fEAST visits Old Buckenham

The boys are coming

This event was first planned two years ago but ‘Canada Boys’ will now be coming to the Village Hall this month. it is from the same group that brought us the entertaining ‘Rosa’ at the end of last year so the Village Hall is looking for a full house at this evening performance. fEAST Theatre will be performing ‘Canada Boys’ on Friday 25 February starting at 7.30 pm. Tickets are £10 and to reserve your tickets ring 07880 660 444 or email bookings.obvh@gmail.com.

In March 2020 fEAST Theatre, one of the region’s leading touring companies, was starting the final week of rehearsals for The Canada Boys. The show, which was to have been the first of three tours to mark fEAST’s tenth anniversary, had been booked into venues across the region, including here in Old Buckenham. Then the pandemic surged and costumes and the touring set was put into storage, like thousands of other arts events in 2020. The Canada Boys was a show that never happened. Now nearly two years later our Village Hall is delighted to be one of the 15 venues across Norfolk and Suffolk where Canada Boys can be seen. 

The show will return with its original cast - including Nimmo Twins star Owen Evans.  This ‘sad comedy’, set in Norwich in 1912, resonates with Norfolk voices and locations and is based on a powerful, true, Norfolk story. In April 1912 the world-famous Colman’s mustard factory in Norwich, concerned by rising unemployment in the city, offered its workers a once-in-a life-time opportunity to start a new life on the other side of the Atlantic. The British Dominion of Canada was desperate for workers to help farm the vast plains of Ontario. Any Norwich men brave enough to sign on received a new pair of boots, a travelling suitcase, two complete sets of underwear and a ticket to the new world. Based on true events, Rob John’s The Canada Boys tells the story of Jack and Eddie Craske, two brothers who’d never ventured further west than Wymondham and were tempted to step into the unknown and make that life changing voyage to Quebec.