Wirksworth Community Theatre's ambitious challenge

Spoken word, acting, live sound effects, music and mime with silhouettes - all this will feature in Wirksworth Community Theatre's upcoming production.
The Wordsmiths of Gorsemere at Wirksworth Town Hall.The Wordsmiths of Gorsemere at Wirksworth Town Hall.
The Wordsmiths of Gorsemere at Wirksworth Town Hall.

‘The Wordsmiths of Gorsemere’ was written by renowned author, Sue Limb, and originally performed as a play for BBC Radio 4. 
This brilliant satire on the lives of the Lake Poet, William Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and their various literary - and very strange – friends will be performed at Wirksworth Town Hall this month.

In the production, the main character has become William Wordsmith and, as well as Dorothy, the cast includes drug- and love-crazed poets such as Cholericke (Coleridge), Percy Jelley (Shelley), Lord Byro (Byron), De Quinine (De Quincey) and Sir Walter Spott (Scott). These aliases indicate the level of fantasy and absurdity to be expected from the performance.

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‘The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere’, directed by Mike and Helen Knott, will also test a sound team’s inventiveness as they provide an accompaniment that includes boats tossed on stormy lakes, horses and carriages, retching and childbirth.

The first performance will form part of the Wirksworth Book Festival and take place on Friday, April 6, at 7.30pm. Two further performances will then be staged a fortnight later, on Friday, April 20, and Saturday, April 21.

In addition, an optional pre-theatre talk on the real Lake Poets will take place each evening at 6pm in the town hall’s club room, free of charge.

Tickets cost £10 and are available from Marsden’s Gift Shop (tel. 01629 820191) and Wirksworth Framing (01629 824994), both on Wirksworth Market Place.

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