Katherine Swynford and the Countess Joan
A MEDIEVAL WEEK 2022 EVENT
You can register for this talk on our Eventbrite site: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/287953676197.
The Medieval Sudies Reseach Group and Script in Hand invite you to a free performance of this new play by Margaret Crompton.
Katherine Swynford and the Countess Joan
As Geoff the poetic Night Verger bids farewell to the last visitors, Ella and Alf notice monuments which hold some mysterious significance for them. They leave, enabling residents of Lincoln Cathedral to come out for a tomb-break, to stretch their legs, catch up with news, and explore their centuries-old relationships. Katherine Swynford and her daughter Joan are joined by Katherine’s sister Philippa Chaucer and Philippa’s husband, the poet Geoffrey (whose resemblance to Verger Geoff is no coincidence). Katherine’s husband John of Gaunt arrives in time to remember his first wife, Blanche, and Bishop Grosseteste tactlessly recalls John’s second wife, Constanza of Castile. Another noble Castilian, Queen Eleanor, indulges in resentful reminiscence about her untimely death in the Lincolnshire village of Harby, until lordly poet Alfred Tennyson wanders in from his lonely plinth on the East Green. As daylight returns, Alfred escorts Eleanor – remembering as in a dream their lives in another time – .
Like Verger Geoff, we are priviliged to overhear their conversations, following the rise and fall of emotions – ancient tensions, enduring loves, frustration and creativity, ambition and regret. These conversations explore ideas about truth and fiction in representing real people and events, ranging from guide books to Shakespeare, Chaucer to the Internet, historical novels to history. Katherine says: ‘Anyone would think the writers owned us,’ and Philippa comments: ‘Just because we’re dead, they don’t care, about facts. Or truth. Just a good story.’ These far-from-dead people challenge perceptions of looking and listening – in speech and writing — and silence.
When their tomb-break ends, everyone has changed. Who will join Geoff the Night Verger tomorrow?
Script in Hand
Script-in-Hand performs staged-readings of original plays – with script in hand. Our plays are works of imagination, based on the lives of real people, whom we represent with respect. As far as possible, we use material for which there is evidence. We wear a neutral ‘uniform,’ (black trousers/skirt, with coloured tops). Like listening to a radio play, we ask you to use your imagination and join us in this time-out-of-time – which is drama.
Script in Hand performances of plays by Margaret Crompton in Lincoln:
2018 The Sellwood Girls (St Mary Magdalen Church);
2019 Anne Askew, a woman of courage in Tudor Lincolnshire (Assembly Rooms);
2019 (with John Crompton) When Queen Victoria Came to Tea (OXFAM Bookshop; British Federation of Women Graduates party);
2021 Anne Askew [revised] (Cathedral Chapter House);
2021 Women of the Cathedral [sequence of poems] (Cathedral Chapter House).
2022 Katherine Swynford and the Countess Joan
Tuesday March 29th 3.00 pm Lincoln University Medieval Week;
Friday May 13th 7.30 pm. Lincoln Assembly Rooms.
Play scripts by Margaret Crompton, and by John Crompton, are available online.
Story submitted by Renee Ward
rward@lincoln.ac.uk