Performed by Chris Wood who has been heralded as "the renaissance man of English folk" and Hugh Lupton, a master storyteller with nearly 30 years of experience On Common Ground is a powerful tale. Set at the time the enclosures this is the story of one of England¹s ³lost² poets John Clare, whose work has only relatively recently been rediscovered.
Clare a 17th century poet was a man torn between two worlds. He was at the epicentre of a huge upheaval in man¹s relation to the soil and the shadow of the industrial revolution.
Unhappy and unsettled in both and struggling to pay for his family he was driven to madness and ended his days in an asylum where he wrote I Am.
³Sheer wizardry in the guise of utter simplicityŠa packed house sat in a thrall of enchantment, no movement, no intrusive soundsŠ Hugh Lupton is joined by singer/fiddler Chris Wood, whose style is timeless and beguiling, his songs wonderfully evocative.² Eastern Daily Press ³It¹s rare to hear work as powerful as Chris Wood and Hugh Lupton¹s. With beautifully sculpted prose and carefully honed music they seduce the minds of those who listen, skilfully drawing on the past.² Verity Sharpe (Late Junction & The Culture Show)
³…The images that billowed and faded in that darkened auditorium were quite different from those that unspool across a screen. I could put my hands in front of my face and the pictures would not vanish. They were inside me. They belonged to me. They were part of the history of the whole of human life.² The Times
Chris Wood and Hugh Lupton: On Common Ground is at the Bridport Arts Centre, South Street, on Saturday 24 April at 7.30pm. Box office: 01308 424204.
Tickets priced: £10, £9 Supporters, £6.50 concs.
