Jewels comes to Canal Cafe Theatre next month. Performances run 16-17 July.
Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about God. And God’s not happy.
It’s 1348. The Black Death is well on its way to wiping out London. Graveyard orgies are all the rage. With brothels blamed for angering God, it’s not a good time to be a prostitute. But Jules ‘the jewel’ of Cock’s Lane has a rare shot at safety as an anchoress: she just needs to be okay with being walled into a living grave as God’s eternal bride. To have and to hold, until death do them part. What divine ecstasy. So, what will it be? Sin, or salvation?
A recent graduate from Guildford School of Acting, Tanwen Stokes has just completed a sell-out tour of critically acclaimed new play ‘Mr Jones’ by Liam Holmes, deemed “theatrical gold”. (London Grip) On the heels of her “phenomenal performance” comes Stokes’ own writing debut in Jewels: a voyeuristic insight into some of the earliest writings of women in English, scribbled from the confines of their tiny stone cells (in-between vivid visions of a hunky Jesus).
Jewels’ protagonist Jules is named in tribute to the 14th century anchoress and mystic Julian of Norwich, her Revelations of Divine Love being the first known book in English written by a woman. “The material is a goldmine for comedy. It’s outlandish but raw” Stokes remarks, who specialised in medieval literature during her undergraduate degree in English at University College London. “It was important to me that Jules’ story, though partially fictional, could have really happened. There’s no need to exaggerate. Everything is based on documented events and writings, which were bonkers enough.”
Stokes is joined by director Miram Botzenhardt, whose background is in gender-based performance. Botzenhardt remarks: “I’m thrilled to be working with such a provocative script with female sexuality is at its core. It’s a ferocious and gloriously camp show, from which emerges a darker existential commentary on morality and free will.”
Complete with a bardcore score and original instrumentation from composer James MacManus, nuns just want to have fun in Jewels: an unapologetically subversive spectacle of the human spirit.
Written and Performed by Tanwen Stokes
Directed by Miriam Botzenhardt
Music & Poster by James MacManus
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