Behold Ye Ramblers – Cast, Doncaster

Writer/Musical Director: Neil Gore

Director/Designer: Louise Townsend

Townsend Productions are a remarkable enterprise, mainly composed of two people and taking socialist theatre to a vast number of venues, mainly for one night only. And what is perhaps most remarkable is that they regularly entertain as much as instruct – and also that they have a habit of resurrecting half-forgotten stories and long-lost heroes.

So it is withBehold Ye Ramblers.The mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932 is now a piece of working-class history, but how many of us realised that it was merely the climax to a series of mass trespasses dating back some 20 years and that these were inspired by a newspaper,The Clarion? What is most striking about the play is that, far from springing from foreign seed, the message of theClarionpreached an English form of socialism – all their activities seemed to be embedded in the way of life of the English working classes.

Louise Townsend’s production is a one-man affair, Neil Gore playing three roles, pretty much in sequence, as well as the occasional foray into other characters, most notably Daisy, the Countess of Warwick, an unlikely recruit into a working-class movement. Initially, looking very smart, he appears as a Music Hall Chairman, no doubt to give a sense of period and to remind the audience that, though the message be serious, there’s no harm in laughter!

Thereafter, till the interval, he appears as Robert Blatchford, the first of the long-lost heroes. He editedThe Clarionfrom its 1892 beginnings, spawning such groups as Clarion Ramblers, Clarion Vocal Unions and Clarion Cyclists, all inspired by the message in the newspaper. Gore returns throughout the first half to his speech to the Liverpool Clarion Group, with a memorable visit to a St. Helens glassworks and that meeting with the Countess to break things up.

For the second half Gore switches to G.H.B. Ward of Sheffield, more down-to-earth than Blatchford, infusing serious scenes with a touch of humour. He introduces Doncaster’s Quirky Choir (masquerading as the Sheffield Clarion Singers) for two delightful songs of the time, the first idealistic, the second boisterously confident, then he musters a meticulously organised trespass from Sheffield to Derbyshire and back from Hope. All that remain are two evocative Clarion Ramblerspoems set to music by Neil Gore – his songs throughout are mainly self-composed narrative or his setting of others’ words, his “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” derived from Walt Whitman particularly dramatic.

You would be reading Townsend Productions quite wrong to assume that, with one man alone on stage (and he being inclined to irreverence), this is not a show that relies on perfect technical synchronisation. Throughout, frequently activated by Gore, images appear: posters, flyers, pages of the newspaper, once, tellingly, moving pictures of the workers. This is the art that conceals art – a set that fits happily into, for instance, a community hall, with all sorts of images, soundtrack, etc., slickly timed to fit – a word of praise for Technical Manager Mick Andrew.

Reviewed on 8th May 2024. Continuing its national tour.