THEY ALSO SERVE (Southwark Elders Company/SoundCloud)*****

  

By Louise 

Link: https://soundcloud.com/southwarkplayhouse/they-also-serve-by-wendy-buckley-and-john-mcrae

Available until: Unknown

They Also Serve is a beautiful, inspiring and important play. It is dedicated to Leslie Gay, one of the founding members of the Southwark Elders Company. It is so wonderful that the Southwark Elders Company have managed to create something so special in his memory. They can be so proud of this play.

I think it’s really important to accept people as they are because that is what helps them to achieve things. My brother Arran isn’t blind like the characters in this play, but he does have problems with talking. If we had tried to make him talk, I think he would have got more scared and unhappy, but we let him take as long as he liked. He still has to be really brave and he has to work much harder than we do, but if we hadn’t accepted him as he is, maybe he wouldn’t have gone to achieve all the things he has achieved. I am so proud of him for going to school when it’s full of people and for doing so well at football and for being such a good brother.

This play focuses on lots of people who have lost their sight and the struggles they face. The stories are very sad and very moving and sometimes they have bad experiences, but the story also shows what a difference it can make when people accept them as they are. I don’t want to say any more than that because it would be a spoiler, but even though I felt sad sometimes, I loved hearing about all the different people in this play.

They Also Serve was written by Wendy Buckley and John McRae and I love all the different characters they have created, as well as the stories they have told. It is only just under thirteen minutes and of course I’d have liked to hear more, but I think it’s a good length as if it was longer, there would have been more characters and I might not have remembered the individual stories so clearly. (I won’t give you more details about the stories because the writers tell them so much better than I could.)

There are quite a few different actors and I don’t know who played each role, but the actors are Keith Biley, Gerry Daniels, Eileen Sheppard and writers Wendy Buckley and John McRae. I thought they did really well with bringing the different characters across and making me care about the characters who are struggling and the people who help them and feel sad about the people who aren’t so good at helping.

There is a lot of really lovely music in this play. Some of the music is original and it is composed by Roly Botha, who also did the sound design. The music is very varied, but I enjoyed it all and there are some very good singers in the cast who I really enjoyed listening to.

 

This is a really wonderful play and I hope everyone will listen to it and enjoy it as much as I did.