Adapted from Traditional Versions by Christopher Denys
An evening of bodice-ripping Melodrama and Victorian Ballads – of Virtue Seduced, Murder Concealed, Ghosts Wailing and Evil Punished.
Hiss the Villain – Adore the Heroine – Cheer the Hero - Wonder at the Cunning Disguises of Hawkshaw, the Detective.
Always the most popular of the barnstorming Victorian plays, the true (well, nearly true) story of the seduction and murder of village beauty, Maria Marten, by the evil, philandering Squire William Corder provides the most extravagant and exciting melodrama of them all.
There are romantic Gypsies, Mysterious Dreams and Ghosts crying out for Vengeance. There are Robberies, Poisonings, Shootings, Stabbings, Opium Dens, Red Indians and Arson before Hawkshaw - the Detective of many disguises - brings the Villain to the Gallows at last.
William Corder really did murder Maria Marten in the Red Barn at Polestead, Suffolk, and was hanged for his crime at Bury St. Edmunds in 1828 but it was the strolling actors of the day who brought their own characters, talents and imaginations to the tale to make it, quite literally, a ‘Barnstorming Triumph’.
Interspersed with the tuneful parlour ballads of the Victorian age and rustic knock-about comedy to offset the horrors and excitements, ‘The Murder in the Red Barn’ offers all the thrills and spectacle which made the Victorian Melodrama so universally popular.
