Cast

Margie

Originally created & played by Dorothy Lawrence up to 2011. In 2012, Kate Copeland took over for the tour.

Dorothy Lawrence

Trained: Drama Centre, London.
Theatre work includes: City Wives Confederacy (Greenwich Playhouse), Frozen (Riverside & national tour); The Great West Road (Newbury Watermill); Lilies on the Land (the Lions part & national tour); Broken (Ipswich Wolsey); Ultraviolet (Doo Cot, Ipswich); Hamlet (Third Party); Shirley Valentine, Love Child (Eye Theatre); And A Nightingale Sang, Seasons Greetings (Sheringham); The Aspern Papers (Empty Space); Intermezzo (Greenwich Theatre); Laura, Living Together (Ayr); Strippers (Westcliff); An Ideal Husband, Charlie’s Aunt (Gawsworth, Open-Air); The Turn of the Screw (Chester); Chairperson (Riverside Studios); The Way We Live Now (Eastern Angles); Sleeping Beauty (Polka); My Uncle Freddie (NTC Touring).
Television & film includes: A Woman of Substance (Portman Films), The Lady and the Highwayman (Gainsborough Films), Our Kate (LWT), Sorrel and Son (YTV), Ransome (BBC), Takeover (BBC), Models Required (YTV), Bunny Town (Disney).
Radio: The Great West Road (BBC); Walking in Big Footsteps (Radio 4).
Dorothy is a founder member of the Lions part.

Kate Copeland

Kate trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Theatre includes: Mrs Macbeth in The Judgement Of Macbeth and White Queen in Alice Through The Looking Glass (both for Theatre Royal, Bath); Nora in A Doll’s House, David Copperfield, A Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar, The Bay At Nice and the title role in Miss Julie all for the Mercury Theatre, Colchester; Sold (Theatre 503); Gwendolen in The Importance Of Being Earnest (GH Productions); Celia in As You Like It (Oxford Stage Company/Creation Theatre); Peter Pan (Duke’s Theatre, Lancaster); The Twelve Pound Look and The Browning Version (Jill Freud and Co.); Shaw Cornered (Yvonne Arnaud and tour); Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House (Acting With Insight); Secrets (Polka Theatre/Watershed UK Tour); Penthesilea (Gate); Les Contes Des Fees (Wonderful Beast); The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe (Royal Shakespeare Company).Film includes: Roman Polanski’s The Ghost; Pride And Prejudice (Working Title); Sanitarium (Cat’n’Cage Pictures); String (Father Films); Waving At Trains (Made Up North Productions).
Radio includes: The Rose And The Ring and The Dreaming Woman (both for BBC Radio 4).

Poppy

Created & played by Sarah Finch, except in 2011, when the role was played by Jo Castleton for that tour.  Sarah returned to the role for 2012 tour.

Sarah Finch

After drama school, Sarah was a founder member of Riding Lights Theatre Company, with whom she has done a number of new plays and The Winters’ Tale (Hermione and Paulina and Dorcas).  Seasons with RSC of Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winters Tale, Poppy, Peter Pan, Shooting Off, All’s Well that Ends Well.  Ring Round the Moon (Isabelle) and Twelfth Night (Olivia) at Regents Park. Miss Julie (title role) and The Merchant of Venice (Portia) for Compass Theatre Company.  West End credits include: Pirandello’s Henry IV, with Richard Harris.Other theatre includes Gaslight (Bella Manningham). Exuperey’s Little Prince; (Prince) Romeo and Juliet (Juliet) Bedroom Farce (.Jan) Midsummer Night’s Dream (Titania) Not I and Rockaby by Samuel Beckett and Holocaust Trilogy for Pascal Theatre Company.
TV includes Jane Fox, in Lytton’s Diary. Arabella Allen in The Pickwick Papers, Jane Austen in Letters to Alice, Josephine Butler in Scandalous Women. Penny Gyrth in Campion: Mrs Buckham in Catherine Cookson’s Gambling man, The Princess in The Princess and the Lute-Player.  Mrs Carbone in Hollyoaks, Clara Petacci in Ten Days To Victory. Feature Films include Man Dancin (Elizabeth Black), and Disney’s C.S.Lewis: Dreamer of Narnia (teacher and voice-over).
Radio includes The King Must Die (Macaria) Faust,(Quicklute) The Wittgensteins (Minnie Wittgenstein) At The Back of The North Wind (Mrs O’Hara).
Sarah is currently developing a piece about Etty Hillesum, with Tamsin Lewis, musical director, drawn from her letters and diaries. Sarah is a founder member of the Lions part, and one of the devisers of ‘Lilies on the Land’.

Jo Castleton

Jo trained at Middlesex University in Performance Art. Recent theatre includes Wind in the Willows and Oh What a Lovely War (Haymarket Basingstoke) Elephant 21 for Mayhem at the Royal Court Theatre Local.  Family Man (Theatre Royal Stratford East) Taken In (Drill Hall) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Haymarket Basingstoke) The Late Edwina Black, Suddenly at Home and Strictly Murder at Theatre Royal Nottingham where she as worked for 15 years as a member of the Summer Thriller Rep Season.  National Tours of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Ghost Train, Sailor Beware, Witness for the Prosecution, Spiders Web and Daisy Pulls It Off.  Magic Flute, The Mystery Plays, Oliver Twist and Shakers (Liverpool Playhouse) Edge of Darkness, and Death Trap (Nottingham) Perfect Pitch and Snake in the Grass (Chatham) Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz and Mrs Cratchit A Christmas Carol (Basingstoke).  Voice Overs – Brotherhood of the Daleks, Space 1889, The Tomorrow People and Sapphire & Steel.  Jo has just finished filming Fit by Rikki Beadle Blair. TV and Film includes Right Side of God as DC Naylor, “Auton2 and Auton3,  Cyberon and Doctors BBC.

Peggy

Role created & played by

Kali Peacock

Kali trained at Drama Studio London and with the National Youth Theatre.
Theatre includes: Teresa in Up The Duff, Mrs Perks in The Railway Children, Ensemble in Three Men In A Boat, Dunyasha in The Cherry Orchard (York Theatre Royal); Rachel in The Sea (Chichester Festival Theatre); Olivia in Twelfth Night, Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest (Oxford Shakespeare Company); Strawberry Tart in Hansel and Gretel and Fellowship and Goods in Everyman (Royal Theatre Northampton); Mrs Cratchitt in A Christmas Carol (The Shaw Theatre); Molly in Good Morning? (The Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh); Genie of the Ring in Aladdin (Oxford Playhouse); Nurse in Romeo & Juliet (The Daylight Players); Alex in Futures (Theatre 503); Lawyer in Five Kinds of Silence (The Old Red Lion); Ilse in Spring Awakening, (Jermyn Street Theatre) and Mrs Layden in They Shoot Horses Don’t They? (Bloomsbury Theatre).
For the Lions part; Flippanta in The City Wives Confederacy, Ceres in Springs Glorie, Wiggen in The Old Wives Tale, Doll in The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom.
Radio includes: Inside Alan Francis (BBC Radio 4).
Television includes: The Inbetweeners (E4), My Family, After You’ve Gone, Judge John Deed, Getting On, Doctors (BBC) and Where the Heart is (ITV).
Film includes: Helen Garvey in Down Terrace and Emma in Finding Neverland.

 

Vera

The role of Vera has been played by the following people:

(for the Lions part)

Natasha Tamar, Sonia Ritter;

(for Fresh Glory)

Rosalind Cressy, Sioned Jones & Catriona Martin.

Rosalind Cressy

Recent theatre work includes a national tour of Huck (Shapeshifter and Fresh Glory Productions); Lark Rise to Candleford  (Shapeshifter, Finborough Theatre); Chelsea (the Jane Fonda role) in On Golden Pond at Keswick, and creating the major role of Peggy in the UK No 1 tour of About Alice, with Gwen Taylor and Francis Matthews.

She is a member of the Lions part, with whom she has appeared as Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Olivia in Twelfth Night and Dame Chat in Gammer Gurton’s Needle, among other roles; she also co-produced the Mann 2000 Festival and a tour of A Sleep Of Prisoners and the original version of Lilies on the Land.  Other classical roles include Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (Theatre Set-Up), Silvia in Two Gentlemen of Verona (OSC) and Helen of Troy in Doctor Faustus (the Lions part on the archaeological remains of the Rose Theatre).  She has also played Martha Livingstone (another Jane Fonda role) in Agnes of God (Eye Theatre), Lisa in Dead Funny and Jacqueline in Don’t Dress for Dinner (both Chelmsford), and travelled all over England in touring rep.  She’s been on telly a few times but forgotten it all except Footballers’ Wives.

Sioned Jones

Sioned Jones trained at Exeter University and Webber Douglas. Her work in theatre includes Never So Good, Oedipus, All’s Well That Ends Well and Women Beware Women at the National; The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me at Birmingham Old Rep; Monumental for Grid Iron at the Glasgow Citizens; Twelfth Night at New Palace, Westcliff-on-Sea and Cambridge Arts Theatre; WOLF! Edinburgh and New Wolsey Ipswich; Moby! Octogon Yeovil and Northcott Theatre, Begin the Beguine Exeter & Devon Arts Centre. On tour and in the West End: Tolstoy, Glorious! The Letter and Shadowlands. Other London theatre includes Golden Opportunities, Diary of Anne Frank; Conor Mitchell’s Anthology and Old 100th; The Wild Party, The Windmill, The Cheeky Chappie, Big Voices on a Little Stage, Pippin, Have a Nice Life, Pub and her own one woman show, Christmas Presence (with Mme Charlotte-Ann Arcati) all at the the Union Theatre. TV includes Family Affairs, Cadfael and The Bill. Film includes Happy Now?, Flamenco Fever, Cleanskins and Madharasapattinam. Other work includes directing Lie Back In Anger, Basket and Streets in the City and producing Be My Baby; lyricist of the musical Ovid’s Transformations at the Waterfront, Belfast; and writer of The Juror at the Union Theatre. She is a founder member of the Authentic Artists Collective and is also an exhibited oil painter.

Catriona Martin

Since graduating from Drama Studio London Catriona has worked extensively in rep and touring theatre.
Some favourite roles have included:- Ruella in Communicating Doors for the Stephen Joseph Theatre on tour to the Cambridge Arts Theatre; Doris and Miss Candy in Second from Last In the Sack Race for Esk Valley Theatre; Nuria in Yerma for The Royal Exchange Theatre; Ruby in Cant Stand Up For Falling Down for Hull Truck, Martha in A Christmas Carol and Alice in The Wonderland Adventures of Alice for Manchester’s Library Theatre Co; Martha in The Passion Plays and Bessie in Sound the Last All Clear for Harrogate Theatre; Malcolme in Macbeth for The English Shakespeare Co; Laura Lyons in The Hound of the Baskervilles for Lancaster’s Dukes Theatre; Christine in Dancing at Lughanasa for Chelmsford Civic Theatre and Susan in Veronica’s Room at the Wimbledon Theatre; The Mermaid in The Fisherman and his Soul for Found Theatre; the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella and Mrs Beaver in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the Brewhouse Theatre.
Catriona devised and played the role of Waveney in Can Any Mother Help Me? for Foursight Theatre Co and Julia in The 39 Steps for North Country Theatre (now running in the west end).
She toured the country performing in a huge inflatable dome in IOU’s production Waylaid and spent ten glorious summers with Midsommer Actors performing in site specific venues ranging from national parks to derelict housing estates playing Phoebe in As You Like It, Hermia In Midsommer Nights Dream and Curleys Wife in Of Mice and Men.
On Television Catriona played Paula in The Silence for the BBC and Company Pictures; Mrs Smith in Seeing Red for Granada Film and has appeared in The Bill and Peak Practice.
Catriona is delighted to have this opportunity to honour all the inspirational heroines of the Women’s Land Army including her aunt, Connie Martin, land girl 1941 – 1949.

Creative Team

Sonia Ritter
Director

Sonia has 26 years experience as an actor in theatre, radio, television and film, including the RSC, RNT, Shakespeare’s Globe, BBC and theatres nationwide. She is the Artistic coordinator/co-founder of the Lions part, adapting and directing rarely performed verse plays for their Bankside festivals including May Games, October Plenty and Twelfth Night including Mummers and Robin Hood Combat Plays, St George and the Dragon, The Marriage of Wit and Wisdome, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, Hans Sachs’ Fastnachtspielen and The Canterbury Tales. Also for the Lions part: Lilies on the Land, A Sleep of Prisoners, The Year Clock and currently The Land (in whichshe performs): allNational Touring.Other work includes Entertaining Morocco: Theatro Technis, The Crystal Den: New Hampstead, Dr Faustus: Rose Theatre Site, Twelfth Night / The Story of Man and all That: Isle of Man Festival 2000, The Old Wives Tale/Summers Last Will and Testament: Shakespeare’s Globe Millennium Festival, Good Morning?: Edinburgh Festival, Taste: Le Preau Festival, France, The Comedie of Errors: St Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, Canada, The City Wives’ Confederacy Greenwich Theatre.

 

Jane Linz Roberts
Designer

Jane Linz Roberts has designed contemporary and classic work in the UK, USA, Canada, Romania, Ukraine, Germany and Australia, including:  Doctor Faustus  (National Theatre/Plymouth Theatre Royal); Seeing Without Light (Plymouth Theatre Royal); Pacific Overtures, The Good Woman of Sechuan, Captured Live (Leicester Haymarket); The Railway Children (Nottingham Playhouse/Oxford Playhouse, Peacock Theatre, London);  The Caretaker, Children of the Crown, The Silver Sword (Nottingham Playhouse); Listen to Your Parents (Nottingham Playhouse/Theatre Centre); The Gardener,(Nottingham Playhouse/ajtc); Double Indemnity  (Theatr Clwyd); Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Oxford Touring Theatre Company); The Whisper of Angels Wings (Birmingham Rep); Everything Must Go (Lyric Hammersmith); A Christmas Carol (New Victoria, Stoke); Shadow of a Boy, Waves in the Chatroom (Sherman Theatre); House of America (Fiction Factory/ Perth Festival, Australia); Song from a Forgotten City (Y Cymni/ Donmar Warehouse/ Royal Court/ Bonner Biennale/ Melbourne International Festival and Bulandra Theatre, Bucharest); Translations, (Theatre on Podol, Kiev); Cwm Glo (Theatre Gwynedd); / Bucharest); Translations, (Theatre on Podol, Kiev); and while Resident  at the Sherman,  Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night’s Dream, My Beautiful Laundrette, Under Milk Wood, Of Mice and Men, Everything Must Go and The Lost Child.

 

Michael Scott
Lighting Designer

Starting as chief and resident designer at the Adeline Genee Theatre in 1987, work followed as a freelance production electrician in London and the provinces before moving to Australia where work included the Sydney Arts festival. In 1988 Michael joined the Royal Opera House and worked for the Opera and Ballet companies in the UK, Europe, and the Far East, rising to the position of Lighting System Manager. Freelance since 2008 has seen work on various projects include Love Never dies, world premiere (Really useful comp).
Dance credits include Desirable Hostilities, First Drafts (Royal Ballet), No Hot Ashes, Don’t dress for Dinner and Out of the Blue (Diamond Dance). Theatre credits include Murder on the Nile, Flare Path, Same Time Next Year, Cymbeline, Cloud Nine, Macbeth and Little Murders. First Nights at the Garden, Phantoms and Tutti Verdi (Linbury studio) Edges, UK premiere (Edinburgh fringe).

 

Peter Readman
Composer/Arranger/Musical Director

A highly versatile musician who is equally at home with jazz, theatre and concert music, Peter Readman has been performing, directing and composing music for most of his life.
Prior to working on Lilies On The Land, Peter composed the score for Huck (UK tour & Southwark Playhouse), score for Katrina (Jericho House, dir. Jonathan Holmes), scores for the musicals The Dream Snatcher (2008 – Haberdashers’ Federation), Sadly Solo Joe (Greenwich Theatre 2003), Hooker! (2005). Vocal compositions include numerous songs and ensemble works, notably settings of John Donne poems, The Triple Fool and The Message premiered by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen (St Paul’s Cathedral 2007). Other works include Fractal Fugues for Piano (2008-09), Crystals for Harp and Chamber Orchestra.
Musical director credits include Sweeney Agonistes and The Mystery Plays (Bath Festival 2007-2009), Fallujah (Jonathan Holmes, 2007) and A Christmas Carol (Anvil Arts, Basingstoke, 2008).

 

Constance Mackenzie
Costume Supervisor

Constance has been making historical and theatrical costumes since she was a child.
She worked on costumes for the original tour of Lilies on the Land.
Other costume work includes: Colchester Mercury Theatre;Love and the Gentle Heart for Atlas Productions; Lilies on the Land & regular Bankside festivals for the Lions part; the Victoria and Albert Museum; Kentwell Hall; The Globe Theatre; the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust; London Children’s Ballet; Suzi Clarke Costumier; Passamezzo; Tamworth Castle.