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Taste Lancashire Produce Evening at The Sparrowhawk, Fence

Lancashire food blogger Andrew Stevenson joined us at The Sparrowhawk in Fence for last week’s Taste Lancashire Produce Evening.
Here’s what he thought...

smoked haddock rarebit with Leagrams Lancashire cheese

This was the last in the current series of Taste Lancashire evenings, where Lancashire restaurants have been teamed up with a local producer to showcase both the restaurant and the producer. On this occasion the restaurant was the Sparrowhawk in Fence, and the producer was Leagram Organic Dairy of Chipping. 

SABBAT - A spell-binding drama inspired by the Lancashire Witch Trials 1612

Written by Richard Shannon, directed by Amy Leach and produced by The Dukes, Lancaster.

It could have been the long shadows growing across the solid stonework, the elongated pointed fingers of outstretched hands picking at the walls, the air thick with history in Hoghton Tower’s banqueting hall ... but Sabbat, The Dukes’ touring production about the Lancashire Witches, moved me more than any theatre piece has moved me for some time.

The 4 cast members owned the small performance space, with the room’s finery and antiques adding another character and dimension to the piece, slipping stealth-like around the audience and drawing us into the action. Such intimacy, when the performances are so equally matched, makes for truly engaging theatre but I have to admit (and I’m sure this is the skill of writer Richard Shannon and Director Amy Leach) that we are cleverly drawn to each of the characters in turn, have sympathy for them all and their social situation but ultimately know that some great wrong is being done here – and that wrong is meted most on Alice Nutter and Jennet Device.