A bright summer’s day with a forecast of evening rain kept eyes raised skywards in anticipation of the evening’s scheduled performance by The Mikron Theatre of “Raising Agents” their show about the Women’s Institute, outlining the history of the WI from its early beginnings in Canada in 1897, its start-up in 1915 Anglesey, Wales, to this their Centenary year of 2015, at The Pig Place by the canal at Adderbury, where their 1936 Grand Union Carrying Company barge, Tyseley, was moored-up during this summer’s touring season.
The Mikron troupe of travelling players with their 44 year-history of theatrical presentation of plays which both entertain and inform, were bang-on-the mark with their fast-paced re-telling of the WI’s 100-year history of sisterhood, support, education and leadership of and for the nation’s female population from the isolated country woman in her state of rural poverty, the era of restricted female education and cultural domination, the terrible days of WW1 and WW2, the hardship and cultural inequality of a recovering nation and the emerging state of modernity and social change, right through to today’s modern womanhood, as a force for universal good, friendship and life-enhancing powerhouse activity.
The plot revolves around fictional Bunnington WI which is in an unhappy state of low membership and funds, struggling to meet running costs and pay for good speakers. A new member presents herself who soon displays a zeal for renewal and reinvention by her promotion of the group as the Bunnington Bunnies, setting herself against traditionalist ideals, alarming the members and threatening their very existence. The newcomer is a PR guru, modern and outgoing but lonely and friendless and it is friendship and togetherness which save the day, holds the group together and gives them a future.
The Mikron Theatre as Bunnington WI
The four-member troupe put on outstanding and highly entertaining performances for their Adderbury tour-date which the eventual rain fall during the interval, did nothing to impair either the actors’ presentation or the attention of the audience, who were completely engaged with this lively, very funny professional production.
Margaret Halstead