Eye - 25 January 2013

A Quakerly Robin Hood to a a caring calendar

Whoosh, boo, behind you!

Arrow-less bows, a host of Merry People and a pantomime – just what would a Quakerly version of Robin Hood look like?

As panto season draws to a close, Eye was intrigued to learn of a Leaveners event that conjured up just such a spectacle – ‘The 24 Hour Panto’ – at Hampstead Meeting House last December.

The Leaveners’ Lauren Parkes, who devised the project along with Matthew Griffin, said: ‘It’s only the second time we have run this residential theatre project for over eighteens, which has the aim of devising and rehearsing a “Quakerly” pantomime from scratch in (less than) twenty-four hours.

‘This year we had a cast of seventeen (ranging from just-turned-eighteen year old to seventy-plus), supported by five facilitators, and the whole team worked their socks off to create a fantastic show, complete with songs, incidental music, props, costumes and set.’

Mary Clunes, a member of the audience, gave the performance a glowing review.

She said: ‘The Leaveners arrived at Hampstead on Friday evening with only a title… By Sunday afternoon they had planned, written, rehearsed, amended, rehearsed and performed an hour long pantomime, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all…

‘There was something for everyone: songs, jokes, booing and hissing, whooshing (the non-existent arrows), a pantomime dame, a pantomime horse, pacifist soldiers and a Quaker faith & practice reading ‘Elder Tuck’.

‘For me, the pantomime brought young and old together with laughter and singing: a wonderful experience.’

Quaker Tapestry Calendar

Friends who have long campaigned for the better treatment of animals will read one national news story with a wry smile.

Next month the so-called ‘Verminator’, a retired civil servant, is to be sentenced, having pleaded guilty to trapping, shooting and leaving for dead a squirrel that had been taking food he had left out for birds.

The case has attracted media attention and prompted a welcome debate over our treatment of animals.

Last year the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals received 160,000 allegations of abuse. Sadly, holding people responsible for the more obvious kinds of cruelty – like dog fighting, badger baiting or tail docking – merits few headlines.

Animal cruelty and abandonment are at record levels in Britain, in particular as a consequence of owners who can no longer afford to keep pets in a recession.

Eye has noticed that the 2013 Quaker Tapestry calendar has the theme of animals and their welfare.

The theme was originally suggested by Jill Greenway, who came to appreciate the tapestry when she and her husband Richard Gibb spent a week as volunteer stewards, in 1998, at the Quaker Tapestry Exhibition at Kendal. Richard died unexpectedly in 2002.

The beautifully produced calendar includes lovely images of farm animals, pets and birds selected from panels of the Quaker Tapestry.

Animals and their welfare are dear to Jill’s heart, as they were to Richard, to whose memory she dedicated her research and work on this theme. The 2013 calendar is available from the Quaker Tapestry Exhibition at Kendal and from Friends House, London.

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