Menu To join our mailing list click here Join our RSS feed for all the latest news		For all media enquiries, please contact Anna Bewick on anna@realcircumstance.com or 07739 965 705.   Press for LOUGH/RAIN Review: Northern Echo - 3 October 2008 Review: Holderness Gazette - 2 October 2008 Review: British Theatre Guide  – 1 October 2008 Review: Yorkshire Evening Press  – 29 September 2008 Preview: Yorkshire Evening Press  – 26 September 2008 Review: Metro  – 24 September 2008 Five Questions for Dan Sherer  – Metro  – 17 September 2008 Review: Metro  – 22 August 2008 Review: The List – 21 August 2008 Review: WhatsOnStage.com – 20 August 2008 Underbelly is surprise leader in Stage Awards nominations – The Stage – 15 August 2008 Review: FringeReview.com – 10 August 2008 Review: The Stage – 8 August 2008 Review: British Theatre Guide – 8 August 2008 Review: Three Weeks  – 6 August 2008 Review: The Scotsman  – 5 August 2008 Still water runs deep – The Irish World – 30 July 2008 New writing explores themes of love and stoicism – The List – 30 July 2008 First in Limbo, now two in one - Colchester Evening Gazette - 25 July 2008 Press for Development Period 2008 Essex County Standard – 6 June 2008 East Anglian Daily Times – 30 May 2008 Interview with BBC Essex – 30 May 2008 Press for LIMBO Review: The British Theatre Guide – Cecily Boys – October 2007 Review: Easingwold Advertiser – 27 October 2007 Review: Holderness Gazette – Judy Acock – 25 October 2007 Review: The Yorker – Andy Dolan – 24 October 2007 Review: The Stage – Kevin Berry – 22 October 2007 Review: Yorkshire Evening Press – Charles Hutchinson –18 October 2007 Five Questions For... Dan Sherer – Metro – 10 October 2007 Introducing... Caroline Williamson – Yorkshire Evening Press – 5 October 2007 Review: Culture Wars – Andrew Haydon – 28 August 2007 Director Receives Plaudits – Colchester Evening Gazette – 24 August 2007 Review: The Scotsman – Martin Gray – 23 August 2007 Review: The British Theatre Guide – Philip Fisher – 23 August 2007 Special Feature: House of Windsor and LIMBO – Whatsonstage.com – 19 August 2007 Review: The Guardian (Pick of the Day) – Maxie Szalwinska – 6 August 2007 Review: Essex County Standard – Iris Clapp – 27 July 2007 Dealing with a delicate issue – Essex County Standard – 22 July 2007 Declan’s play for Fringe – Newry Democrat –17 July 2007 New stage in director Dan's theatre career – Colchester Evening Gazette – 10 July 2007 Glorious return for acclaimed show – Essex County Standard – 4 April 2008    Press for Just Green Fields Play is a real team effort – Colchester Evening Gazette – 21 March 2006 Colchester Company Puts Show On National Stage – Essex Life and Countryside – May 2006 General Press The right direction – Jewish Chronicle – March 2007 Promise of new talent – East Anglian Daily Times – 11 January 2007 Steve Pratt – Northern Echo – 3 October 2008 Review: Beyond Measure and Lough/Rain, York Theatre Royal Studio http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/leisure/3725502.Beyond_Measure_and_Lough_Rain__York_Theatre_Royal_Studio/  NOT so much a double bill of new plays – although you have to pay twice, too – as four plays. Bridget Foreman’s Beyond Measure carries on the story of Isabella after Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure ends. The better of the two, Lough/Rain, is described as “two plays interwoven as one” by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan. Director Juliet Forster uses every multi-media device available, including music and film, to break the word-heavy text of Beyond Measure as Rina Mahoney – whose company, Back & Forth, presents the play – must decide on which path her life will take. She could be a nun or perhaps a duchess, or perhaps she’ll find a third possibility to solve a problem not named Maria, but Isabella. To which of her three suitors will she surrender her virginity? Despite Mahoney’s best efforts in attacking the text, which is written in blank verse using modern language, there’s not much ebb and flow. It’s full-on from start to finish, making you feel like you’re under verbal attack. Lough/Rain, on the other hand, is spare and sparse and consequently absolutely riveting. Both performers, Jot Davies and Kate Donmall, were nominated for acting awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where this Real Circumstance production premiered, and it’s easy to understand why. It starts with a normal day in the life of Michael and Caoimhe, with little hint of the terrible things to come that will result in the other half of the drama, where we slowly come to realise what tragedy has befallen the couple. Davies, in particular, is brilliant at conveying Michael’s new condition. Dan Sherer’s production, unlike Beyond Measure, is also unafraid of silences. They provide some of the most telling moments in this gripping piece of theatre.   Holderness Gazette – 2 October 2008 Last year Real Circumstance Theatre brought a very powerful and moving play to The Studio in York called LIMBO. This year straight from their very successful run at the Edinburgh Festival the company bring their interwoven ply LOUGH/RAIN to the intimate studio space at the theatre. The first play LOUGH opens with Michael (Jot Davies) and Caoimhe (Kate Donmall) discussing the day while making breakfast and sandwiches. The couple’s relationship is under constant scrutiny as their conversation becomes slow and laboured. Michael is obsessed at a boat out on the water and questions the night out that Caoimhe has just had with her girlfriend. A penetrating scream signals the beginning of RAIN as the audience now find themselves transported to a nursing home with Michael being fed through a tube and unable to walk. What follows is an uneasy experience as Michael is confused and frightened while Caoimhe has to be brave and loyal. Their relationship is once again under scrutiny as Caoimhe tries to makes sense of the situation. The relentless sound of the sea and the ticking clock gives the play added anxiety to the characters as they comes to terms with the rest of their life. As love, loss and grief join these two plays the audience has to remember that nothing lasts for ever, not even love, not even tragedy. Cecily Boys – British Theatre Guide – 1 October 2008 http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/loughrain-rev.htm This evening of one act plays is presented with Bridget Foreman's Beyond Measure up first. Lough/Rain starts at 9.30pm and is written by two writers, Declan Freenan and Clara Brennan, and thus the play becomes very much a piece of two halves. In the first half a young couple meet early in the morning before work and discuss the night before. While Caoimhe (Kate Donmall) is engaged in telling the tales of her night out and active social life with her work mates, Michael (Jot Davies) is distracted by the sound of someone rowing a boat out early on the Lough. While on the surface this is very much a couple happily married in the first flush of their relationship, somehow their discussions are discordant. Director Dan Sherer directs with an infinitely detailed eye, timing the pauses between the couple's conversations so that they are just a fraction too long to be comfortable and you begin to suspect that something is not quite right. We leave them with Michael getting ready to leave for a funeral and Caoimhe off to work and another social evening which she forgot to tell her husband about. As the second half unfolds we are in the new setting of a residential care home, some time later, where Michael now resides. In the aftermath of a horrible accident, Michael is significantly disabled and Caoimhe tries to visit him every day. The changes in both the characters and the relationship are astounding and fantastically well acted and crafted by both actors and director. Small wonder that this production was double nominated at the Edinburgh Fringe for Best Actor and Actress in The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence, it well deserves both those nominations. Jot Davies' heart wrenching performance when he is incapacitated and frustrated by his situation is phenomenal. And Kate Donmall really matches him in the second half, as it becomes clear that this is effectively two lives wasted by their tragic change of circumstance. As the company says on their website, they did not aim to produce a strictly narrative piece but maintain a certain dream-like quality, and that is certainly achieved here. While the subtleties of this production might pass those who like a good story by, it is fantastically well performed and simply conceived. Even James Cotterill's set, including a landscape painted backdrop fading into brush strokes on a canvas, is quietly effective. This slow burning production leaves you truly affected and is worth seeing for the fine performances alone. Real Circumstances' work is becoming an intriguing nugget of profound dramatic quality, intricately detailed until the end. Charles Hutchinson – Yorkshire Evening Press – 29 September 2008 Review: Lough/Rain, Real Circumstance/York Theatre Royal, The Studio, York Theatre Royal http://www.thepress.co.uk/whatson/theatre/3710857.Review__Beyond_Measure__Back___Forth_York_Theatre_Royal__Lough_Rain__ Real_Circumstance_York_Theatre_Royal__The_Studio__York_Theatre_Royal__until_October_4/ Lough/Rain builds on the promise of Real Circumstance director Dan Sherer’s debut at the Theatre Royal, Limbo. Schooled in the Mike Leigh method of devised performance, Sherer has his cast of Kate Donmall and Jot Davies know everything about their characters’ past lives before letting them loose on the script, so that their performance is wholly natural and honest. Declan Feenan’s short Irish play Lough is a day-in-the-life snapshot of an everyday Newry morning for Donmall’s Caoimhe, up early preparing sandwiches for work after a late night out with the girls. Davies’s Michael is full of questions, and restless concern at a man’s movements on the lough, failing to spot the burning toast that is but one note of foreboding. Silence and cut-up sounds are unsettling too, but not as much as Donmall’s shocked screams that indicate Lough’s transition into Rain, wherein the couple are coming to terms with unspoken changed circumstances that have left Michael on a hospital drip. Both performers were nominated for The Stage awards at the Edinburgh Fringe, and deservedly so: acting this intimate, this committed, is rare, raw, riveting. Charles Hutchinson – Yorkshire Evening Press – 26 September 2008 Preview: Lough/Rain, The Studio, York Theatre Royal http://www.thepress.co.uk/whatson/theatre/3706166.Preview__Lough_Rain__The_Studio__York_Theatre_Royal__until_October_4/ After last year’s fruitful creative partnership for Limbo, Real Circumstance Theatre has reunited with York Theatre Royal for Lough/Rain, two interlinking plays by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan that were rehearsed in the Walmgate studios before a successful, award nominated, if rain interrupted, run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The two-in-one play is performed by Kate Donmall and Jot Davies, who have returned to York buoyed by their nominations for best actress and best actor in The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence at Edinburgh. After resuming work in the rehearsal studio with director Dan Sherer, whose credits include being a staff director for Mike Leigh at the National Theatre, they are now playing Micahel and Caoimhe once more, in a lyrical exploration of loss and love, set in the wake of a terrible accident. Michael and Caoimhe must rebuild their lives as best they can, but all Michael can remember is the boat out on the lough that never should have been there. The barometer points to rain as the young couple realise they might not grow old together. Charles Hutchinson discusses the company’s working methods with director Dan Sherer. Dan, please introduce the way that Real Circumstance productions take shape. “Real Circumstance was set up in 2006 with two aims: to produce innovative theatre that prioritises the acting process; and to support emergent actors and writers who want to investigate and develop new ways of working. As well as producing new writing, Real Circumstance devises new work through extensive and intensive long-term improvisation. In our plays we explore intimate human narratives that exist in detailed, three-dimensional worlds. “All our work is underpinned by a process of rehearsal in which actors are encouraged to create fully realised imaginary selves, who are able to respond truthfully to any given circumstance.” Explain how that works in practice? “What we try to do is have no real separation between the work we do on stage and what we do in the rehearsal room, so what we do is build the life of each character and what we show the audience is part of that. “We minimise the effect of ‘there’s an audience there’, so it’s about trying to be honest in performance, and that’s why you make judgements on what you imagine may have happened before. “If I’m doing my work properly, hopefully the character is built in such a way that the actor will never behave incorrectly in that character…but stuff happens, which build someone’s character, and how people deal with that is what’s interesting.” Is the script sacrosanct? “People sometimes get confused and think I don’t pay attention to the script, but the script is the rule. That is it. But what you do is create a set-up where what the actors do is second nature and obvious to them, and because it all comes through different degrees of improvisation, there’ll come a point where I’ll say, ‘Right, go away and learn the lines now’. “Let’s say you imagine you’ve lost a child; we build the life where you didn’t know that would happen, and so you can only respond in the one way you would. It’s about ensuring the actors are prepared for any situation facing their character in an honest way. “By the time they have the script, they will have experienced everything that they will face in the play, but it’s not a case of me knowing what will happen in the play and gradually letting Kate and Jot know. That sounds puppet master-ish, and it’s not how we work. The actors lead it.” Is this a more risky way of preparing a performance? “Initially yes it is, but ultimately no. On stage nothing can go wrong. If a chair breaks in a show, they can react to that [in character] and get through it. “But initially the working process is brave because you don’t know where it will lead you. As I said to Jot, I’m going to look after you really well until you get to the stage; then you’re going to look after me really, really well in your performance. “Actors only feel unsafe if they’re scared, and they only feel scared if they don’t feel they know what’s going on and that things are out of control. A lot of it is about creating a structure and our two actors are completely brave and safe at the same time.” Amanda Tricket – Metro – 24 September 2008 Lough/Rain make a compelling pair http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/article.html?Lough/Rain_make_a_compelling_pair&in_article_id=325724&in_page_id=229&in_a_source= Directed by Dan Sherer and written by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan, Lough/Rain is an intense double-hander that consists of two plays intertwined into one. In the first segment of Real Circumstance Theatre Company's new play, Caoimhe (played by Kate Donmall) has returned from a night out, and her husband Michael (Jot Davies) gently quizzes her on her actions. There's a real intimacy created by the two as they make cups of tea, cuddle and chat, making the viewer feel like a voyeur in their kitchen. Yet Michael's intense stares and Caoimhe's occasional silences hint that all is not well within the relationship, despite their caresses and affectionate conversation. There are hints of impending doom, such as when the pair reach out to each other from opposite sides of the stage and in the next scene, we discover that Michael has suffered a terrible accident. As Donmall inserts feeding tubes underneath Davies' T-shirt, we learn that the young man is now in a residential care unit, and that he is brain damaged and unable to feed himself. Both actors are heartbreakingly convincing in their roles of confused victim and partner struggling to keep up a sense of normality. Their strong performances leave a bleak feeling in the pit of the stomach. This is not comfortable viewing, but it is compelling theatre. Velimir Ilic – Metro – 17 September 2008 Five questions for Dan Sherer http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/article.html?Five_questions_for_Dan_Sherer&in_article_id=313765&in_page_id=229&in_a_source= Dan Sherer is artistic director of Real Circumstance Theatre Company. He directs its new Northern Ireland-set relationship drama, Lough/Rain, which opens at York Theatre Royal tomorrow, following a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. What is Lough/Rain about? It's a love story about a young married couple who grow up together in Newry. Michael [played by Jot Davies] has a terrible accident and it's about how they try to cope with that, and how their love is changed and challenged. In a two-hander, how does having a sense of unspoken issues between the characters create a particular tension? Kate Donmal's character, Caoimhe, has a very full imaginary life - as Jot's character does - and within those lives there are things that each actor knows about their character, that the other actor doesn't know. The process of directing it was quite rigorous. The play weaves two different perspectives into one. Do the two pieces have much in common, stylistically? The writers, Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan, were interested in exploring love and loss, and to some extent, grieving. They both have a gift of being able to under-write, so they don't cram the script with language or words. What is the writers' message? We wanted to capture the truth of what it's like when you really love somebody. It's about how you approach loss in a wide sense, not as something absolutely terrifying and the end of things, but as something slightly more graceful and dignified. As a director, who would you say are your main influences? I spent about a year working with Mike Leigh, and he's influenced me greatly. I'm also quite influenced by David Lynch and Terrence Malick at the moment. I'm drawn to the idea that you watch something and have an emotional response to it, but you're not necessarily sure why. Sept 19 until Oct 4, Studio, York Theatre Royal, St Leonard's Place, York, 9.30pm, £10 and £12, £5 concs. Tel: 01904 623568. www.realcircumstance.com Velimir Ilic – Metro – 22 August 2008 http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/edfest/article.html?in_article_id=276190&in_page_id=300&in_a_source=  Real Circumstance Theatre Company's latest work - written by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan - weaves two plays into one, telling a story from very different angles. Written by Feenan, the first segment finds lovers Michael (Jot Davies) and Caoimhe (Kate Donmall) embracing, caressing, chatting and making tea. They sing to each other as the shipping forecast plays in the background, but despite their apparent closeness (Davies and Donmall's knowing glances and tender affection are entirely convincing), there's a strange distance between them, fuelled by Michael's pensive stares and vague paranoia, suggesting a subplot - is Caoimhe having an affair? - that is only ever hinted at. The play's ethereal, haunting qualities (silent passages where the couple reach out for each other in semi-darkness) hint at the consequences of Michael suffering a horrific accident, an event that drastically alters their lives. Brennan takes up the story in the second half, set in a residential care unit. Events take on a much bleaker tone, as with his memory now seriously impaired, Michael is a distant shadow of his former self. Caoimhe visits him regularly but beneath the facade of trying to carry on as normal, neither of them is able to cope. Both actors are outstanding but watching Davies' portrayal of Michael's decline is a particularly harrowing experience, exacerbated by the incessant ticking of a clock that suggests no going back. } The later scenes, where he attempts to pull out his catheter, are deeply unsettling but oddly compelling, and you can never avert your eyes lest you miss the tiniest detail. In essence, this is a moving, gut-wrenching piece of contemporary theatre. Steve Cramer – The List – 21 August 2008 Quietly tragic relationship drama http://www.list.co.uk/article/12204-lough-rain/    This piece, co-authored by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan, opens on an early morning scene involving a couple (Jot Davies and Kate Donmall) living in a rural Northern Irish community, which segues into a day sometime later, when the male half of the couple has suffered an accident, leaving him both physically and mentally disabled.   Dan Sherer's production features striking sound design by Steve Mayo, which alternates between sounds of nature and the mad, grinding noises of urban life and juxtaposes the sound of the sea with such modern nightmares as screaming aeroplane engines. We are brought to reflect upon the banal chatter of a relationship which might have reached its frayed end, or might be simply tense on one particular day as, later, no real conversation of depth can take place, and the feeding of birds is the only feature that can make the couple connect.   There's a quiet kind of tragedy underneath the action, which starts a little too slowly, but builds to a powerful climax. There are strong performances from the actors, particularly Donmall, who packs her helpless trapped wife with emotional nuance. For all that, the piece makes few observations about relationships that aren't already familiar.     Rebecca Pottinger – WhatsOnStage.com – 20 August 2008 http://www.whatsonstage.com/blogs/scotland/?p=409  Lough/Rain offers up an unusual double bill, with what essentially amounts to two separate plays which tell the same story. Written by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan respectively, the two part piece charts the relationship of a young couple struck by tragic circumstance.   The opening sequences of dialogue are both literally and thematically reminiscent of Don DeLillo’s great postmodern novella The Body Artist. Idle early morning chit chat over breakfast provides an enigmatic portrait of everyday life, raising questions about loss and love. The move from this scene of domestic charm is aptly underlined by a macabre scream at the opening of the second half, as Michael is caught in some kind of accident and sustains brain injuries. The pivot which splits the plays - as the scene shifts from the house by the lake to a residential care unit – causes time to fracture somewhat. Post accident, Michael literally loses time, his watch is removed and his memory shattered.   Startling performances by both Jot Davies and Kate Donmall ensure that even the preparatory ‘everyday’ components of the first half are enthralling, while their counterparts in the second add depth rather than mere repetition. As the relationship shifts and slides in response to the accident, which can neither be understood, assimilated nor even represented in the narrative, we are presented with characters whose dimensions seem to stretch exponentially beyond this small stage. These immersive performances owe a great deal to Steve Mayo’s enigmatic sound design, a component which almost becomes a third player in its own right.   Beautifully realised in all its aspects, this anachronistic gem is captivating from the first water sound effect to the last. Stepping out into the real Edinburgh rain, the audience is left with a sense that this is indeed a nascent tragedy. Alistair Smith – The Stage – 15 August 2008 http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/21572/underbelly-is-surprise-leader-in-stage-awards Underbelly has emerged as the surprise leader in the nominations for this year’s Stage Awards for Acting Excellence at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with a total of seven entries. The venue operator has never topped the nominations before and last year was only recognised in two categories. Regular frontrunners the Traverse and Pleasance follow behind with five nominations apiece. Assembly - which received six nods last year - lags behind with three. Deepcut, produced by Sherman Cymru Theatre at the Traverse, is the leading production with three nominations - Ciaran McIntyre in the Best Actor category and both Rhian Morgan and Rhian Blythe for Best Actress. Now in their 14th year, the Stage Awards are the only honours for professional theatre presented by a national UK publication at the fringe. They are adjudicated by the newspaper’s festival reviewing team and aim to recognise outstanding work by individuals in the Best Actor and Actress categories and companies as a whole in Best Ensemble. In addition, for the third time, The Stage has included a category for Best Solo Show, recognising one-person shows as an Edinburgh staple, which require a different style of acting talent to ensemble shows. Stage Edinburgh team head William McEvoy said: “The presence of verbatim theatre is notable on this year’s shortlist. The Ensemble category is bigger and more varied than usual, provoking debate and deliberation even at the nominations stage. We were also impressed with the variety of work on display in the solo performance category, now in its third year. It should be an exciting week of judging.” Winners will be announced on Sunday, August 24 at an awards ceremony at Cafe Hub, Castlehill, Edinburgh. The nominations in full are: Best Actor Ciaran McIntyre for Deep Cut (Traverse) Simon Merrells for On the Waterfront (Pleasance Courtyard) Jud Charlton for ABFCAP - The Life and Times of Ian Dury (Zoo) Will Lyman for The Patriot Act (Gilded Balloon Teviot) Jot Davies for Lough/Rain (Underbelly) Best Actress Rhian Morgan for Deep Cut (Traverse) Rhian Blythe for Deep Cut (Traverse) Helen Embleton for Motherland (Underbelly) Kate Donmall for Lough/Rain (Underbelly) Best Ensemble Kudos for Face in the Crowd (Underbelly) You Need Me for How It Ended (C Cubed) Big Wow for Dark Grumblings (Underbelly) The Paper Birds for In a Thousand Pieces (Gilded Balloon Teviot) Traverse Theatre Company and Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company for Pornography (Traverse) Live Theatre for Motherland (Underbelly) East Productions and Nottingham Playhouse for On the Waterfront (Pleasance Courtyard) Best Solo Performer Peter McDonald for Nocturne (Traverse) Matthew Zajac for The Tailor of Inverness (Assembly @ George Street) Karen Dunbar for A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle (Assembly) Cameron Stewart for My Grandfather’s Great War (Underbelly’s Baby Belly) Jim Jarrett for Vincent (Assembly @ George Street) Stefan Golaszewski for Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About a Girl He Once Loved (Pleasance Courtyard) H Williams – FringeReview.com – 10 August 2008 http://www.fringereview.co.uk/fringeReview.php?showName=Lough/Rain Low Down After a slightly unconvincing start, this touching tale of love in traumatic circumstances soars, taking its audience on a powerfully emotional journey. A strong script, beautifully realised at times. Review ‘Lough/Rain’ weaves together two plays by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan. This seems surprising given the simple and linear plot which examines a couple’s relationship before and after a life-changing event - yet in both structure and quality there is a sense that this is a play of two halves. In the first, we see lovers Caoimhe and Michael going about an ordinary morning - making sandwiches, sharing a cup of tea, discussing their plans for the day. But the direction and delivery is strange, with odd emphases and implied significance on what seem very casual comments. The loaded pauses and slow pace of what should surely have been a quick, ordinary conversation proves grating. The kitchen sink chit-chat and naturalistic action then give way to a stylised sequence conveying a terrible accident, punctuated with a shiver-inducing scream from Kate Donmall as Caoimhe. So we move into a second half tainted with tragedy. Suddenly the dialogue works - after an accident has confined Michael as a drooling shell of his former self to a residential care unit, there certainly is a layer of tension beneath the surface normality of their conversation. It’s at this point the show really takes off, with incredibly sensitive and powerful performances from the two actors. Jot Davies gives a heartbreaking performance as the confused and damaged Michael, and his frustration at himself and his condition is terribly moving. Donmall is brave and big-hearted as his patient but struggling lover. When he brushes a tear from her eye a little clumsily, I confess I had to do the same myself. ‘Lough/Rain’ provides one of the most convincing portrayals of love and intimacy I’ve ever seen onstage - these two are totally physically relaxed and capture a tender affection and sexual attraction in the first half. This makes their unsure relationship status post-accident all the more affecting. If only the first scene had been a little lighter, another poignant contrast could have been created between the breezy normality of their lives and the traumatically altered situation they find themselves in later in the play. The soundtrack plays a big role in this production, frequently providing a metronymic beat - waves break rhythmically, clocks tick, a life-support machine bleeps ominously. The set, including a montage of fading-out paintings providing an impression of the lake by which they live, gives ‘Lough/Rain’ a strong sense of place. A subtle, believable script and genuinely moving performances make this essential viewing for anyone looking for touching, emotional drama at the fringe. Just remember to take a tissue.   Duska Radosavljevic – The Stage – 8 August 2008 http://ed.thestage.co.uk/reviews/188  This double bill of plays authored by two different writers uses the same characters – Caoimhe and Michael, whose love for each other is tested by a terrible accident. Declan Feenan’s Lough is an intriguing and deeply poetic study of dreams drowned in domesticity, focusing on the morning before the accident. A sense of foreboding, mistrust and guilt vaguely suggested by the script is heightened by director Dan Sherer’s atmospheric world which he has woven around the characters using predominantly the resources of silence and pre-recorded sound. Actors Kate Donmall and Jot Davies also deliver consistent, engaging and often very powerful performances throughout both pieces – thus giving a very strong throughline to the double bill as a whole. Clara Brennan's piece entitled Rain takes place in a residential care home after the accident. Deriving a lot of drama from the given conceit itself, Brennan then turns her attention to the ways in which for the sake of sanity the characters struggle to hold on to the measurable values, but also to each other - even if against the odds. Sombre but accomplished. Cecily Boys – British Theatre Guide – 8 August 2008 http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/otherresources/fringe/fringe08-04.htm#Lm#L Fantastic acting in a play of two halves. The first half sees a young couple Caoimhe and Michael waking up early in the morning before work and as the conversation unfolds we hear the rhythms of their talk which don't quite match. However while the first flush of love is still blooming for them a tragic accident incapacitates Michael and the second half of the play is set in his residential care unit where he is fed through tubes and profound loss strikes every time Caoimhe reminds him of what his failing memory cannot tell him. Worth seeing for Jot Davies' (playing Michael) striking performance alone, but also including a great performance by Kate Donmall (Caoimhe), beautiful illustrative set designed by James Cotterill and excellent direction by Dan Sherer. Kate Clarkson – Three Weeks – 6 August 2008 http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/edaily/080805.html 'Lough/Rain' is a poignant reminder that the happiness gained through love will not always last forever, and Real Circumstance deliver this story in a truly moving way. Beautifully staged, this performance will give you spine-tingles from start to finish. The cause of central character Michael's debilitating accident is not entirely clear and like the play itself it becomes difficult to follow, but effectively adds to the portrayal of his struggle with memory loss. The repeated sound of crashing waves are representative of the haunting memories of the boat that Michael says should never have been there, and they create a sense of serenity through which love continues, but it also adds to the tragedy. Sally Stott – The Scotsman – 5 August 2008 http://living.scotsman.com/performing-arts/Theatre-review-LoughRain.4356916.jp THIS new play, which looks at coping with disability, could be half its current length as, up until half way through, it feels like a pretty mundane depiction of a couple chatting in a kitchen. But if you can keep yourself awake for the first half hour – and, it has to be said, some of the audience struggled with this – there is a compelling second act. Michael (Jot Davies) and Caoimhe (Kate Donmall) initially have a pretty ordinary, and not very theatrical, life chatting about their day, checking what's in the fridge, and putting the dog out. This is all played out to the relentless sound of the sea and a ticking clock, neither of which help to liven things up. But half way through we realise that we're witnessing the final moments before Michael has a horrendous car crash. Due to this, he suffers brain damage and we next meet him in a care home, where his relationship with Caoimhe is limited to daily visits. And it's here that the story starts to make sense. Davies' portrayal of disabled Michael is truthful and sad, while Donmall epitomises the dilemma of a carer stuck between doing what's best for her partner, without taking away his free will. It's incredibly tragic to watch a previously able-bodied man reduced to someone struggling to talk and move, but determined to "get back to work." It's a shame this conflict doesn't form a greater part of the play from the offset. It feels like different parts of the piece are written by different people, and upon reading the programme, it seems like they are. Writers Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan both have a strong command of naturalistic dialogue, but while I've given the piece three stars, the first half deserves two, and the second half deserves four. So please bear with me until the end.  Shelley Marsden – The Irish World – 30 July 2008 Still water runs deep Shelley Marsden talks to Newry-born playwright Declan Feenan as he prepares to send his latest play to the Edinburgh Festival… I catch up with Northern Irish playwright Declan Feenan in between rehearsals in York for LOUGH/RAIN, two plays woven into one and billed as a “lyrical exploration of loss and love”. Feenan is under commission at the Bush Theatre and the Abbey Theatre Dublin, and has been attached to the National Theatre and the Royal Court. His first full-length play, LIMBO was produced to critical acclaim by Real Circumstance last year, the same experimental theatre company behind this production. Lough introduces us to lovers Michael and Caoimhe. When the former is involved in a terrible accident, they try to rebuild their lives as best they can… Can you tell me about Lough/Rain? I wrote Lough, and then it was given to another writer Clara Brennan, who’s Irish stock from Dorset. She wrote a sister-piece to my play, which she called Rain. It’s not exactly the same characters, the same world, or the same time, but they’re close – they lean against each other quite well. What are they about? Lough is about a couple who are very much in love, staged the morning before an accident happens to the guy. Then Rain is about the aftermath of the accident. Lough is really just a couple making their breakfast, and going out to work. There’s no high drama. But in Rain, we ask what happens after the accident, and then at the end we revisit Lough, just to remind ourselves what these two characters were like before. It’s very still, it’s soft, a very gentle piece. What themes link the plays? Love, and loss and grief. That sounds like I’m being glib, but because nothing really happens that is what comes out. There’s a sadness, but it’s an unspecified sadness. We don’t really explain exactly what happened to them. The story we want to tell isn’t the story of an accident, it’s the story of a couple, their relationship, those private moments. Where is it set? It’s all set in Newry, just on the border. To be fair, I always set my work in a place in Newry, a generic borderland. I don’t know; it’s probably just a little project. I want to hear people from Newry on stage – and celebrate how horrible they sound! It’s not a lovely singing accent, it’s quite harsh. The two actors are English, so that’s why I’m here in York, helping them to nail the accents. Is the staging quite sparse too? It is, I mean Lough is set in the kitchen of a house, and Rain takes place in a hospital. So we’ve split the stage down the middle essentially. Again, it could be anywhere, we have used the bare minimum that we need to depict those places. Your first play was LIMBO, right? Yes, a monologue about a 17-year-old girl who gets pregnant to an older man. It was set again in Newry, in Camlough. Thematically, what it has in common with Lough is the idea of water and mountains. They belong to the same slightly poetic world. It’s a world about shy people where emotions are hidden, where you have to search to find out what people are really thinking, and often you’re wrong. People communicate, but to understand them deep down you have to know the code. You work with Real Circumstance – what’s their ethos? Their Artistic Director, Dan Sherer trained under the director Mike Leigh, so Dan is into all that method acting, four months rehearsals, all that. He actually gives them ‘memories’ of their past lives, much more than what we see on stage, to the point where you could walk up to the character – not the actor – and say, “Mike, what’s your dad’s name?” and he’ll say, “John”. He has done the same with this play. The way I write suits Dan, because I don’t go for the big, dramatic moments, I go for the quieter moments and he can fill all those gaps in. What are the hard parts about writing for stage? It’s not that difficult, because all you think about is the piece. I heard Federer talking about tennis during Wimbledon, about the various aspects of the game, and he said, “Look, all you have to do is worry about one thing, and it’s small and yellow. You don’t worry about anything else.” The most difficult part for me is just writing the thing, but I enjoy it so much I wouldn’t even class it as hard. When you hit it right, the words are pure and true and it comes very easily. Is this what you always wanted? I think so – apart from playing for Liverpool or driving a Ferrari! It would certainly have been something literary, if not playwriting I’d be writing novels or something. Poetry was actually what I really wanted to do, and I kind of just drifted into playwriting, if I’m honest. I try and keep the poeticism in my plays. It inevitably means you drop some narrative, like having a fight on stage, but there you go. Who are you a fan of? I really love Tennessee Williams, and that gently, gently, gently way he has with his writing. You’re hearing words, and then the next minute he’s pulled you into some place or situation without you realising it. If I could ever do that in the same subtle way he did, I’d be over the moon. The List – Steve Cramer – 30 July 2008 http://www.list.co.uk/article/10637-lough-rain/  New writing explores themes of love and stoicism The spirit of adventure brought to the Fringe by the Underbelly has always been about new work, but this year’s programme seems to lean, more than ever, towards new writing, above and beyond the usual array of physical and visual theatre. Notable among the talents on display are those of Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan, whose work appears in not so much a double bill as two separate plays telling the same story. “LOUGH came to us after the last Edinburgh Festival,” says producer Anna Bewick. “Declan Feenan wrote a very short play which showed this young couple in an everyday situation. It was quite beautiful, and we happened to show it to Clara Brennan, another young writer we’ve been bringing on. She wrote a quite separate piece, almost in response to LOUGH, and when we saw them together we realised that we could do the two plays as one story, bringing the same couple forward to another phase of life.” The piece speaks of the deep emotional meaning of everyday gestures in relationships, and imposes a catastrophe on its fictional central couple to explore themes of love and stoicism. “We start off with an ordinary couple,” says Bewick. “The short play that Declan wrote has them eating breakfast, doing very ordinary things together. There’s enough there, though, even in the way that one character eats the last piece of cheese that that other wanted, to show something very shared. Later, he has an accident, and sustains a brain injury, this affects his memory, and he’s brought into professional care. The rest of the piece shows flashbacks, as well as how his injury affects them, in a series of visits to his care home. Things can’t be the same between them after the accident, but the piece shows a journey to acceptance of the situation.” Expect a tear-jerking show from two of the most hotly tipped writers on this year’s Fringe. Neil Jones - Colchester Evening Gazette - 25 July 2008 First in limbo, now two-in-one Colchester-based Real Circumstance is getting ready to preview its next show at the Edinburgh Festival. Following on from the success of Limbo, which was previewed at Colchester Arts Centre before also going to Edinburgh, director Dan Sherer and producer Anna Bewick, who make up Real Circumstance, will be taking Lough/Rain to the world-renowned festival next week. Working with York Theatre Royal and the Escalator East to Edinburgh scheme, Lough/Rain is two plays interwoven as one. Written by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan, the two-in-one tells the story of a couple struggling to cope with life in the wake of a terrible accident. Dan said: “We worked with Declan on Limbo, and this started with an idea he had been looking at for some time. One of our aims in the company is to encourage new writing, and so we asked Declan to work together with Clara, a writer we have been working with for a while.” Dan said a lot of the material for the piece had come from the writers’ own experiences, but the company had also done plenty of research talking to people who had suffered similar accidents, and doctors who had dealt with such things. He added: “It’s very important for us to have that sense of accuracy, so we do try and do as much research as we can. We presented our first working draft in Limerick in January, which was very well received, and now we are just getting ready for Edinburgh.” Performed by Jot Davies and Kate Donmall, Lough/Rain is at the Iron Belly, Underbelly in Edinburgh from July 31 to August 24, and then York Theatre Royal from September 19 to October 4. Dan said; “Hopefully, after that we will bring it to Colchester, possibly in the new year and either to the Mercury or the arts centre.” Essex County Standard – 6 June 2008 Hunt on for actors A Colchester theatre company is on the lookout for new actors and emerging playwrights. Real Circumstance will be running three workshop weekends in June at the Mercury Theatre as part of the company’s commitment to developing artists and writers. Following the successful national tour of their production of Limbo, which ended at the Mercury Theatre in April, the company is inviting participants to join them for actor training techniques, improvisation and writing development sessions. The workshops will take place at the Mercury Theatre Rehearsal Rooms on the weekends of June 14 and 15, 21 and 22, and 28 and 29. Anyone interested in taking part in the development period should email a CV to Dan Sherer at dan@realcircumstance.com. Playwrights should also submit an example of their writing or an idea for a play. East Anglian Daily Times – 30 May 2008 Keeping in Real A Colchester theatre company is on the hunt for new talent to take part in a series of weekend workshops throughout June. The acclaimed Real Circumstance Theatre Company is looking for new local actors and emergent playwrights to bring to life its commitment to developing talent and marking theatre accessible and relevant. The workshops will take place at the town’s Mercury Theatre Rehearsal Rooms on the weekends of June 14-15, 20-21 and 28-29. Actors and playwrights who would be interested in participating should send a CV to Dan Sherer at the web address below. Playwrights are asked to submit an example of their writing or an idea for a play that they might want to work on. dan@realcircumstance.com   Interview with BBC Essex – 30 May 2008 (click here) Vanessa Moon – Essex County Standard – 4 April 2008 The team behind a critically-acclaimed show can’t wait to bring it home to Colchester. Since previewing at the Colchester Arts Centre last summer, Real Circumstance Theatre Company has taken its play, Limbo, to the Edinburgh Festival, the York Theatre Royal and Arcola Theatre, London. But it’s performing to audiences at home later this month that is exciting the team. ‘Limbo should be the best it’s ever been’, said Anna Bewick, creative producer at Real Circumstance. ‘It has had good exposure and is a developed piece of work, so it should be a really high-quality production that represents how we work and the style we do. We have had so much good-will and support locally, that is will be wonderful to show Limbo to the audience that is the most important to us’ That’s not to say that Real Circumstance members haven’t enjoyed every minute of their rising success so far. Limbo, directed by RADA-trained Dan Sherer, is set at the edge of Camlough Lake and tells the story of Clare and her relationship with an older man and her first love, has received rave reviews in newspapers and magazines up and down the country. It was described by The Guardian as ‘shiver-inducing’ and ‘one of Edinburgh’s most gripping hours’ by The British Theatre Guide. Real Circumstance – made up of Dan, Anna, associate artist Suresh Patel and associate director and production support, Ruth Brock – likes to do things subtly, though Anna admits it can pass some people by ‘In Edinburgh, some people got it and others didn’t - it was too subtle for some. It’s a delicate style of writing [It was written by Declan Feenan] and the drawback is it passes some people by’, explained Anna, 26. But that’s ok. With a huge amount of support from Colchester theatre-goers and the Mercury Theatre, Real Circumstance can be assured it will be appreciated by its loyal fan-base. ‘So much has happened in the last year. Seeing our first review, for Limbo, in The Guardian, and getting four stars for the show in The Scotsman was great’, she beamed. ‘I have learned a vast amount, too. Just about doing the accounts, tax and dealing with the Inland Revenue. It’s been a huge learning curve’ Real Circumstance was launched in 2006 and, after the success of Limbo, is noticing applying for funding getting just a little bit easier. All this is good news for Real Circumstance because it will cost the group £50, 000 over three months from June to August to implement a series of actor training workshops, and a new original production, Lough/Rain, for later in the year. Written by Declan Feenan, writer of Limbo, Lough/Rain, is an interwoven story that is sure to keep audiences gripped, just like Limbo. Limbo is on at the Mercury Theatre from April 10 to 12 at 7:45pm. For tickets, call 01206 573948 or visit mercurytheatre.co.uk Cecily Boys – The British Theatre Guide – October 2007 Real Circumstance Theatre Company encourages its actors to respond on stage to changing sound effects that are different with every performance. In their one act play Limbo Caroline Williamson delivers a 60 minute monologue playing Claire, a 17 year old girl from Newry in Northern Ireland. Naïve and youthful Claire works in a meat packing factory by day, lives alone and goes out with the 'girls' on the weekend to drink. After the excitement of a garage shop bought sponge cake to celebrate her birthday she is taken to a nightclub where she meets an older man, and, after he gives her a lift home, an affair begins. This is Caroline Williamson's stage debut after taking Limbo to Edinburgh and initial readings in Cambridge, and she gives a masterful performance. Every tilt of her head and pull on her sleeve gives us an incredibly sheltered young girl from Northern Ireland, and standing alone on one spot for the entirety of her performance emphasises her solitude. Williamson and director Dan Sherer have worked on the tiny details of movement, and it is beautifully portrayed on stage. Michael Nabarro's sensitive lighting essentially only brings the upper half of Claire's body into light yet her two shadows loom over her on the wall behind. Lorna Ritchie provides a minimal set of ragged metal with running water providing a pool of reflective material as Claire's word's float around us. Declan Feenan's writing is sparse and he actively chooses to tell a tale of Northern Ireland without mention of the troubles. This is an evocative piece and the main draw is Williamson's fantastic performance - a must for all students of drama to see a wonderfully subtle and understated piece whilst being transported by Williamson's poignant story telling skills. The short intimate piece was obviously an undoubted success in Edinburgh's busy schedule and active performances, providing a striking contrast. However there is something oddly disconnecting about seeing the piece as an evening's theatre. Feenan certainly leaves the audience 'in limbo' at the end and Claire is one of the most passive individuals any modern woman could encounter. In modern dress and with the interesting mix of a heroic understanding Aaron and philandering older man described in Claire's tale, we left wondering whether any woman could have allowed herself to write such an inert female. This production is worth seeing for Williamson's performance alone, but be warned that you might not know whether you're sinking or swimming. Easingwold Advertiser – 27 October 2007 On her seventeenth birthday Claire, a factory worker from Newry, meets an older man in a nightclub. Naïve in her outlook and heady with alcohol she accepts a lift home from her would-be knight errant, who spends the night with her, a night which has un-looked for, but unsurprising, consequences. Her seducer is solicitous, but has his own family to think about. Trying to live as normal a life as she can Claire meets a promising boy of her own age and begins to dream about a future. Then she meets his father. Limbo, a single-actor play, written by Declan Feenan and starring Caroline Williamson, centres around Claire’s confession as she stands by the windswept short of Camlough Lake. Making her professional theatrical debut Williamson brings real feeling and depth to her portrayal of Claire, who is at once fragile and vulnerable, sparky and intelligent, and ultimately a victim of her own inexperience and a worldly man’s cynicism. It is an age-old story, but never loses its relevance, or its chilling element of tragedy. Here is writing and acting which truly demonstrates the unique power of theatre to hold an audience in a shared and concentrated experience. A triumph. Judy Acock – Holderness Gazette – 25 October 2007 The Theatre Royal and Real Circumstance Theatre Company join forces to present the tender and compelling story of a young girl’s adolescent journey in Northern Ireland. The conflicts are over as she turns off the radio, but the writing still reflects the political situation in Northern Ireland. The forgotten personal stories and tragedies can now be told without the conflicts of death and destruction becoming the main theme. Claire (Caroline Williamson) is a young seventeen-year-old Catholic girl working in a meat-packing factory. Her friends take her clubbing on her birthday where she meets a much older man whotakes her home to her house and stays for the night. The relationship ends next day at breakfast with a casual word about seeing her the next time he is in the area. Unfortunately for Claire he has left more than a casual word as she finds herself pregnant and unable to work. When she does go back to work and out with her friends again she meets a young chap who takes her to his house for the night. But it is there that the realism of life hits her hard when she sees the father of her baby in the house. Claire is isolated as she tells her story beside the shore of Camlough Lake where the chill of the evenings takes her breath away. The moonlight on the lake is reflected on her face as the running water and the chill wind can be heard around the auditorium. But the audience are with Claire beside the lake telling her story, sometimes in an amusing way but mainly on the edge as the lake beckons, leaving nothing to the imagination as she tries to find her own peace. Limbo is a very moving piece of theatre with Caroline Williamson making her stage debut. Real Circumstance Theatre Company was set up in 2006 with two aims: to produce innovative theatre that prioritises the acting process; and to support emergent actors and writers who want to investigate and develop new ways of working. In their work the actors are encouraged to create fully realised imaginary selves, who are able to respond truthfully to any given circumstance. In Declan Feenan’s play the director Dan Sherer has given Caroline the time to create a fully three dimensional character who really is Claire on stage as she takes the audience to the place that she feared the most in her life. Andy Dolan – The Yorker – 24 October 2007 Limbo is the gripping tale of a teenage girl’s relationship with a man twice her age, performed as a monologue by a sole character Claire, a seventeen year old meat packer from Newry in Northern Ireland. She stands at the edge of the nearby Camlough Lake, telling of parties with friends, her first love, and the night her life was turned upside down. It’s impossible not to warm to Caroline Williamson’s compelling portrayal of Claire. The 2006 Cambridge graduate spent months painstakingly building up her character layer by layer and it tells. She could so easily despair at the joy and then the hurt that different kinds of love have brought to this young girl but she’s intimate, warm and funny. Holding an audience’s attention alone on stage for an hour has to be challenging for an actress in her professional debut, but Williamson inhabits the entire cast of Limbo with ease, and is always vibrant and convincing. When The Yorker visited, she continued with a heroic seamlessness during a disturbance in the audience. The play stays true to its name throughout. By the lakeside, Claire seems on the brink of suicide and the dilemma of whether she will take the plunge or not creates the tension that underlies her account. As she lives in Newry we’d expect Claire to be Catholic, and you suspect as much from plot details. So for her, suicide would leave her in another kind of limbo. She’d go to neither heaven nor hell, but purgatory. As the play opens we’re unsure whether she’s laughing or crying. She’s a young adult but in many ways she’s just a child: “I’d never shook a man’s hand before.” And she’s caught between a romantic bond with a local lad and her relationship of necessity with the older man. The plot is contrived but Declan Feenan’s writing skilfully maintains an audience’s anxiety with subtle reminders of where Claire is and what she might do. Water is an ever present theme: “There’s something about it. I mean, apart from being wet.” If Claire showered, or took a bath, or walked in the rain, we’re told about it. “Drink” is an oft repeated, loaded word. And then there’s the lake itself, and it’s spellbinding, sinister attraction: “The lake is beautiful at night.” Unfortunately Sound effects are overused. Williamson doesn’t need the howls of the wind to convince us she’s cold. It jars with the minimalist set: all black but for the ‘lake’, a shiny, metal, Charlie Dimmock style water-feature that gurgles away rather unthreateningly throughout. “The lake is beautiful at night,” Claire repeats. Hmm. However, these are minor irritations that take nothing away from a compelling performance that won plaudits at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Limbo is well worth a look, not least to meet its chief character. Kevin Berry – The Stage – 22 October 2007 http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/18596/limbo Caroline Williamson steps into a narrow spotlight and holds the attention for 60 minutes - just her voice and a soundtrack of moving water. Williamson plays Claire, a 17-year-old girl working in a meat factory in Newry, Northern Ireland. But rather than playing Claire, she convinces the audience she is Claire because her performance is that good. Moreover she acts without breaks and without much movement. She recounts her relationship with a married man who is twice her age and then with the love of her life. Sadly she is pregnant by the former. This role marks Williamson’s stage debut. It is an impressively understated performance, poignant but never depressing, cheery whenever there is a glimmer of hope. If asked Williamson would be able to recount any day in the life of Claire because this is the nature of the Real Circumstance company’s theatre style - a thorough study of people and the places they inhabit. Declan Feenan’s writing is measured and carefully wrought. The details may appear trivial but they mean so much and they are so personal. The language he uses may seem everyday but, again, it says so much about Claire and the people in her world. Claire is standing by the dark waters of Camlough Lake when the hour comes to an end. Her married man cannot see her again. Support is ebbing away. What will she do next? Charles Hutchinson – Yorkshire Evening Press – 18 October 2007 http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/whatson/theatre/display.var.1770224.0.review_ limbo_real_circumstance_the_studio_york_theatre_royal_until_november_3.php Real Circumstance is a new company from the East of England, given rehearsal space and artistic support by York Theatre Royal. Set up the Cambridge-educated Dan Sherer, a young director trained in the theatre verité of Mike Leigh at the National Theatre, Real Circumstance is so named because productions are performed in real time. In rehearsal and in performance, the performer is encouraged to respond to the prevailing circumstances. Put in layman's terms, actress Caroline Williamson is faced by sound effects that change with each performance. So on Tuesday, she had to contend with the whiplash chill of rising winds, pulling her thin top tighter and commenting in improvised manner on the drop in temperature. Sherer's philosophy is fine in principle - theatre is flesh and blood and should be subject to change - but there is always the risk of unpredictability beyond the performer's control. On Tuesday, an audience member began to make strange noises before fainting and had to be led out by theatre staff: real circumstances that came at a crucial moment in the unbroken progress of Declan Feenan's Northern Irish narrative drama. Williamson, in her professional debut, did what felt right amid the hubbub and that was to continue with the Catholic teenage tale of pregnancy, childbirth and rejection by an older, married man that has left 17-year-old Newry factory girl Claire in limbo on the edge of Camlough Lake. Despite the distraction, Williamson retains the stillness of a minimalist solo performance that feels all the more alone for staying on the spot, restricting her movement to her arms and eyes. At the outset, in the darkness of the lakeside represented by a thin metallic strip and the bubbling sound of water, she responds to the most beautifully sad choral music, the sweetest pain on her face. As the moonlight's reflection ripples across her face, so Williamson portrays the timid, naïve yet excited teenager recounting her first love, the age gap with the rest of the girls at the meat-packing factory and her relationship with the businessman twice her age. Shards of comedy break the doleful surface, but darkness descends once more as the shivering Claire says she feels the water rising around her feet. Williamson may have barely moved in one hour, but her soulful performance surely will move you. Metro – Amanda Trickett – 10 October 2007 Five questions for…Dan Sherer Dan Sherer is Artistic Director of Real Circumstance Theatre Company. Following a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer, the company’s one-woman production, LIMBO, opens at York Theatre Royal on Friday.y. What is LIMBO about? It’s a new play by a young Irish playwright called Declan Feenan about a 17-year-old girl called Claire who lives in Newry, Northern Ireland. It’s a coming of age story about the moment when you realize you’re not a child. It’s about what happens when you’re confronted with an adult would you’re not ready for. What triggers Claire’s transition? She works in a local factory and is taken to a club on her birthday. While she’s there she meets an older man who takes her home. Claire cares for hi, but her 17-year-old eyes can’t see anything strange about their relationship. Is she an unworldly teenager? Newry has a history of being involved in the Troubles. Although that’s finished now, it has completely informed people’s lives. Claire has no memory of the Troubles, but that was her parents’ world. How she has learned to deal with things has been sharpened by it. She’s learned to keep quiet. Is it difficult directing one character on stage? Yes. LIMBO is very much about stillness. Normally you get drawn into making these physically dynamic plays, partly because you get scared of whether you’ll be able to hold someone’s attention. This is Caroline Williamson’s first professional stage work and she really makes you believe that what is happening is true. If you watch someone who really believes what they’re talking about, then it’s very absorbing. You were Mike Leigh’s staff director at The National Theatre. How did you find the experience? Wonderful. He’s at the top of the tree and deserves to be there. Charles Hutchinson – Yorkshire Evening Press – 5 October 2007 http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/whatson/theatre/display.var.1739719.0. introducing_caroline_williamson_performing_solo_in_limbo_at_york_theatre_royal.php Real Circumstance is a groundbreaking theatre company from the east of England, dedicated to exploring new ways of playmaking that put young, emergent performers and writers at the heart of the often improvised creative process. In Limbo, Irishman Declan Feenan's tender story of a Newry factory girl and her relationship with a man twice her age, 23year-old Cambridge graduate Caroline Williamson plays the confessional Catholic teenager. CHARLES HUTCHINSON puts her in the spotlight. How did you land this role, Caroline? "It all goes back to university days when I was reading English Literature at Fitzwilliam College, the one up the only hill in Cambridge. I'd arrived and Dan Sherer Limbo's director had just graduated and he wanted to direct, so he auditioned a group of actors to find three to work with him for a year to develop his ideas, and I was one of the three. "That was in 2003, and when I then directed a piece of Northern Irish writing, Ismene, a new play by Stacey Gregg with 18 actors, and I asked Dan to help, as we were both interested in Irish writing. "So when he came across the script for Limbo, he got in touch with me during my finals to say would I be interested in doing a reading - four days after I graduated! - at a new writing festival at The Junction in Cambridge? "Dan then decided he wanted to set up a company, and Limbo is the first production." When did York Theatre Royal and its artistic director, Damian Cruden, become involved? "Damian has been a fan of Dan's work, and he's kept his beady eye on his career development. Dan and Damian and I met up in London at Christmastime, when I did the play in the style I'd done it in Cambridge. Damian really liked it and it was Damian's idea for us to take it to the Edinburgh Fringe for its premiere." What time of day did you Limbo in the notoriously-crammed festival? "It was 2.20 in the afternoon. It's become such a comedy festival and lots of people want to see comedy in the evening, but are happy to see drama in the afternoon. We'd originally been given a 7.30pm slot, but we were advised to move to the afternoon, which was a good move. "I went to one drama in the evening when all you could hear was the sound of laugher from next door drowning it out." That would have off-putting in a solo show like yours. "What's so great about how Dan Sherer works as a director is that you learn the script from semidevised processes, so you always feel safe. Even if you forget a detailed line of dialogue, you have the character to fall back on. "So I think it's actually an advantage to be on my own on stage, as this is a solo show where you want a sense of loneliness." How did you create the performance with Dan Sherer? "Dan is the real deal in terms of the actor's process. He's been a staff director at the National Theatre, working with Mike Leigh on Two Thousand Years, and Leigh is one the directors who has most influenced him. "For Limbo, we've mapped out the character of the young girl from the day she was born to the eve of her 17th birthday, and that's very much Mike Leigh's style too." Your own speaking voice is classically English. How did you learn a Newry accent? "In a very lucky way! Stacey Gregg, who wrote the Ismene play that I directed, is from Belfast, so it was a question of her going through sounds with me and showing me some incredible Irish sitcoms. We then went to Newry to stay with the writer, Declan, and I did a lot of recording into a Dictaphone and sitting in corners learning the intonations, as it's a very different accent from Belfast." One last puzzle: your production photos are all very dark. Why the murkiness? "As the play takes place beside a dark lake, in real time and it's set at night, there's no natural light, and the lighting is minimalist - though it's more complicated than that! "It's a very intimate piece, with the idea of the girl being in limbo, in an eerie place. I'm lit from the light hitting the water and reflecting ripples across my face."   Culture Wars – Andrew Haydon – 28 August 2007 Limbo / On Wonderland http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2007-08/limberland.htm Two one-woman monologues, both in Underbelly spaces, both performed mid/late afternoon, both set in Northern Ireland, and apparently written by writers who know one another. Mercifully, the comparisons end there. As an exercise in contrasts this is an object lesson in the sheer disparity of ways to tackle a monologue successfully. In Real Circumstance Theatre Company’s Limbo, Caroline Williamson plays Claire; an unhappy teenage girl standing on the edge of a lake, in the middle of the night, in the increasing cold. Claire gradually recounts her recent biography, until, by the end of the play, we have reached the exact point where we joined her on the lakeside. It is a simple and affecting tale of guileless teenage infatuation coupled with a series of very unlucky breaks, set in a desperately poor area of Northern Ireland. The real draw here is Caroline Williamson’s performance, expertly directed by Dan Shearer. Williamson is little short of sublime. Declan Feenan has created a complex, elliptical script which largely eschews the main attraction of the monologue to a writer – that they can just keep adding to the details with digression upon digression. Instead Limbo’s prime strategy is frequently to conceal crucial information, leaving it to Williamson to convey the full meaning of a situation, long before the details emerge. In addition, Shearer makes the canny decision to locate the telling of the monologue firmly in precisely the freezing lakeside location where the narrator finds herself. The performance is utterly stripped of the usual pyrotechnics available to actors performing monologues. Rather than leaping around the stage and physically conjuring each location of the story, the audience is given a fine, compelling depiction of a freezing, miserable young woman telling a story. The stillness and sheer detailed intensity of the performance is mesmerising. Director Receives Plaudits – Colchester Evening Gazette – 24 August 2007 Just one month ago Dan Sherer was making his professional debut with his new outfit, Real Circumstance Theatre Company, in his home town of Colchester. After showing Colchester what he could do with his first production, Limbo, the play travelled to the Edinburgh Festival. Fast forward and the play has been hailed as the Pick of the Festival by the Guardian newspaper, the only theatre play to be given the accolade. “The Guardian came and reviewed our first performances and they mentioned us in the round-up, and now again in their Pick of the Festival. To be mentioned three times and getting that kind of recognition is great,” said Dan. The company is filling an average one-third of its capacity seats for each performance, which is, Dan said, an achievement, as there are more acts at this year’s festival than ever before. He said: “People are saying that it’s been hard to get audiences’ attentions, because there are so many shows and many are only getting four people into each of their shows. We are doing better than that.” By the end of the festival Real Circumstance’s 50-minute one-woman play Limbo, will have been performed 24 times. Limbo, written by Declan Feenan, tells the story of a young girl’s relationship with an older man and her desire to find peace. DIRECTED Dan, 24, was one of the first graduates of Rada’s Theatre Directing Diploma, completed the National Theatre’s Director Course and directed at the HighTide Festival in Suffolk. Before establishing Real Circumstance Theatre Company, former Colchester Sixth Form College student Dan, from West Bergholt, spent nine months as staff director with Mike Leigh at the National Theatre, London. Dan added: “The festival is going really well. We are working 12 hours a day because there’s no guaranteed audience, so we have been networking, handing out leaflets, seeing people all day, every day. We will be sad when the festival finishes, but we all need some sleep!” The company may have some time off, but they’re back with a regional tour then a month-long stint at the Theatre Royal, York. Limbo is at the Edinburgh Festival until Sunday. For listings information visit realcircumstance.com/limbo The Scotsman – Martin Gray – 23 August 200707 and Hot Show http://living.scotsman.com/performing.cfm?id=1334662007 A YOUNG Irish woman stands by a lake at night and tells her sorry tale. It doesn't sound like a great hour of drama but this simply told one-woman show grips from start to finish. Writer Declan Feenan isn't trying to make a great point about life, he's just telling us the story of one person in a world where joy and pain struggle for the upper hand. Claire, a 17-year-old Newry meat packer, falls for the wrong man but just as she meets the right man and her horizons begin to expand, they contract again. By that lonely lake, she seems poised to kill herself, an act which would consign her, as a Catholic girl, not to Heaven or Hell, but purgatory - limbo. In one sense, she's there already. Feenan's first full-length play is well served by newcomer Caroline Williamson, whose finely judged performance - directed by Dan Sherer - gives us a woman desperate for the next ray of hope. Without going over the top on the accents, Williamson inhabits not only Claire, but her pals and the men in her life. We get snapshots of the factory days and style bar nights, and it's always convincing. Feenan has a gift for small, telling details beyond the now-clichéd Alan Bennett/Victoria Wood recitation of such working-class familiars as gypsy creams and brandy snaps. There's an enormous vulnerability in Williamson's interpretation of the script, but she's never depressing; every now and then there's a shrug, a smile that brings hope she'll make it through. The cave-like Iron Belly is the perfect space for this piece - black but for the lit-up area around Claire and the makeshift metallic lake. Basically, she's alone in the ever-encroaching dark. Join her.   The British Theatre Guide – Philip Fisher – 23 August 2007 http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/otherresources/fringe/fringe07-77.htm#L After over a fortnight of solo shows, this Northern Irish monologue is really refreshing. It is a perfectly judged production that features an outstanding performance from Caroline Williamson as Claire. She is a 17 year old who twitches nervously like a runty dog as she tells a sad tale that is all too familiar. This junior meatpacker is adopted by the older girls from work who take her clubbing on her birthday. When they leave Claire behind, she gets picked up by a man almost three times her age. The consequence is inevitable but there is a twist in the tail, albeit fairly predictable. The ensuing pregnancy is dealt with sensitively, with the man coming out as something of a white knight, at least up to a point Director Dan Sherer gets the pacing right and adds to the impression by underlighting Miss Williamson in one of Edinburgh's most gripping hours.     Whatsonstage.com – Stuart Denison – 19 August 200 Special Feature: House Of Windsor And Limbo http://www.whatsonstage.com/board/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=23&showentry=150 Extract So, what they [the comedy group House of Windsor] think of Limbo? It was, in their opinion, a masterclass in subtlety and simplicity. RADA-trained director Dan Sherer had taken Declan Feenan's poignant script about pregnancy, life and the ease with which it becomes complicated, and let it speak for itself. Despite the complete contrast of styles, the appeal of the play to the House of Windsor boys was, I think, in the specific treatment of a life, and the attention to detail. It focused on the minutiae of a night out on the town, a drive in a car, or a bed – and with such intense scrutiny as to render the account not only believable, but completely absorbing. Details are what make up a life, no matter how much Hollywood has taught us to yearn for grand narratives, unambiguous conclusions, and simple meanings. The stellar delivery of the monologue by professional newcomer Caroline Williamson was praised as being intense, compelling, and gripping. What impressed all three was the stillness with which the entire piece was delivered; whilst many directors would be tempted to force movement into any play (to keep it "dramatic"), they were captivated by the plainly-told tale despite Williamson never moving from the same spot. The atmosphere of the room was definitely felt to enhance the production too, with a barely-noticeable sound of wind rising and falling, and dulled ghostly light reflected by gentle water ripples to create the desired sensation of an empty, cold, sterile place. As far as I and the House of Windsor boys were concerned, there was very little wrong with Limbo, and we would both recommend it.   The Guardian Unlimited – Maxie Szalwinska – 6 August 2007 and Pick of the Day http://arts.guardian.co.uk/edinburgh2007/story/0,,2142700,00.html Claire, a quiet young woman with a slight, slippery uncertainty about her, spends her days wrapping ham slices in plastic. So a sponge cake bought from a petrol station and a night on the tiles with the girls from the factory provide a welcome bit of excitement on her 18th birthday. More than a few cocktails later, she meets an older man (a seemingly considerate car-seatbelt salesman) who gets her home safely, takes her to bed, and then fails to phone the next week. This monologue by the young Irish playwright Declan Feenan hardly covers new territory, and it could merely have had a wan charm. But while the writing needs a few more graceful touches, Dan Sherer's solemn yet lyrical staging carefully uncovers all the forlorn nooks and crannies in Feenan's script. Played out on a stark, scrap-metal set resembling a rock pool, a sense of disappointment seeps through the production and into your skin. Claire, and the whole production, makes you think of a chill wind blowing through a summer dress. Driven by Caroline Williamson's understated, wounded performance as the girl gradually sealing herself off from the world, Limbo keeps you silent until the final, shiver-inducing word.     Essex County Standard – Iris Clapp – 27 July 2007 Riveting performance won’t leave you in limbo It isn’t original. Irish Catholic teenager meets older man, gets pregnant, falls for her lover’s son, is abandoned. No different, really, from the kitchen sink drama, which has been around since Joe Orton. But Limbo is very different. This monologue, confession, by Claire, the 17-year-old who stands in limbo – pergatory? – is, quite simply, riveting. Her language is that of the Northern Irish working class. There is little imagery, just straightforward speech delivered with perfect timing and nuance. It is this delivery which is so startling. It is crucial in revealing Claire’s loneliness and total lack of self-pity, and, in lesser hands, it could have fallen flat. But Caroline Williamson – in her professional stage debut – gave a masterclass in control, especially on how to hold an accent until the final syllable. Limbo, written by Declan Feenan, is perfect for the fledgling Real Circumstance Theatre Company. Part of the remit of this Colchester-based company – set up in 2005 by Dan Sherer and Anna Bewick – is to “explore human narratives”. And you don’t get much more human than Claire’s story. Sherer, the company’s artistic director, was the director here. He coaxed a performance out of Williamson which shows he understands perfectly that, in Limbo, the spoken word and even the slightest of movements must be symbiotic. Limbo played for only one night at Colchester Arts Centre. It was really a dress rehearsal for what is to come – playing at the Edinburgh Fringe at the Underbelly theatre and, in October, transferring to the York Theatre Royal, one of the UK’s leading regional theatre If reaction of the full-house at Colchester Arts Centre is anything to go by, Dan Sherer and Caroline Williamson will have no problem with the audiences at the Fringe and Theatre Royal.~   Dan's faith inspires stage debut – Jewish Telegraph – 27 July 2007 MANCHESTER-BORN director Dan Sherer's Jewish background inspired his Edinburgh debut. Limbo - performed by the Real Circumstance Theatre Company - tells the story of a young Catholic girl's relationship with an older man in Northern Ireland. Sherer, who moved to Colchester after his birth in 1982, said: "It is not an overtly political play but she was growing up in a politicised environment. "She was part of a whole generation of young kids who tried to shut themselves off from the Troubles and as a Jew that resonated very much with me." Dan would like to move into film direction but would never abandon his first love, the theatre. He said: "There are things you can do in a film that you can't do on stage. There's a different sort of truthfulness with a camera." He has also done some development work on Jewish plays in the past and would love to direct a play with a Jewish theme if he could find the right play, people and support networks. His father was a university academic and his mother a journalist. He grew up there as part of a small but thriving Jewish community. Explaining his early interest in theatre he said: "I got involved in youth theatre groups from the age of about 11. "A group of us aged 12 to 15 set up our own youth theatre. The council gave us a couple of weeks space in a village hall and we put together and put on a play in that time. "That youth theatre is still in existence and is now part of the Mercury Theatre." Dan trained at RADA, as one of the first two graduates of their Graduate Diploma in Theatre Directing. He has been a Staff Director at the National Theatre, most recently working for Mike Leigh on 2000 Years. In March he participated in the prestigious National Theatre Studio Directors' Course and in April he directed Inside Out by Matthew Morrison at the first HighTide Festival for New Writing. He worked for Pursued by a Bear, a new writing company and it was there that he met producer Anna Bewick. After Edinburgh, Limbo will tour the east of England for a month before going to the Theatre Royal York. * Limbo is on at the Iron Belly, Smirnoff Underbelly, from August 2 - 26 (not August 13), at 2.20pm. Dealing with a delicate issue – Essex County Standard – 22 July 2007 One man who definitely isn’t in limbo is Colchester director Dan Sherer. Since graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), where he was one of the first graduates in RADA’s Theatre Directing Diploma, Dan has been making quite a name for himself assisting Richard Wilson at the Royal Court Theatre in London and, more recently working as a staff director for Mike Leigh at the National Theatre. He set up his own theatre company, Real Circumstance, last year with ex-Mercury marketing officer, Anna Bewick, and now they are about to put on their first production entitled Limbo. As part of the Escalator East to Edinburgh scheme for this year, the play has been picked to go to this year’s Edinburgh Festival next month, when it will run from August 2 to 26 before transferring to York Theatre Royal from October 8 to November 3. Before all of that, a special festival preview of Declan Feenan’s one-woman show is taking place at the Colchester Arts Centre next week. Limbo is the tender and compelling story of a young girl's relationship with an older man. A young Catholic girl gives her confession from the edge of Camlough Lake. She speaks of her life in Newry and her job in the factory with the girls. She speaks of her first love. She speaks of a relationship with a man twice her age. As the darkness of the lake calls out to her, she will do anything to find her peace. Like Dan, Declan has been on attachment at the National Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre and looks set to be a bright name for the future. Declan’s play for Fringe – Newry Democrat – 17 July 2007 A play about a Newry teenager agonizing over a one-night stand with a businessman over twice her age is to be performed at next month’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Limbo - which was first performed at Belfast International Arts Festival two years ago - was written by Newry playwright Declan Feenan in 2005. The 27-year-old former St Colman’s College student who was recently on attachment at the National Theatre and the Royal Court, said he is delighted his play had been chosen to feature at the world-famous festival. “It’s cool,” he admitted. “It was performed in Belfast two years ago and then I sent it to a few companies in England and finally one company latched on to it. It’s a bit of a surprise and I am really happy about it.” As Declan explains, the play centres around a teenage girl from Newry who battles with her conscience after sleeping with a 40-year-old businessman following a wild night out. “It’s about a 17-year-old girl who lives near Canal Street in Newry and is on a night out with the girls when she meets a 40-year-old businessman from out of town,” he said. “They go home and sleep together. The play centres around her sexual awakening and her coming to terms with the aftermath of meeting this man.” Limbo is Declan’s first full-length play. He was nominated by Tinderbox Theatre Company to take part in ‘The 50’, a year-long new writing programme with the BBC and the Royal Court. Theatre in London, and his unpublished manuscripts of poems was recognised by the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2003. “I was always interested in play writing but I was never interested in theatre,” he said. “It’s like being interested in football but you don’t want to play it. Then in the final year of university I wrote this wee play and the drama department put it on, and it took off. I always wanted to write, but I never thought I’d be writing plays.” However, the success of Limbo has resulted in a number of offers to Declan, including a 30-minute film for Channel Four that will air for the first time this autumn. “I’m currently writing a piece for the Bush Theatre in London, which would be one of the top new writing theatres in the country,” he added. “So I have a commission from them, and then I’m also finishing another play that the National Theatre in London are currently biting on. “I’m involved in a bit of TV work as well. I have a short film for Channel Four coming out in a few months. It’s about a young boy and girl from a poor part of Newry. The girl’s mum is a prostitute and is dying and the boy’s father is a devout Christian. They find an old ice-cream van in an abandoned industrial estate and they meet this man in the van called Jackie, who is on the run, and it leads to one thing and another. It was filmed in London because it was too expensive to bring a camera crew over to Newry, but we have tried to make it look like Newry as much as possible. So the next few months should be quite exciting.”   New stage in director Dan's theatre career – Colchester Evening Gazette – 10 July 2007 http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/display.var.1532858.0.new_stage_in_director_dans_theatre_career.php Dan Sherer doesn't get star-struck. Working with Mike Leigh - one of the UK's top film and theatre directors - was an "absolute delight", but he kept his feet firmly on the ground. It will be the same when his theatre company performs at this year's Edinburgh Festival. Then there is the month-long stint in the autumn at York's Theatre Royal which, by all accounts, is to die for. Still, nothing to go overboard about. All part of learning his craft as a young director. But mention Colchester United and, well, he almost whooped with glee at the prospect of Teddy Sheringham coming to Layer Road. "My stepbrother, Ollie, is on his way to the U's shop as we speak, and I told him to get me a U's shirt with Ted and the number 8 on the back," he said. "I am more than ready for Ted - I can't wait!" As far as he is concerned European success for the U's is now only a season away. If Sheringham could do it for Manchester United in 1999, why not for the U's ten years later? Dan has no doubts and can't wait for the season to begin. "Trouble is, I won't be around for the first game - I'll be in Edinburgh." There was a slight pause. "Maybe, I'll just fly down and watch the game." He laughed. He is committed to the U's, but he is even more committed to his work. It's a commitment which is paying off, too. He may only be 24, but Dan Sherer is an emerging talent in the very competitive world of theatre. Dan was born in Manchester but moved to Colchester with his parents when he was only months old. "That makes me a Colcestrian," he declared. "I love this place - I really do. Home? Definitely." He was a pupil at Hamilton School, then Ipswich School and, for his A-levels, Colchester Sixth Form College. And the theatre? When he joined, aged 13, the newly-formed Wivenhoe Youth Theatre, he realised it was in his blood - although why, with no theatre connections in his family, that should be so, he has no idea. "For about seven years the youth theatre was my social life," he revealed. "It was an extraordinary time." The members were all around the same age. Crucially, they all got the chance to direct as well as act. At 13, Dan had suddenly realised he didn't want to do anything other than direct. "I never waivered," he stressed. "There was nothing else I wanted to do, but it never felt like I made a choice, you know? It just couldn't have been anything else." He didn't take theatre studies at A-level (he opted for history, English and classical civilisations) and chose social anthropology at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He wanted to read subjects not directly connected with theatre, to widen his knowledge. But he never gave up directing. After he left Pembroke in 2003 he applied and got one of only two places on a 12-month directing course at the Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts (Rada). The course began in 2004. A few months later he had cut his teeth with the Royal Shakespeare Company and then became assistant director under Richard Wilson at London's Royal Court. But Dan's take on directing was more than telling actors where to stand and when to exit, stage left. He wanted to help actors really act. He wanted to encourage improvisation. He wanted to do his own work. In other words, he needed his own company. That happened after meeting Anna Bewick, general manager of the Pursued by a Bear theatre company. With more than a little help from the Mercury Theatre - which ensured Arts Council East funding - and unconditional support from Dan's family, Real Circumstance Theatre Company came into the world in 2005. But it wasn't all Real Circumstance. Dan still needed more experience as a director - hence his time with the incomparable Mr Leigh at the National's Lyttleton Theatre. "But when my nine months as a staff director were coming to a close, I realised it was becoming increasingly important for me to be directing my own work," he explained. "We had to concentrate on our company." That was less than 12 months ago. On July 24, Colchester gets a sneak preview of the fruits of his labours when Real Circumstance comes to the Arts Centre with Limbo, its professional debut. Then it's the Edinburgh Festival, a regional tour and a month at the Theatre Royal, York. So, would that be goodbye Colchester? Apparently, not. Even though he now rents a flat in south London, Dan still counts his mother and stepfather's house in West Bergholt as home. "My family - mum, dad, stepdad, brother, stepbrother - have always been there for me through all my doubts. But at the end of the day I know it would be anathema not to direct," he said. "I honestly believe I would be physically sick if I couldn't direct."   Play is a real team effort – Colchester Evening Gazette – 21 March 2006 Some of Colchester’s leading theatrical forces are joining forces. Essex University playwright Jonathan Lichtenstein and ex-Sixth Form College director Dan Sherer are working together to produce Jonathan’s new play Searching for Green Fields. Along with local actors and producers, the team behind the new play has just completed a week-long development programme supported by the Mercury Theatre. Searching for Green Fields is the follow-up to Jonathan’s hugely successful last play, The Pull of Negative Gravity, which won an Edinburgh First award at the Edinburgh Festival and then did a spell off Broadway in New York. Dan has also been making a name for himself having worked with Richard Wilson at the Royal Court Theatre and is now staff director at the Royal National Theatre, where he is working with the renowned film-maker and director Mike Leigh on his latest play Two Thousand Years. Dan is also the co-founder of Real Circumstance Theatre Company, an Arts Council East Escalator company, which will be bringing the finished play to the UK stage later this year. Helping to finance the project, and completing the team, is local PR company Mosaic Publicity and Arts Council East. Colchester Company Puts Show On National Stage – Essex Life and Countryside – May 2006 A major new play from a nationally-acclaimed Colchester playwright and directed by a Colchester director, is being brought to the national stage with the support of a local business and the Mercury Theatre. Colchester-based PR, media training and design agency Mosaic Publicity has linked up with the Mercury Theatre and Arts Council East in sponsoring the development of the latest play Searching for Green Fields by award-winning playwright Jonathan Lichtenstein. The play’s director is former Colchester Sixth Form College’s Dan Sherer, who is now a staff director at London’s Royal National Theatre where he is working with the renowned filmmaker and director Mike Leigh, on his latest play Two Thousand Years   The right direction – Jewish Chronicle – March 2007 In 2005, Rachel Grunwald and Daniel Sherer made history at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London when they became the first students on Rada’s new theatre directing course. Now they are breaking new ground again, with each of them directing a play at the HighTide Theatre Festival in Suffolk, the country’s first festival for young theatre writers and directors. “We both wound up here after working for different companies,” says Grunwald, 27. “After Rada, I went off to work for the RSC, and Dan went off to work at the National Theatre. He was with Mike Leigh [as a staff director on Two Thousand Years] as I was with Nancy Meckler [as assistant director on Romeo and Juliet].” Working with Leigh on the National’s most Jewish play since Joshua Sobol’s Ghetto was, says 24-year-old Sherer, “a great experience. I learnt a lot.” At HighTide, Grunwald is directing a play called Weightless, inspired by Helen Sharman, the first British female astronaut. Sherer takes on a two-hander called Inside Out, about a father/son relationship. After the festival, which has the mentoring support of theatrical greats such as director Richard Eyre, the pair will strike out again in different directions - Sherer with his theatre company Real Circumstance, while Grunwald has had another offer from the RSC. But if HighTide takes off as an annual event, it cannot be long before they return as mentors themselves. Promise of new talent – East Anglian Daily Times – 11 January 2007 A new Colchester-based theatre company promises local talent and innovative work. Real Circumstance Theatre Company was founded by Artistic Director Dan Sherer and Creative Producer Anna Bewick. At only 24 years of age, RADA-trained Mr Sherer has already worked with top directors, including Mike Leigh. Ms Bewick has gained experience at theatres, including Theatre 503 on the London Fringe, and the Mercury, Colchester. The company is developing Declan Feenan’s Limbo to go on tour in the UK. Mr Sherer said: “Real Circumstance is about actors and writers who are as yet unknown but show an amazing talent.