Town players step back in time

In The Beginning… is the latest dramatic re-enactment by Newbury’s Resurrection Players, written and directed by Ros Clow and performed for the third time since 2011. It played across four sold-out shows (January 22-25) at Newbury Town Hall, in which these momentous discussions first unfolded.

The production transports audiences back to the Parliamentary Enquiry of January 1847. A public health crisis has gripped the town. Poor sanitation and sewage pollution affect all classes (what’s new there), causing outbreaks of typhus and cholera. And to make matters worse, the Enclosure Acts have forced more people into the towns and cities.

Newbury’s overcrowded graveyards cannot keep pace with the growing population and the rising number of deaths each year, causing contagious fevers to spread into surrounding communities.

The situation is dire, or as the delightfully unpleasant Rev Dr Hibbert Binney (expertly captured by Graham Hunt) puts it: “You can scarcely bury a corpse without having to dig up another.”

From his sexton John Tottie Mayo (Graham Salter), who was charged with assault while in his employ, we learn of a charming device called a spit, a long metal rod used to measure the depth of a burial – though it was not uncommon to smash a few bones and coffin lids in the process!

Something has to be done. London and Reading have already built municipal cemeteries, a new idea at this time. And Newbury will be next.

A two-day Parliamentary enquiry, chaired by surveying officer George Hammond Whalley (captured in a commanding performance by Chris Jones) with support from solicitor Henry Godwin (played by Garry Poulson), is called to examine the need for a new municipal cemetery – what became Newtown Road Cemetery once the Act of July 1847 was passed.

The script is taken verbatim from transcripts of the original discussions recorded by Frederick Bond Hughes using Pitman shorthand – still a useful tool for journalists today.

But it is the cast that breathe life into these otherwise dry proceedings, crafting an immersive ‘courtroom style drama’, complete with excellent period costumes and set design, that effectively conveys the desperate public health situation at the heart of the story.

Narrator Sarah Page’s (played by Judith Bunting) closing remarks resonated as audiences departed the hall: “Newtown Road Cemetery is now yours to look after. Good night.”

The first burial at the cemetery was in 1850. There are an estimated 12,500 people buried there today. The last funeral was held about six months ago.

Mr Godwin was buried in the cemetery opposite the door of the Church of England chapel. His family financed the stained-glass window there in his memory.

MIREK GOSNEY