Bentwater Roads: East Anglian Daily Times

GREAT SHOW IS A SLICE OF LIFE.

Atmospheric, even mystical, this sparkling new Eastern Angles production is also substantial and robust in its telling of four stories of the Bent Waters.

A pagan settlement, a medieval village, an air force base and prime real estate, this is about the land and the people who have inhabited it over the centuries.

At its heart is the modern tale of Charlie (Charlotte) who arrives in a campervan with a friend (male: platonic) after her mother's death to sell the family home. Except it isn't a family home for Charlie. Shunted off to boarding school she rarely saw her actress mother.

Her mother showed up one afternoon to tell the six-year-old Charlie that her father was dead and she had a new one.

Painful, deeply buried memories are forced to the surface when Charlie puts the house on the market and comes into contact with people who know more about her parents then she does.

Scratching below the surface, metaphorically and actually, we go back to the airbase at the time of the Rendlesham incident when a young air man considers his feelings for a local girl who is having his baby; further back to the time when Wantisden Church - an anachronistic feature of the airbase - was bequeathed a tower; and further back still to times when beliefs surrounded the sun, the rain and crops.

A chorus of pagans, a constant presence, watch the future.

Writer Toney Ramsey tells the stories episodically, interweaving the themes of fatherhood, love and decisions we make "for best". Moments of humour, sadness and tenderness are interlaced with local colour spanning two millennia.

There is a fine central performance from Nadia Morgan as Charlie and tremendous support from all the principles in all the time zones.

Sally Burnett as the medieval widow and the pagan mother was faultless and Daniel Copeland, who was, by ironic turns, an estate agent and medieval priest, possesses a rare talent for both comedy and gravitas.

Strong performances too from Pamela Bucher, beautifully spoken as Charlie's mother; Alexander D'Andrea as the sexy stonemason and the principled pilot; Mark Knightly as Charlie's un welcome suitor and the pagan lover; Caitlin Morgan, who shone as the young pagan maiden; Peter Sowerbutts as the combative neighbour; and Richard Sandells as the innocuous airbase clerk.

The Hush House is distinguished by its long, circular tunnel reaching back from the stage area. Used to enormous effect it was an entrance from, and exit into, the mists of time.

The sound effects, with a starring part of their own, were fabulous. When aircraft went over, I nearly ducked.

Tightly directed by Ivan Cutting, Bentwater Roads is a slice of Suffolk and a slice of life.