HEADING WEST
A Play by Philip Goulding
Minimum Cast 3m 2f Maximimum Cast 11m 11f
In the middle years of the nineteenth century more than two million men, women and children abandoned the British Isles and headed west to America. Amongst them were a number of farm labourers and their families. These men and women, fearful of the new free market in foreign corn, and seeking to avoid at best a reduction in prosperity, and at worst destitution and the workhouse, chose to uproot to a New World that - it was rumoured - could be both tamed and owned. Despite popular opinion, the voyage out would not be easy. Seasick, homesick and herded like cattle, the emigrants were swindled, robbed, insulted and terrorised at every stage. Some would not even manage to make it all the way across the Atlantic. Set in England and America, Heading West follows the journey of Lizzie Wilson, her husband Edward (a carpenter and occasional bareknuckle fighter), and her farming partner George Ash. Together they travel from rural England to the bustling port of Liverpool. Having booked their passage to America they then endure a harrowing trip across the Atlantic, until the green shores of New England are sighted at last. After a short stay in New York they head up the Hudson River to Albany and then on to the Merrimack Valley. Will they eventually have the opportunity to build the kind of life Lizzie's long been dreaming of: at home on a farm in the Land of the Free - or will fate and circumstance ultimately intervene to split the trio up, spreading them far and wide across the seemingly endless expanse of America?
Alison Ball and Tim Treslove in Heading West, directed by Kevin Shaw.
Photograph by Ian Christy.
In 1852, more than 49,000 men listing their occupation as "farmer" emigrated from the UK to America. Heading West charts the lives of three of them from scratching a scant living on an English farm, through the dangerous bustle of the Liverpool docks, across 35 days of open sea to New York, and on, via the sharks feeding on the innocent and exhausted emigrants, to a farm in New England. This is powerful drama, illuminating the world of the emigrants. Heading West is a fascinating play. (Blackmore Vale Magazine)
This is drama on a grand scale peopled with richly Dickensian characters, adventure, hardship, tragedy and a sprinkling of comedy. Theatre doesn't come any better than this. (Dorset Echo)
There are no dull moments and many comical ones. A cleverly constructed and vivid play. (The Stage)
Heading West designer David Haworth has created a box of tricks from rope and wood to transform into settings to take one poor farming family from old England to New England in the 1850s. Playwright Philip Goulding depicts the Wilsons - brawny Edward and cheerful hardworking Lizzie - letting them represent the many thousands of people who emigrated to try to escape poverty. The play is full of colour and warmth, brimming with lively characters and capturing a haunting era. (Salisbury Journal)