. And Robin Hood’s gone
to the greenwood,
A will-o’-the-wisp now he seems,
A wandering, mischievous spirit,
A shadow who fades into dreams. KING : Tomorrow we leave
Nottingham. We will seek out and destroy this incubus. Every coppice, every
dale will be searched, not a clump of trees will go undisturbed. And if the
crops are trodden down, that’s little enough to pay. (Exit Officer.) I
will have this green anti-Christ. 2nd SINGER : The king of all England is searching
Across the broad acres of land,
And every place he has been to
Is scarred now as by a firebrand.
Villages empty as eggshells,
Doors swinging in the wind’s moan,
Barn roofs broken down, farm lands running to grass,
And allotments with weeds overgrown. |
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These plays are available for performance. Please contact us at |
