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Southwark Mysteries is a community arts organisation, offering
creative ways for people to interact with their inner-city environment.
Over the last decade the group has conducted historical walks,
story-telling and drama workshops, and produced plays, festivals and
site-specific events.
On Easter Sunday in 2000, the group put on a community production
of The Southwark Mysteries, a new ‘Southwark Cycle’ of Mystery Plays,
written by local playwright John Constable and published by Oberon
Books. It was performed to a capacity audience in Shakespeare’s Globe
and Southwark Cathedral. The play is inspired by the medieval Mystery
Plays, which adapted Bible stories to their own time and place. Rooted
in the history of Bankside, this epic Cycle presents a contemporary,
inclusive vision of forgiveness and healing.
Following the success of the production in 2000, Simon Hughes MP suggested a revival every ten years,
like the famous Oberamergau Passion Play. The Means' Giles Semper is working with John Constable and a 'hand picked' group of local businesspeople, community leaders and politicians to establish the funding, project management and strategic partnerships
to revive The Southwark Mysteries in 2010.
Says Giles: 'Whether he likes it not, we tend to refer to John as the magus of Bankside. It would give me a lot of pleasure to see the Mysteries realised again, perhaps with scenes played out in some of the locations referred to in the text, such as the Crossbones Graveyard. I have leaned on friends and trusted colleagues to form a working group. Although 2010 doesn't seem far away now, I believe we have the capacity to deliver.'
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 February 2009 )
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