Artistic director Terry Hands talks about unknown Elizabethan drama Arden of Faversham at Clwyd Theatr Cymru

Feb 11 2010 by Michael Green, Flintshire Chronicle

Artistic director Terry Hands talks about unknown Elizabethan drama Arden of Faversham at Clwyd Theatr Cymru

Sex scandals and murder plots – the kinds of salacious stuff that 21st century tabloids love to blaze across their front pages – form the basis for a new production at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold.

But there are no soap stars, glamour models, soccer heroes or WAGs involved in Arden of Faversham, which was written in the 16th century during the Elizabethan era at a time when Shakespeare was enjoying his first successes.

However, you won’t come across English kings like Henry V or Richard III, foreign nobility like Hamlet or Scottish lords such as Macbeth in this tragi-comedy.

For Arden of Faversham deals with the ordinary men and women of Elizabethan times, living ordinary lives and dealing with ordinary everyday pressures.

Two other elements add to the intrigue of the production: firstly, it is based on a true story; secondly, no one knows who wrote the play.

It is being brought to life in the Emlyn Williams Theatre at the Mold venue by Clwyd Theatr Cymru artistic director Terry Hands, an acclaimed veteran of countless past Shakespearean productions both here and at the RSC.

This time, however, he admitted he wanted to try something different but also something simpler.

He said: “I first came across it when I was at university when I was studying English and I liked it then. I actually had a go at it in the early 80s but I regarded it as unfinished business and as something I would one day want to do better.”

Arden of Faversham is a black tragi-comedy about the murder of M. Arden from Faversham in Kent, by his wife Alice and was published in 1592 by an anonymous author.

Arden has inherited the lands of the Abbey of Faversham from the Duke of Somerset. But Alice, his wife, is in love with Mosby, a steward in the house of a nobleman.

Desire, envy and greed inexorably lead to death, with a series of overlapping multiple murder plots.

“I like to do an Elizabethan play with the company every two years or so and this was simpler than most dramas of this period,” explained Hands.

“It is a wonderful example of something that is tragic, because someone dies, and yet it is also very funny because the people who are plotting the murder are incredibly incompetent.”

The company includes Welsh BAFTA award-winner, Ifan Huw Dafydd as Arden. He was seen recently as Helge in Tim Baker’s production of Festen. On TV he played Dic Deryn in Pobol y Cwm and was seen recently in BBC’s Gavin and Stacey as Neil, Nessa’s Dad.

The language of the play is recognisable to anyone familiar with Shakespearean dialogue especially from the Bard’s earlier, more straightforward works, but it lacks his flair for the poetic, which Hands thinks is the reason why more people aren’t familiar with it.

“I think the reason why the play has not been done very often is because there is a lot of snobbery about it,” said the director who admitted that last year, he had as much fun staging the farcical Noises Off as the more serious minded Mary Stuart.

“It’s not as poetic as Shakespeare but it is like Brecht before Brecht who said he got a lot of his ideas from Elizabethan drama.”

Arden of Faversham is also a relatively short piece at just one hour and 50 minutes which – like Festen last year in the Emlyn Williams – will be performed straight through with no interval.

The play can be seen from February 11-March 6. Ring the box office on 0845 330 3565 or visit www.clwyd-theatr-cymru.co.uk.