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The Unknown Land

By Caroline Small

To book the show:  Tel  01433 621 624  or email

To see the show:  See tour dates below

The year is 1844.  A man answers a newspaper advertisement inviting him to join a ship bound for arctic waters

to explore the unknown wastes north of Greenland. 

What does he hope to find?   What drives him relentlessly on like Davis and Baffin before him?  

Was there something in his past life which compels him to travel to this inhospitable place?

Or is it simply that he desires something - the fulfilment of some deep, unarticulated dream?

His experiences on the voyage, the loneliness, the strength-sapping treks across the ice and the merciless cold, change him forever.

As his story unfolds, the certainties of his early life are stripped away. 

In extremis, we see what really drives him as he comes face to face with death.

The Writer

Caroline Small is a playwright, director, performer and storyteller.

 She writes scripts for children’s theatre, youth theatre, adult audiences and for audio drama.

Her work with Cotton Grass Theatre includes

 Into the Rose Garden, The Hollow Country, Black

Bread and Tired Feet, Gardens of Delight, Coupled up and The Un-returning Army.

Recent projects include Cabbage and Custard, an audio drama for children, and

Travels with a Broken Heart, a collaboration with singer Carol Bowns and pianist Heidi Rolfe.

The Director

Alan Meadows  has played many leading roles in Rep and on tour. He has directed most things from Panto to Pinter,

as Associate Director of the Manchester Library Theatre and freelance. He has written for stage and radio and

appeared in Heartbeat, The Royal, Coronation Street, The Clinger, Emmerdale and How We Used to Live.

While living in Greece for some years he wrote dozens of short plays to assist in the learning of English,

and children’s stories on the Internet.

For Cotton Grass, he directed Sherlock Holmes and Final Problem

In 2002 , with two other actors, he started Yellow Leaf Theatre

The Performers

David Frederickson was a Sheffield City Councillor in the 1980s before training as and actor at the Bristol Old Vic. 

He has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as a variety of regional reps

and his television work includes parts in Heartbeat, Emerdale and At Home With The Braithwaits.

He has recently completed a run of Alan Bennett's Single Spies

at the West Yorkshire Play House in Leeds and at the Theatre Royal in Windsor

David joined Cotton Grass Theatre in January 2000

He has performed in Black Bread & Tired Feet   La Ronde

A Chip in the Sugar, The Un-returning Army  The Crow in the Know  

Sherlock Holmes and Final Problem

Keith Kendrick is a professional singer of English traditional songs of land and sea

 and a celebrated exponent of the English and the Anglo-German Concertina.

He recently co-created and co-directed the music for Jason and the Argonauts, Holding Fire and Look Sharp,

appearing at theatres around England, including Warwick, Greenwich, Brighton and in at Shakespeare’s Globe.