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There are some more photos of this production below. Selecting any of the small thumbnail images will show a larger version of the picture in the main part of the page. »

  1. Hatch moves towards the audience holding a knife. Behind him is a drowned body
  2. Hatch talks to local men in his shop
  3. Hatch brandishing tailers scissors threateningly
  4. A distraught and tattered Hatch at bay surrounded by the villagers
  5. Hatch desecrates the body of the drowned boy

The Sea by Edward Bond - Hatch

- BOVTS at the Bristol Arts Centre, Bristol. Directed by Chris James.

The Sea, a comic tragedy or a tragic comedy, depending on how you look at it, is probably Bond's finest play. Ultimately, it is about how we respond in the face of death. In a small and claustrophobic East Coast village in 1907 a young man has drowned during a storm at sea, leaving his fiancée and his best friend grieving and bereft. Meanwhile, Mrs. Rafi, the local 'Lady Bountiful', rehearses her amateur playgroup. In the middle of this, Hatch, the village draper, is slowly going insane believing aliens are walking among us and are replacing the brains of ther village inhabitants with machines.

As this scenario plays out with tragic inevitability, Bond uses the sea as an oppositional image of vastness in contrast to the suffocation of the village life, as well as a metaphor for cleansing destruction and re-creation.

This was a really meaty part to get at the tender age of twenty, and I'm not sure that I ever did it justice -check out the classic 'damning with faint praise' review below! Chris James directed the piece beautifully in austere shades of black and white. The drowned man was portrayed by a very realistic dummy (see below) created by Bill Butt!

"I am sure Jon Glentoran was only too aware of the challenge he had in portraying Hatch - local draper and murderer. He did very well."

Hatch moves towards the audience holding a knife. Behind him is a drowned body
Hatch talks to local men in his shop
Hatch brandishing tailers scissors threateningly
A distraught and tattered Hatch at bay surrounded by the villagers
Hatch desecrates the body of the drowned boy