In 2023 Cohere Arts were awarded funding from Arts Council England to support the development of a new performance project in collaboration with National Trust Sutton Hoo. Immortalised in the recent feature film The Dig, Sutton Hoo is the site of the famous 1939 excavation led by Basil Brown, which unearthed an Anglo-Saxon ship and the richest burial ever found in Northern Europe.
Early in 2023, Cohere’s artistic director and composer Amy Mallett completed an artistic residency at Sutton Hoo’s Tranmer House, once home of Edith Pretty, the landowner responsible for instigating the dig. Working with the support of National Trust Collections team, Amy spent 5 days examining archive material relating to key figures in the Sutton Hoo story, which included letters, diaries, documents, articles and photographs.
A new musical
The residency has inspired the development of a new musical theatre work Wonderful Things; an actor-musician piece retelling Sutton Hoo’s histories through the eyes of the many strong female characters often overlooked in popular accounts.
Now ghosts confined to the archive, the characters are woken by a visiting researcher and tell their stories through song; weaving timelines and perspectives in a haunting contemporary soundscape.
Voices include those of landowner and trailblazer Edith Pretty and her sister Elizabeth; King Raedwald’s unnamed queen who organised his burial and selected artefacts to bury with her husband, renowned archaeologist Peggy Piggott and children who were evacuated to Suffolk from London’s east end.
Also celebrated are teachers Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff (amateur photographers of the dig) and Land Army Girls who spent time living and working at Tranmer House during the 1940’s.
Reception so far
Through the early stages of development of the piece we have been delighted to share work in progress with Suffolk audiences. This has included a performance of selected songs at INK 2024 (a festival of new theatre writing in Halesworth) where we were joined by National Trust Sutton Hoo’s Sally Sibley who presented an engaging talk about Edith Pretty’s life alongside our songs.
We also appeared at The New Wolsey Theatre’s scratch night in July 2024, where Emily Bennett performed “He Must Never Know” accompanied by Francis Goodhand. In this song Edith Pretty’s sister Elizabeth sings of her concerns for her sister and her husband. TW: song explores themes of end of life.
“Heartfelt stories coming to life with the songs.”
“Absolutely loved the fact that it was rooted in letters, history and facts from the time. That took it to a whole other level.”
“I am so excited at the thoughts and concepts behind this idea.”
“Beautiful storytelling. Lovely themes and feeling/emotion conveyed.”
“Lovely work. Hope it gets to Sutton hoo!”
“Very moving songs.”
Audience feedback from scratch performances
Singing in Anglo-Saxon
Some of the songs in the piece are written in the ancient language used by the Anglo-Saxons at the time of the great ship’s burial. We were thrilled to be able to workshop musical ideas for one song with Norwich School’s fabulous Chamber Choir who not only got to grips with Anglo-Saxon but also enjoyed experimenting with the percussive elements in this processional song.