Monday 18 December 2017

An inspiring blog

We would like to draw our dear followers attention to a fantastic blog by a lovely chap named Gavin Parry.

Gavin was behind a recent art and music project which explored 'The Black Path';
An ancient route between Redcar and Middlesbrough, the Black Path was often used by steelworkers making their way to and from work. The project's objective was to re-create the sights and sounds of this particular path and was given it's own exhibition at the House of Blah Blah in Middlesbrough in January 2016.

Aside from this, Gavin is very much a 'Psycho-geographer' for the North Yorkshire and Tees area.

His blog unearths the forgotten and mysterious past of the region and includes some rather delicious and breathtaking photographs of certain area's of interest including our beloved North York Moors and it's associated paths and trails.

Much of Gavin's work around this area has been a great source of inspiration, especially for the Black Meadow project.

We'd like to thank Gavin for this inspiration and would love the opportunity to work closely with him in the near future as we research our forthcoming Black Meadow volumes.

Here is a link to Gavin's Blog: https://teessidepsychogeography.wordpress.com/

Tuesday 14 November 2017

Yuletide is coming - "Christmas on the Black Meadow" on sale now!

Christmas is coming...
A perfect yuletide gift for the strange person in your house, you know the one I mean...

Written by Chris Lambert and illustrated by Andy Paciorek and Nigel Wilson this book contains three Christmas set tales as well as ideas for traditional games and and gifts for anyone who lives on the Black Meadow.

Wednesday 18 October 2017

Thursday 31 August 2017

Tales from the Black Meadow - The Play - A Look Back - Whitby

The idea of performing the play in Whitby occurred at the very start.
It sounded like a great idea.
Some were dubious...
After a while, once it was all set up and too late to pull out... I too was dubious!
However Kit Wright at Caedmon College was fantastic to work with and made it so much easier!

We left Theale (Berkshire) at 5.15am.
Some of the students slept on the coach.
They were very well behaved (I did make travel bingo for them)
We arrived at just after 12pm in Whitby so we did have time to do a speed run.

The performance was the premiere.
The students were splendid but we did have teething problems...
The little model train fell off the stage and the Black Meadow mist from the smoke machine did set of the alarms so we had to evacuate in the first ten minutes.
After that it went swimingly.
The feedback from the school was lovely.

hope you all get home safe. Black Meadow weather over the Moors today. Thank you for your hard work, what lovely students ๐Ÿค—๐Ÿค—

Thank you Kit Wright for inviting Eskdale to Tales of the Black Meadow. We all loved the production. ๐ŸŽญ๐Ÿคน‍♂️
The audience were very kind too:
Well done! To you all. It was a fascinating, and very creepy, production... and it seemed entirely fitting that, afterwards, I walked up to the Abbey churchyard for the first time in decades and watched spectacular thunder and lightning rolling across the town!  - Bob Fischer - BBC Tees


I was lucky enough to be invited to the first performance of "Tales from the Black Meadow" yesterday. It was performed in Whitby only a few miles away from the Meadow itself. So it was nice to see it in its native setting . I am by no means a theatre critic. But, the performance was a tour de force directed by Chris Lambert and a company from Theale Green school. The work was superbly choreographed and the performance was quite spare making good use of wooden staves to create a bewildering number of sets. It did contain some superbly disturbing moments. I have to say that once the mist rose it set off the fire smoke detectors which interrupted the performance. The cast were professional enough to shake this off and carry on with the show. If anyone is planning to see the coming performances or is thinking about it I would highly recommend seeing it. Well done to everyone. - Peter Lagan -Leasungspel



What was particularly heartening was to see how the show inspired students from Caedmon College in their work.

Last week yr9 now 10 experimenting after watching Tales from the Black Meadow ๐Ÿ‘ป๐Ÿ‘ป๐Ÿ‘ป๐Ÿ‘ป

Wednesday 30 August 2017

Tales from the Black Meadow - The Play - A Look Back - Rehearsals


There is a great deal of interest in the Black Meadow play at the Theale Green clubs fair at the start of the year. The idea of taking it to Whitby seems to encourage rather than discourage participation.


Rehearsals start in March. The May Pole has a test drive in the "Shining Apples" Scene
Now and again we were lucky enough to hold our rehearsals outside. This as important as one version of the show was in the open air...



Lots of sticks were used in this production...

In this image as well as the broomsticks you can also see, bowler hats, the lectern and the little train (which never behaved in perfromance!)

The marvelous costumes of Nigel Wilson. The Ticking Policeman and one of the horsemen heads can be seen here...

About half the cast...

The other half...

To prepare for Caedmon College Whitby we rehearsed on the Hall stage.