137: Exploring: N-Town, Plays 1 and 2 (Again!)

Exploring: The N-Town Play, a slow burn look at a medieval Mystery (sort of) cycle. The N-Town Play comes to us as a single manuscript, but it's a compilation of various different sources - including elements from what looks like a cycle and various other large scale productions focusing on episodes from the Bible.

The journey continues - in that we actually start all over again! We return to plays 1 and 2 as well as the relevant banns over a couple of sessions, trying to dig a little deeper into the text and think about staging. Go back a few episodes to see how far we've come, or go even further with some of the below links. There are quite a few...

For play 1, you can compare this play with our work on other fall of Lucifer plays - an Exploring session of Chester https://audioboom.com/posts/2158551-chester-plays-1-1-the-fall-of-lucifer (there's a part two, too) or our rough full cast audio adaptation here https://audioboom.com/posts/3529283-the-fall-of-lucifer-chester-mystery-cycle More variations exist and we'll get to them anon.

For play two - https://audioboom.com/posts/2449437-chester-plays-2-1-adam-and-eve (there's a part two, too) or our rough full cast audio adaptation here https://audioboom.com/posts/6379457-adam-and-eve-chester-mystery-cycle. And there are other variations coming in the next few months - so hang on in there.

The Beyond Shakespeare Irregulars this episode were Liz Cole, Richard Fawcett, Mark Scanlon, Alan Scott and Maria Walker – with host, Robert Crighton.

There are various online and purchasable versions available - here's a good one, but is in the original middle English and might put you off - others should be hunted for to taste.

Play 1: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/sugano-n-town-plays-play-1-creation-of-heaven-fall-of-lucifer

And Play 2: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/sugano-n-town-plays-play-2-creation-of-the-world-fall-of-man

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