Sea mysteries and women’s secrets in Shoreham

The result is Ploughing The Salt Sea which arrives at The Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham on September 5, complete with a free community workshop.

Bev Lee Harling never knew her maternal grandparents: her mother, Jan, was adopted at the age of nine. “She was a very secretive person and never spoke about her parents or family,” Bev explains. “After she died, I was left with holes in my understanding of who I am and where I belong.”

Bev began to plug the gaps, recording conversations with her father about her mother’s past, researching her family tree and visiting local museums. In the grip of these stories, Bev devised a performance influenced by traditional folk music and the comical and tragic stories she was uncovering about her Hastings fishing family.

Ploughing The Salt Sea represents a culmination of this research. Bev tells of a great uncle lost at sea; a dastardly grandfather running amok with the law; a great-greatgrandmother, proprietor of net huts down on Rock-a-Nore; and the decline in her own mother’s health. She shares precious memories, real and imagined. While exploring themes of the fishing-community, the show also connects universally to women, secrecy, loss and finding your own voice, Bev promises.

After each performance, the audience are invited to join an informal, post-show, community conversation with Bev: “This is our opportunity to come together and get to the heart of the experience we just shared.”

Tickets from venue.