Cold Ash Village Play 2000

29th June to 1st July 2000, at the Acland Hall, Cold Ash

Cold Ash Village Play 2000 is a new play called 'A Viking in the Shadows' by Richard J Marshall. The play is fictional but based on real events.

It starts in present day Cold Ash with concerns about the way the community is developing and then links back 1000 years to the Anglo Saxons and the time of King Aethelread to an imaginary community living in this area (Thatcham was a Saxon village). People today are concerned about new houses being built all over the countryside, there is controversy about refugees, worry about wars and the environment. The play shows that what we worry about is nothing new and many of the same things worried people around the end of the first millennium. We are a caring community that includes peoples rather than rejecting them.

The actors all live in around the area; some have experience, others none at all. There are about 30 men, women and children. A Millennium song has been written by the author and set to music by Peter Denny. Richard Marshall has also written or adapted other songs which Peter has written music for.