‘This Evil Thing’ to mark CO release centenary
The centenary of the release of conscientious objectors is being marked by the performance of a play by Michael Mears
The playwright Michael Mears, of Wandsworth Meeting, is staging his play This Evil Thing to mark the centenary of the first release of conscientious objectors (COs) from prison.
A century after British COs were starting to be released in 1919, the former National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company actor will stage his solo play in a medieval crypt in Bristol on Easter Sunday. Mark Friend from Winchmore Hill Meeting, who designed the set for the play, told the Friend: ‘It had to be evocative but flexible enough to change for different scenes and to pack into a van! We first thought of chairs but then I thought of crates… I got seven different crates, all in raw wood and full of character. As we went through each scene, we piled them up to make a lecture stand, or suggest a bed in a prison cell or tomb stones. At one point, they are anthropomorphic to represent the figures at a tribunal. We found they were the most amazing, expressive yet practical kit for telling the story.’
The play will be shown in the Crypt of St John on the Wall church in Bristol on 21 April.
