Following on from the success of “Midwinter Dreaming”, the Bergh Apton Community Arts Team with Hugh Lupton, Charlotte Arculus and Mary Lovett developed another event, quite different in character but with its own magic.

 

Songline for Doggerland was a performance exploring the theme of inundation.

 

It was performed in Bergh Apton Church on Friday 2nd, Saturday 3rd, Friday 9th & Saturday 10th February 2018.

 

It was written by Hugh Lupton (with help from the Bergh Apton community through a series of writing workshops) and was being directed by Charlotte Arculus with musical director, Mary Lovett.

 

The play was in three sections.

 

The first told the story of the inundation of Doggerland 8,000 years ago when the melting of the ice-age glaciers overwhelmed the land-mass that once joined East Anglia to the continent of Europe.

 

The second section imagined the early years of the science of geology in the nineteenth century – a time when Biblical explanations of the origins of the world were being challenged by new information. Questions were raised: Was the inundation of Doggerland the flood that Noah survived? Were the fossil bones that were being found and identified the relics of the drowned creatures that didn’t get onto the ark? What was the timescale of the creation of the world? Old beliefs were being inundated by new facts.

 

The third section looked at the contemporary threat of inundation: global warming, rising sea-levels, and a new melting of the ice-caps.

 

The performances were light-hearted but with serious under-currents. Those taking part included actors, writers, makers and technical assistants mainly drawn from the village and surrounding area.