Writer: Jeremy Fletcher
Co-Directors: Marcus Bazley, Will Holyhead
In 2019 the village of Fishlake, near Doncaster, suffered devastating floods, with many families temporarily homeless and many properties devastated. Later meetings of villagers shared their memories of the floods until they were refined down and assembled into a play by Jeremy Fletcher, a Fishlake resident whose home was flooded. Fletcher happens to be the co-founder of Sheepish Productions who have now brought the play into Cast for three performances, followed by two more in the locality.
It’s a comparatively simple arrangement of six actors taking one main part each and various extras, two side-of-stage musicians and Foley providers and a community choir who make occasional appearances to sing songs written by sound designer Moony Wainwright, sometimes in association with Sharon Richards, the choir leader. Caitlin Mawhinney’s set design works nicely, with a medley of bric a brac and miscellaneous furniture/junk: chairs, table, cones, “Road Closed” signs, etc. These serve as stand-ins for the real thing as well as being, simply, junk. At the back a sort of frieze backs up the action with projections, some of them very effective.
In the first half we experience the night of the floods, with drama centring particularly on disastrous attempts to leave the village or to investigate water levels. There are also scenes in The Hare and Hounds, so far as one can gather the heart of the village, and in two flood-hit houses. In one, irascible Bill (David Westbrook), walking with a stick, resists the efforts of Mary, increasingly tired and worried in Julie Higginson’s performance, to get him to move. In the other, James (Ben Eagle), worried about the insurance, coaxes his nervous wife Sue (Eve Burley) and daughter Daisy (Tilly Sutcliffe), desperate about her tropical fish, into attempting departure. Daniel Coll, the concerned flood warden, links the whole thing together and Sutcliffe, the only one to play two main parts, crops up when least expected as the eccentric teenager, Vitamins.
The second half deals with the aftermath and brings in the humour of caricature. In between sober scenes of putting things together again is a confusion of visitors: Prince Charles, tractors with masses of supplies, loss assessors, insurance people, television journalists, etc. Some are a bit trying (those BBC voices!), but there are plenty of laughs, too: the Prime Minister, represented by a jacket on a mop, held by Eagle doing a pretty mean Boris Johnson impersonation as he bumbles his way round “Fishcake”.
Occasionally Marcus Bazley and Will Holyhead let the pace drop, but the final effect, as the actors spell out what has changed, is respect for “the community that held firm”, exemplified by the song that tops and tails the show, Fishlake is Our Village.
Reviewed on 17th October 2025.
Touring to Rotherham Civic Theatre (28th October) and Theatre Royal Wakefield (30th October).
