Poisoned Beds

May 21, 2024

21st – 25th May 2024

Water companies are pumping untreated sewage into the sea. Wild life is suffering. People are falling sick.

Sounds familiar?

In today’s world protests flood in from wild water swimmers, surfers, environmentalists and Devon residents reduced to boiling toxic tap water

More than a century ago the activists were more likely to be Suffragettes.

Poisoned Beds is a remarkable play about the shocking poisoning of our waters. But what is even more remarkable is that this plot is from 120 years ago when foul water was pouring into Emsworth harbour, the famous Hampshire home of one of the finest oyster beds in Europe.

Set in December 1918 this is the captivating story of an Edwardian woman’s personal liberation set against the fight for suffrage and the death of the Victorian oyster industry that in its heyday sent 100,000 of these delicious shellfish to London each week.

“Poisoned Beds is a collaboration between theatre writers, Mosse and Flannery, who combine comedy and pathos, sharp dialogue, unexpected plot twists and witty lyrics thanks to composer John Gleadall…”

Elizabeth Wells, played with finesse and tenderness by Paula Tinker, is preparing a concert to celebrate women’s suffrage and the end of the Great War. But she cannot celebrate the future without reconciling herself to her secret, tragic past.

Elizabeth is born and bred in Emsworth where her father has made his fortune from oysters, operating a fleet of fishing vessels. That fortune is a magnet to wannabe MP Roderick Wells who comes courting. ‘You’ll never do better,’ she recalls her father counselling. Her mother rightly warns: ‘I doubt he’ll make you happy, child.’

The naive and very young Elizabeth recalls her hasty courtship with the ambitious, much older Wells and the even hastier wedding night at the Savoy when the groom deserts the marital chamber for his gentlemen’s club. Or so he says.

There’s depravity and incest on his side, portrait painting and French lessons on hers in this very unequal marriage. Her unhappiness is compounded by her inability to conceive. She never considers the possibility that his association with a variety of ‘women of the gutter’ might be a factor.

Driven to suicidal despair at his debauchery in this loveless marriage she stares into the harbour waters of her home town. And instead of clear, clean water she can no longer see the seabed.

The state of her marriage is as murky as the seas around the oyster beds that employ so many of the townspeople. Her warnings to the Emsworth’s bigwigs go unheeded. Men running profitable businesses would not heed women’s voices.

Her edict to her cook: ‘We will no longer be serving Emsworth oysters’ is probably a life-saver. Meanwhile diners at two mayoral banquets became infected from typhus from the popular delicacies. Four died, including the Dean of Winchester.

This is very much a local production with Paula Tinker, Greg Mosse, Lucy Flannery and John Gleadall all faring from around the Emsworth Havant area in Hampshire. This is where Poisoned Beds started a tour in 2019 but was forced to close during the pandemic lockdown.

All four share concern for the perilous state of our coastline and seas, fearing over-development and consequent pollution. Their hope is that this play can help raise awareness of the environmental damage to our coastline.

As actor Paula Tinker suggests: ‘What with water pollution, the environment and Thames Water this play is so pertinent. We have performed twice in Emsworth, and living nearby makes it terribly poignant for me.

‘This is an exact parallel to Thames Water. When things go belly up they keep on paying their shareholders.’

Poisoned Beds is a collaboration between theatre writers, Mosse and Flannery, who combine comedy and pathos, sharp dialogue, unexpected plot twists and witty lyrics thanks to composer John Gleadall who accompanies the one-act script on stage with impressive guitar playing.

After a short interval the audience of this basement theatre below the Curtain Up pub were invited to join in more Songs of the Sea, and chat informally with the performers. A competent baritone and a mezzo soprano added some oomph to the sea shanties.

Saucy, salty lyrics mixed with sing-along simplicity of tunes from Ireland and Scotland had the small but keen audience in full throttle and foot-tapping mode. Any melancholy was dispelled like sea mist, but the powerful environmental message remained. Unlike the oyster beds of Emsworth…