Our Current Season

Emily Langley is looking for volunteers. She has mysteriously inherited an English garden watched over by a guerilla gardener who doesn’t share her ideas about how it should look. Now it’s time to open it up and share it with the world, and she needs your help.  

 Set against the changing backdrop of the last century it reveals the secrets of the Langley family through the passing of the years, changing of the seasons, growth of the garden and gossip from the gnomes. Bloom takes us through a hundred years of garden history, from a plot of land originally created by influential garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, through a Dig For Victory vegetable patch, against a background of Nuclear protests and on to the England of today.

Bloom is an intimate, irreverent theatre experience that will see you enter the garden and watch it grow before your eyes.

This is a performance specially created for your area and by people you know in local community groups, alongside Forest Forge Theatre’s Company’s professional creative team.

Join us to celebrate your community in an English Country Garden.

Unsuitable for children under 7.

Bloom is part of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games Inspire programme.

Bloom is a promenade performance, with audience members walking between scenes.  We can accommodate people with movement difficulties, but please try to let us know in advance, so we can make your experience the best it can be.

Bloom has been made possible by additional funding from

             
Cllr Rippon-Swaine, Hampshire County Councillor for Ringwood

Cllr Kyrle, Hampshire County Councillor for Botley and Hedge End

We are pleased to be working with four actors on Bloom. 
They are:

Helen Jeckells

Theatre includes: Miss Skillon in See How They Run (UK Tour), Ruth in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, (UK Tour), Rigoletto and La Forza del Destino (Royal Opera House), Drama at Sea (P&O), Don’t Look Now (UK Tour), First Fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Adriana in Comedy of Errors, Mary Mooney in Once a Catholic, Mary Tilford in The Children’s Hour, Essence of Ireland (UK Tour), Spirit of the Dance (USA).

Helen has appeared in and choreographed over 20 pantomimes across the UK and this Christmas will be appearing as Witch Hazel in Beauty and the Beast in Newark.

Jerry Marwood

This is Jerry’s debut for Forest Forge.

Theatre Credits include: Vampires (Barons Court), Crave (Camden People’s Theatre), Dealer’s Choice (Barons Court), Journey’s End (Courtyard Theatre, London), Round, Round (White Bear), The Curse of Mighty Man (The Space), Pinocchio (Channel Theatre/Tour), Face to Face (Tour), Any Questions (Lewes Arts/Tour).

Film credits include: A Little Death (Rebound), Bad Karma (MJ Pro), Wonder Worker Magician (Bedside Manner), Uncommon Champion (Sci-Fi Channel), Bright Dark Red (Ammolab). 

Jerry trained at Central School of Speech and Drama & Middlesex University (BAPA).

Loren O’Dair

Loren trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris. 

Theatre includes Dick Turpin's Last Ride (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds and UK tour), Sexing The Cherry (Southbank Centre), Hamlet (UK tour), Before I Sleep (dreamthinkspeak/Brighton Festival), Othello (UK tour), Ur-Hamlet, The Marriage of Medea (Odin Teatret, Denmark/Poland), The Turn of The Screw (UK tour), The Fence (The Wrestling School/Birmingham Rep). 

Radio includes Economus Wrecked (Actors of Dionysus/BBC Radio 4). 

Film includes the title role in Medea (Dromos Films, to be released in 2013). 

Loren will be playing Mrs Cratchit in A Christmas Carol at the New Vic this Christmas. She is also a musician and an aerialist.

Lee Rufford

Lee trained at the Oxford School of Drama. Whilst training he was a winner of The Laurence Olivier Bursary Award, awarded by the Society of London Theatre. His credits whilst training include Mosca in Ben Johnson's Volpone and Chris Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons. Since graduating Lee has worked on a few small theatre jobs including a stint at the National Theatre with Abbie Spallen's new play 'BOGWOG'.  On screen he most recently appeared in Paddy Considine's debut feature film 'TYRANNOSAUR' which picked up several awards at Cannes film festival last year.