MRS BAKER’S COMPANY
Written and performed by Alison Neil
Directed by David Collison

Mrs Sarah Baker shone brightly as a theatre manager at the beginning of the 1800s.  She started performing as a child in her family’s troupe at the famous Sadlers Wells pleasure gardens.  She never learnt to read, but she could dance on a rope. Her family toured the country, eking out a living as entertainers, but classed as ‘rogues and vagabonds’ who could be run out of town or imprisoned at the whim of a local magistrate or mayor.

Sarah Baker formed her own company and struggled cheerfully to gain respect – and respectability – against almost impossible odds. Her fascinating story is that of the ‘strolling players’, a world of make-believe and slapstick, mixing with the highest and the lowest, providing a touch of magic wherever they stopped their wagons and erected a stage.

Sarah recounts her adventures in Alison Neil’s latest one-woman show.  Her struggles and triumphs are both moving and inspiring, and as Mrs Baker would say, shows what you can do with just three things: good health, good luck, hard work and some very good friends. 

She couldn’t add up, either.