Penrith Players is presenting a revival of 10 Things to do in a Small Cumbrian Town, written by Hannah Sowerby.
A coming-of-age story set in the town, it follows 19-year-old Jodie Bell who, instead of going to uni like the rest of her friends, has been forced into taking a job shelf stacking by her very sweary nana.
Join Jodie as she attends counselling with her bad yet hot, counsellor, keeps bumping into everyone she’s ever met in the local supermarket and is repeatedly invited to a very strange man’s static caravan.
The show premiered at Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle in 2021 and ran for three weeks. It was originally a one- woman show performed by the Hannah and The Guardian described the show as delightfully deadpan.
This version of the show produced by the Penrith Players has six actors in it, alongside four musicians. Naomi Horne will be starring in the show as Jodie.
Naomi said: “I wasn’t even a member of Penrith Players when I caught sight of the script in the print shop where I work! I thought it looked fantastic and ended up auditioning. Working on this play is fun and creative and I’m so pleased I went for it.”
The show will be co-directed by Fiona Johnson and Jocelyn Pye.
Jocelyn said: “Fiona managed to tempt me over from Keswick to the wonderful Penrith Players with this play. I love how it combines very funny and idiosyncratic moments with the universal question, how do we get from where we came from, to where we’re going?
“It’s also been a fantastic creative challenge to turn it from a one-woman monologue into a dynamic play with multiple characters and live music, in a way which I think enhances the clashes between Jodie’s very intimate thoughts and the world and people around her.”
On Saturday February 15, Hannah will be taking part in a Q&A after the show.
She said: “I’m made up that 10 Things is coming to the players. I joined the players when I was 12 and took part in plays until I was 18. Penrith Players is where I put on my first ever show that I wrote, Beyond the Fence, when I was 16.
“It’s great to be coming full circle and having a different full length show that I’ve written as an adult on here. I live in Newcastle now, and most of my work is staged over there, meaning this is the first time Cumbrian audiences have had the chance to catch a full length play of mine in over 10 years.”
Hannah has had commissions from theatres such as Theatre by the Lake and Alphabetti Theatre, as well as short plays staged all over including at The Southwark Playhouse, Canal Cafe Theatre, Union Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe.
Most recently Hannah, alongside writers Jamie McLeish and Lynne Patrick, co-wrote, produced and directed Doomgate, which ran at The Laurels in Whitley Bay for a week last year. It was shortlisted for the Richard Jenkinson Commission.
10 Things to do in a Small Cumbrian Town runs at Penrith Players from February 12 to February 15.
