Bill Bryden's Cottesloe Company, which flourished at Peter Hall's
National Theatre, was the English theatre's only true ensemble of the
last thirty or so years. "Impossible Plays" tells the story of
the company and the many actors and musicians connected to it.
Co-written by Keith Dewhurst, author of eight plays for the group, and
Jack Shepherd, a founder-actor, it explains the ideas behind the
company's work and how the work was staged, and provides an
idiosyncratic, lively and deeply personal take on the company.

"The search was always to find a popular theatre, a form of
theatre that would draw into it people from all backgrounds, not just
the cultured and the educated."

Beginning with a Royal Court Theatre Sunday night performance in
1970, the story of one company's aim to create a popular theatre form
includes such milestone productions as "The Mystery "cycle of plays and "Lark Rise to Candleford." With photographs by John Haynes, Michael Mayhew and Nobby Clark, "Impossible Plays "is a glorious and timely tribute to one of theatre's most innovative companies.

Flora Thompson was born in an Oxfordshire hamlet in 1876. She left school at 14 and went to work as a clerk in a small village post office until her marriage to John Thompson. She is perhaps best remembered for her semi-autobiographical trilogy which evokes, through childhood memories in the person of Laura, in a vanished world of agricultural customs and rural culture in England of the 1880s. Keith Dewhurst has adapted the trilogy into two plays "Lark Rise" which erects the first day of harvest from sunrise to sunset and, in contrast, "Candleford", which depicts a day in midwinter - to give a lively picture of typical country life of the period with music and songs. Commissioned by the National Theatre, the plays can be produced in a "promenade" style where audience and actors freely mix. With a flexible range of characters and a minimum of stage props, this play could be of value with amateur drama groups.