News

This summer, Queen's Theatre Hornchurch is leading an exciting new collaborative project, a Creative Estuary Co-commission, stretching in impact across South Essex, titled Tales from the Thames. The Theatre has commissioned two writers, Rebecca Brewer and Vickie Donoghue, and composer M G Boulter, all from or living in South Essex, to write the piece. Rebecca Brewer is an actress, writer and theatre maker living in Thurrock. She is an Associate Artist at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and has worked at the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Court, Almeida Theatre, and many times in the West End as well as on television, radio and film. Last year Rebecca was commissioned by Thurrock CVS to create At Least We’ve Got This Place, an audio-visual piece about life on her local allotment in Thurrock throughout the pandemic. Vickie Donoghue is an Essex playwright and writer for TV and radio living in Thurrock. Her work and artistic practice is socially engaged and always focuses on the regions of south east Essex. She has worked at The Bush, the High Tide Festival, New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, the Royal Court and Sheffield’s Crucible. Vickie is Paines Plough's playwright Fellow 20/21. Her 10-part Podcast drama The Piper, co-written with fellow playwright Natalie Mitchell and produced by Somethin Else for BBC Sounds, was broadcast in November 2020. It starred Tamsin Outhwaite and Kacey Ainsworth. M G Boulter is a singer songwriter living on the Thames coast in Essex. His song writing has been described as ‘Gorgeous, in a word’ by Uncut and ‘Highly Recommended’ by the Independent on Sunday. His second full length album With Wolves the Lamb Will Lie was listed as one of the ‘Best Folk Albums of 2016’ by the Daily Telegraph. M G has been a member of Blue Rose Code, Emily Portman’s Coracle Band and The Lucky Strikes and was a touring member of US groups The Duke and the King and the Simone Felice Group. His recent album, Clifftown, takes an observant look at the British Seaside and is accompanied by The Clifftown Podcast project which seeks to uncover the hidden histories, culture and people of Southend-on-Sea Together they will be writing a new piece of place making theatre that is accessible and cross generational, touring to community venues, and reaching under served and underrepresented audiences in South Essex. More announcements about this project will be made next month.