The true story of a small Derbyshire village that was hit by the plague in the autumn of 1665. The new rector William Mompesson persuaded the villagers almost single-handed to stay cut off from the world in order to stop the plague spreading throughout the county, and over the next 13 months 267 of the 350-strong community died. Within this story of sacrifice and heroism we see how the self-imposed isolation affected the community’s individuals. Despite the enormity of the tragedy, this is a life-affirming and still relevant drama, set to powerful music.

Eyam was directed by Jonathan Salt with Musical Direction by Brian Carter.

"devastingly good" - Hunts Post

"another brilliant production" - News and Crier

This was performed at Burgess Hall in St. Ives on 20th - 23rd July 2011 - Scroll down for stills from the show, interview with Eyam Cast Members on HCR104fm or if you missed our public stoning in St Ives catch it again below.....

Stoning in St Ives ?

Interview with Michael Burke on HCR104fm

Visit to Eyam

The company visited the plague village in the beautiful Derbyshire Peak District that is the inspiration for this emotional musical. The cast visited Eyam Museum to understand the facts and figures of the outbreak before making the uphill trek through the beautiful wooded hillsides above the village to the remote well where foods, mediciments and letters were exchanged with other villages during the quarantine. They were able to visit the houses and farms occupied by their characters and spent time in Eyam Church. The cast were able to reenact the oathes taken by the people of Eyam in the church when they agreed not to leave the village so the infection was contained. The company finished the day by collecting around the grave of the Village Rector's wife, Katherine Mompresson, and listening to a reading of a letter commisioned by the heart-broken rector to explain to his children how their mother had died.

Rehearsals

Eyam is a small village in Derbyshire, England. The village is best known for being the "plague village" that chose to isolate itself when the plague was discovered there in August 1665, rather than let the infection spread.

The plague had been brought to the village in a flea-infested bundle of cloth that was delivered to tailor George Viccars from London. Within a week he was dead. After the initial deaths, the townspeople turned to their rector, the Reverend William Mompesson, and the Puritan Minister Thomas Stanley. They introduced a number of precautions to slow the spread of the illness from May 1666. These included the arrangement that families were to bury their own dead and the relocation of church services from the parish church of St. Lawrence to Cucklett Delph to allow villagers to separate themselves, reducing the risk of infection. Perhaps the best-known decision was to quarantine the entire village to prevent further spread of the disease. The plague raged in the village for 14 months and it is stated that it killed at least 260 villagers with only 83 villagers surviving out of a population of 350. This figure has been challenged on a number of occasions with alternative figures of 430 survivors from a population of around 800 being given.

When the first outsiders visited Eyam a year later, they found that fewer than a quarter of the village had survived the plague. Survival appeared random, as many plague survivors had close contact with the bacterium but never caught the disease. For example, Elizabeth Hancock never became ill despite burying six children and her husband in eight days. The unofficial village gravedigger Marshall Howe also survived, despite handling many infected bodies, as he had earlier survived catching the disease.

Oldham Theatre Workshop commissioned Eyam, a new musical about the Derbyshire plague village, in 2005. Eyam was made the subject of a BBC One documentary Greater Love Hath No Man, which was screened on Good Friday 2006 and won the prestigious Premier Award from the Sandford St Martin Trust.

Performance