Jun 24 2021 23 mins
“Meanderings”, River Cuckmere, Rosanna Lowe
An elderly woman reflects on her meandering life as it mirrors the bends and breaks of the River Cuckmere. Life is never quite what it seems on the surface and her winding journey finds diversity in the landscape and its inhabitants, proving that where there is life there is hope.
Credits
Written by Rosanna Lowe
Read by Jean Trend, Grant Brookes, Odi Oquosa and Rosanna Lowe
Recorded by Oliver Cherer
Edited by Elliot Lampitt
Commissioned and produced by Applause in partnership with the South Downs National Park Authority.
The final story mixes some verbatim material from interviews with fictional text. A very special thanks to Ollie Barber and Odi Okaka Oquosa for sharing their very personal stories. Thanks too to all the members of the Arts on Prescription creative writing group.
Thanks too to Ann Bloomfield of Active Arts and Chrys Brookes, Anthony Elvin, Jon Pratty of MSL Projects, Tara Reddy of Arts on Prescription, Phil Potter and Craig, Sarah Janes, Chris, Bill and Alice Lowe and Rosie Lee. And, of course, the rivers.
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Rosanna Lowe
Rosanna is an experienced writer, director and performer. Pieces she has written/directed have been performed in theatres in the UK, France, Malaysia and the US and include the devised show Hummingbirds at the Young Vic, nominated for a Total Theatre Award in Edinburgh, Chester Tuffnut at Polka Theatre, The Bacchae in the Cultural Olympiad and co-writing/co-directing portmanteau feature film London Unplugged. She has written two climate change radio plays, winning Radio 4 and IRDP awards. Her work often focuses on history, people and place and ranges from sketch-writing for TV series Horrible Histories to co-writing Brighton The Graphic Novel. She has worked in travel writing, winning awards with the Royal Geographical Society Award and The Times. She lived in Guatemala during its civil war and wrote Volcanoland, a travel narrative, collecting extraordinary stories and testimonies about the war and its aftermath. She was the commissioned writer for Goonhilly Village Green, a multidisciplinary festival celebrating the nature, heritage and community of Goonhilly Downs. She is currently the Lead Storyteller for interactive children’s show Printer’s Playtime. She has worked on various heritage and engagement projects with arts organisation MSL, creating a series of audio story poems called Ordinary Extraordinary inspired by Hastings residents. Rosanna has run numerous creative writing projects, often with children, but also with mothers from Holloway Prison and with Creative Future. She currently runs writing for wellbeing sessions for Arts on Prescription, which caters for people, like herself, with mental or physical health inequalities.