The Long Way Home

Is a play about an old Greek woman setting off from her village to return to the seaside where she was born. She travels through forests and farmlands and over high bandit-ridden mountains to reach her journey and her life's end. The Long Way Home is written by Charles Way and is currently touring the East of England with the redoubtable Eastern Angles theatre company. Before we saw it in Wodbridge I simply couldn't imagine how the promise of the publicity photo (an empty road stretching towards blue distant hills) could ever be translated into one night stands in village halls. I should have been more trusting. A set design of carved and sanded wood, effective lighting and brilliant use of puppetry kept my interest throughout the journey -- which I fully believed was as long and arduous as the storytellers described it. Archie (13) said it was 'awesome'. Performances excellent of course, but I had expected that. We were the last to leave and already the set and the seating was being dismantled and packed up for the next stage of the play's personal epic. Criss-crossing East Anglia, a different venue almost every night. How do they do it? No idea -- but we're lucky that they do.