MEDIEVAL WOMEN IN CHARLBURY

Betty Stokes, a Radius council member, plays Dame Julian and Elisabeth Dalton, an Oxford lecturer in Medieval literature plays Margery Kempe.

Cell Talk, a new, award-winning play, imaginatively recreates the real-life historical encounter between two celebrated medieval women.

Julian of Norwich was an anchoress, enclosed in a cell where, at about the time Chaucer was writing the Canterbury Tales, she wrote an account of her spiritual visions. Her Revelation of Love is still treasured for its spiritual wisdom - Eliot’s Four Quartets cite her assertion that, though we suffer, ‘all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.’ Julian’s feast day is May 8th.

The controversial Margery Kempe, by contrast, bore fourteen children before demanding celibacy from her husband and becoming a pilgrim traveller. But haunted by her past life, her ‘gift of tears’ and continuing sexual desires, she came to Julian of Norwich in 1410 seeking validation and comfort.

The play contrasts the mad and chaotic world of Margery with Julian’s calm sanctuary, focussing on the funny and profound relationship between the two women.

 

Cell Talk is published by Radius (the Religious Drama Society of Great Britain) which has a tradition of promoting ground-breaking drama. Theatre Director of the Globe, Peter Oswald, calls the play ‘beautiful and inspired’.

Under the direction of the playwright, Dana Bagshaw, Cell Talk will be performed at St Mary’s Church, Charlbury, on Thursday 20th and Friday 21st June, as part of the Arts Festival. Admission free, with a retiring collection in aid of the Martin Chadwick memorial window.