10 Things to do in a Small Cumbrian Town is a hilarious one-woman play written and performed by Hannah Sowerby who grew up in a small North West town.
A proud Cumbrian, Hannah wants to show that living in the regions isn’t all hiking, lakes and kayaking. This funny and honest production is about finding connection when you’re lonely, about finding solid ground when you’re lost at sea and holding on when everything’s hanging from a thread.
All Jodie wants to do is kiss a woman, but the only woman available in Penrith seems to be her friend’s Mam… 19-year-old Jodie hasn’t gone to uni like most of her friends, but has been forced into taking a job shelf-stacking by her very sweary Nana. Join Jodie as she attends counselling with her shit, 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…
Hannah Sowerby comments, 10 Things is a fictional story, but it draws inspiration from my own experience of growing up in a small Cumbrian town, which was even smaller than the one in which the play is set. It’s a comedy drama about the love/hate relationship of being a young person growing up in a rural area, where there is very little to do, and the ridiculous and creative things you end up doing to amuse yourself. The play follows Jodie Bell, who has lost herself and is incredibly isolated, which I’m sure many people will relate to after a year in which mental health has been an important and pressing issue globally. This is a play about finding things to laugh at in the darkest of times, finding strength inside you that you didn’t know you had and riding around on tractors with strange men…
Director Jonluke McKie comments, Hannah has an amazing knack for exploring darker issues in a way that highlights the beauty and poignancy in life. It’ll make you think, make you belly laugh, bring a tear to your eye, and most of all give you a fantastic night out.
10 Things to do in a Small Cumbrian Town is at Alphabetti Theatre 23rd November to 11th December 2021.
