Radio News Day Story

THE PASSION play which took place in Winchester on Good Friday has been hailed a success by church leaders.

An estimated crowd of more than ten-thousand people battled against sub-zero temperatures to show their support for the project which took a year to prepare.

Winchester was temporarily turned into a scene from Roman-occupied Jerusalem as a cast of more than one hundred amateur actors supported Israel Oy-el-u-ma-de who played Jesus.

The performance lasted three hours as the cast made their way from the high street down to Jesus’ hearing at the Winchester law courts and finally to his crucifixion and resurrection on top of Winchester cathedral.

News Story

A PLAY staged at HMP Winchester involving a mixed cast of students from the City’s University and prisoners has received the go-ahead for April.

 

The play has been written and planned by Brian Woolland, an ex-lecturer turned playwright who has been commissioned by the ‘Playing for Time’ theatre company. The project involved a series of workshops held with inmates inside the prison in autumn 2007 which inspired the writing and directing of the play. Mr. Woolland had previously worked with students from Winchester University and the idea to incorporate the two stemmed from that.

 

‘Stand or Fall’ is based on historical fact and tells the inspirational story of two men, split by three generations who must escape the labels society has pinned on them, one of which is himself a prisoner.

 

There are at present 15 students from the University and 12 prisoners involved in the production. According to the press release:

‘The play is concerned with reclaiming one’s past, making new beginnings’ a theme brought to light after Woolland’s workshops encouraged inmates to explore; ‘possible relationships between family histories and personal identity and how peer pressure affects decision making.’

 

‘Stand or Fall’ opens on 15^th April with 4 performances over 3 days and will be staged in West Hill, HMP. Tickets are on sale now.

Hi!

It would appear that I’m a little behind everyone else on the course on this whole blog thing!My name’s Rich Rowe  and I’m a first year Creative Writing/Journalism student…  I took a couple of years out after college to tour Europe with my band secondmonday, there’s no money to be made as a musician though and it quickly became clear that despite our best intentions and a fairly loyal following abroad that unless we were on the road 365 days a year we would soon be in absolute poverty!  I write music reviews for a website www.punktastic.com (unpaid at the moment!) and hope I can continue in this field once Uni’s finished. I love writing and listening to music… generally experimental rock… and that’s about it for now!