A NEW production inspired by a Co Down nurse’s sketchbooks from the First World War will be performed in Belfast this weekend and next.
The Box is written by Carlo Gebler and directed by Paula McFetridge of the theatre company Kabosh. Starring Gerard Jordan and Abigail McGibbon, it tells the tale of Olive Swanzy, a Newry nurse who served during the Great War.
Swanzy kept sketchbooks and filled them with poems, cartoons, sketches and notes by the soldiers she cared for. Alongside her own paintings, the archive gives a new insight into the real men and women who fought and lived during the war.
This remarkable archive of material lay forgotten for decades in a box in an attic in Rostrevor before it was discovered again. The nurse’s house was sold after her death but it was only when when the new owner was downsizing and selling everything left in the house before going to live abroad that artist Marie Claire Douglas noticed the watercolours for sale, bought the box for £50 and framed the paintings.
Years later, she decided to take a more detailed look at the contents of the box.
“I was staggered by what I read, I was in floods of tears and I realised I would have to do something about this,” said Douglas.
:: The Box runs at the Ulster Museum on Saturdays and Sundays this weekend and next at 12pm & 3pm (www.kabosh.net). Tickets (£5) available from the museum, online at nmni.com/um/What-s-on or by phoning 028 9044 0000. You can get a look behind the scenes of the production by watching the Northern Visions (NVTV) feature: http://www.nvtv.co.uk/shows/collapse-the-box-the-box/
