Linda Churchill
Linda Churchill - Dartmouth Playwright
Linda Churchill is a scriptwriter for the Dartmouth Players community drama group. She also directs and performs and is part of the group’s management team.
She has written most of the summer plays for the company since her first in 2007 – ‘The Perfect Man’, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s ‘An Ideal Husband’. Linda turned the lengthy play into a musical with two acts. Norman Cork wrote the accompanying music.
Dartmouth Players was established in 1929 by Cyril Maude, a former professional light comedy actor and has delivered more than 220 productions since.
Linda thoroughly enjoys writing scripts, having resurrected a childhood love.
She said: “I always thought I’d do something with writing when I was young. I used to enter competitions and win money for short stories in girl’s magazines such as Bunty and Jackie, and had poems printed in the letters pages too.
“Sadly, my father died when I was 15 and, as my brothers and sisters had left home, I stuck with my mum and went out to earn some money.
“As the youngest I was brought up like a single child and had to make my own entertainment. I had a lovely dolls’ house which fired my imagination and was the backdrop to many of my created stories and scenes.”
This vivid imagination has clearly fuelled Linda’s passion for writing plays. Another interest is history and research – she volunteers at Dartmouth Museum - and many of her scripts are adaptations of the lives of local historical figures.
During research for her play ‘From Floods Defend’ about the life of Thomas Newcomen, she discovered a previously unheard of bond for money Newcomen had borrowed to build his famous engine.
The play was performed as part of the Newcomen 300 year anniversary celebrations in July 2012.
She said, “Most people concentrate on the engine but I wanted to look at the story of the man.
“I started with what I already knew about him. I then found a bond for borrowed money and solicitors accusing him of not paying the money back. I included this breakthrough in the play, and one of his biographers in the audience said this was a fantastic, previously unheard of part of his story.
“I really like to get beyond the story, dig out the interesting details and see the whole person.”
Linda used the same approach in her 2008 play on John Hawley, ‘Blow The Wind Fair’, which begins with him in the Tower of London, on a questionable charge of his crew’s plundering of Spanish ships.
Linda’s passion for drama was ignited when her daughter Lorna started attending Judy Lewthwaite’s Strolling Playhouse group.
She said, “Judy wanted to do something for the millennium and I suggested Dartmouth of 1,000 years.
“In my first year here I must have read all the local history books from the library and I had so many stories of the town in my head.”
Linda helped Judy edit the play’s scenes, from Dartmouth’s beginnings in Townstal as a Saxon settlement to the present day. The play was performed at St Saviour’s Church.
With her enthusiasm firmly ignited, Linda joined the Dartmouth Players and studied how plays are created, with stage directions and contrasts of high and low scenes.
She said: “I started to watch plays more critically, analysing them and starting to think of scenes in my head. I felt that so many plays were too long, dated and gave things away too quickly.”
Through the Dartmouth Players she met her partner Bill Hunt, who writes the company’s pantomimes.
She has also performed as an extra in BBC’s The Mrs Bradley Mysteries.
Linda moved to Dartmouth in 1986 with her first husband and two children, Lorna and Richard. She grew up in Wolverhampton and worked for ten years as a civil servant, including as a librarian. She said, “We built a house in the Shropshire countryside and bought two properties in Wales which we rented out. We also had a boat in Wales and decided we wanted everything in one place, so toured the South West to find the ideal location.”
Linda first came to Dartmouth in 1985 and was instantly smitten. She added: “My husband already knew the town from sailing here and I fell in love with the place. I especially liked the history of the buildings.” They bought a Georgian house in Anzac Street and converted it into tearooms, before moving to Yorke House where she still lives.
“My sister owned an estate agency and fuelled my passion for nice houses and renovations. I enjoy the challenge of the before and after.
“It is the same with creating plays - from nothing to a stage show with actors, set, lighting and sound effects.”
The ability to create stories runs in Linda’s family. Her brother Peter is a published author and her father used to make up stories for his children at bedtimes.
Last summer, Linda excelled with her play ‘Edie’ – based on the infamous storm of 1917 that destroyed Hallsands. Linda also played the lead role. All performances were sold out and there was a waiting list for tickets. She said, “I based the play on Edie, who lived on as a recluse at the derelict Trout Hotel after the storm. It was a very atmospheric play and very emotional for everybody, including the cast and audience.
“The idea came from a walk I took through the village, back in the 1980s, when it hit me what an awful but amazing story of heroism had occurred.” Her most recent play, ‘Millionaire’, was performed this June and is Linda’s first comedy to date.
She explained: “Everyone decided we should try for a comedy this year so I wrote a story based around Mrs Sutherland and her three girls, loosely based on TV’s Mrs Brown’s Boys.
“One of the girls, Rosemary, decides she’s going to find and marry a millionaire in Dartmouth. She has big ideas and is heading for a downfall.”
With Linda’s trademark enthusiasm and vivid imagination, there is great fun and a lovely twist in the end of the tale.
Linda has worked on several other scripts including Spooks, Silver Street, Hits From The Blitz, Dangerous Liaisons and Daughter of England, as well as plays on Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters and Jane Eyre.
It has been suggested that Linda should take her plays further, but she is more than happy to contain her success within Dartmouth and is clearly very content with her life here.
She said: “Hearing the audience laugh, applaud and enjoy a performance that has come from my idea is its own reward for me. I just love writing them and have lots more in my head for future years.
“Dartmouth Players is a very absorbing hobby and all done in our spare time.
“We welcome new people of all ages to the group and train young people for the stage.”
See www.dartmouthplayers.org.uk for more details.
By the Dart August 2014