Ripon Theatre Festival Director, Katie Scott, witnesses a magical evening where 2000 years of British history unfold under the stars, complete with Vikings rising from water, charging horses, and a full moon that appeared precisely on cue at this epic outdoor spectacular in County Durham.

There was palpable magic on a glorious British summer’s evening at Kynren on Saturday night. As the music faded on a scene which celebrated a Georgian Harvest Festival, the most perfect and huge full moon rose above the back of the performance zone – dead centre and precisely on cue. We really did have to ask ourselves if it indeed was the moon, or part of the production. This interweaving of reality and fiction is all part of the Kynren experience. When the stage incorporates the natural backdrop of County Durham countryside including both the real and the fabricated Bishop’s Palace and when the audience sits with only the skies above them and North East accents re-tell tales across centuries, it is easy to feel time shifting as the stories unfold.

Celebrating its 10th season, Kynren is described as an epic tale of England. It is narrated by Arthur, a fictional ten-year-old boy who travels back in time to witness pivotal moments in the history of the British Isles. Passing through the Gatehouse of Time, young Arthur sets off to learn The Story of Us, presented by hundreds of local performers. The massive 'stage' – much broader than it is deep - is used like a cinema screen on which history marches past, chronological and familiar but cleverly splicing 2000 years into 90 minutes.

The Story of Us is an attractive proposition and a neat way of telling a local tale (with specific Bishop Auckland and North East references) interwoven into national and world events. Told through the eyes of a child it makes for a strong narrative which quickly hooks an audience of all ages. As Arthur goes on his quest to learn who he is and where he comes from, there’s something for everyone, with football and popular culture lined up alongside kings and queens, bishops and miners, Churchill, Shakespeare, Vikings, Romans and the suffragettes. The use of local performers gives added poignancy and reflects the meaning of Kynren (family, generation). You could hear a pin drop when cartloads of coffins are drawn by heavy horses across the stage, marking one of the many pit disasters of the region’s industrial age.

Kynren is a wonderful, if peculiar spectacle. A proper pageant in the British tradition of heraldry, community enterprise, flag-waving and holiday festivities, it is also European in feel – a version of the living history shows staged at large historic sites across the continent. We learn from the programme that the producers, 11 Arches, took much of their inspiration from the hugely successful Puy de Fou spectacle in the Loire. This pride of place and history-as-theme-park approach infuses the show.

The show is cleverly directed to work on a large canvas with dancing, battle scenes and crowd events carefully choreographed to maximise the thrill of scale and spectacle. It took a while for the theatre-goer in me to relax with the recorded dialogue, mimed by performers and relayed at a loud and unmodulated volume.

Likewise the gestural style of acting required to carry across the distance from stage to audience is necessarily cartoonish – probably not unlike that needed by Ancient Greek actors. But this is not a theatre piece, it’s a pageant requiring a different suspension of disbelief and a different way of watching. With scenes being acted out simultaneously in multiple locations, Kynren needs judging in a different way. There’s a real joy to be had in taking in the sheer ambitious scale of Kynren and the marvellous use of the natural environment coupled with theatre magic. A magnificent water feature is used as river, sea and moat throughout the show. Viking ships rise from it, Queen Bess’s barge is rowed across it and it beautifully reflects the flaming torches, fireworks and flares which feature throughout the evening.

The music, written by young composer Nathan Stornetta, fitted the bill with the required mythic and filmic quality. Faux-celtic themes gave way to vast choral and symphonic pastiches in the expected Lord of the Rings style. But it worked for the demands of the pageant and was well paired with the lights, pyrotechnics and projections which really did have unique and clever moments. The use of artistic spouts of water, lit to resemble vaulted cathedral arches was a stunning and original effect. The projections help drive the narrative and lead the audience’s emotions as they are led from re-creations of Shakespeare’s handwriting to the glorious technicolour of a Tudor tournament, through to an apocalyptic industrial backdrop and a sea of poppies as the First World War was marked.

The animal performers are a huge part of the joy of the event with magnificent grey horses the stars of the show, taking part in scenes of warfare, jousting, agricultural and domestic life. With tiny children towed in miniature carts by goats, rare breeds of cattle paraded alongside cute donkeys, herds of sheep racing across the stage and flocks of geese being chased by charming dairymaids, what is not to like?

This is history straight from the pages of a 1950s children’s book, complete with colourful and often anachronistic touches. Kynren continues that traditional mixture of myth, legend and history that our forebears happily spouted before we became uncomfortable with notions of Empire or thought to challenge patriarchal and imperial interpretations of our island story. The slightly awkward nod to 20th century immigration with images of the Windrush generation stood out from the succession of familiar British tropes, all leading to fireworks and the waving of union flags, complete with Land of Hope and Glory, Proms style. But we joined the rest of the audience in enjoying a reliably linear and comforting narrative of British nation-building.

The whole visitor experience was certainly impressive – the scale of the facilities, the commitment and quantity of local volunteers and the seamless customer service from start to finish was remarkable. Everything from well-organised parking and shuttlebuses to speedy queues for food, drink and loos put many a theatre and visitor attraction to shame. And all meted out with friendly northern good-cheer and evident local pride.

Kynren offers the special atmosphere of open-air theatre, the thrill of a stadium gig and the joy of a village fete rolled into one. Horrible Histories notwithstanding, when most teenagers seem unable to tell their Cavalier from their Roundhead or to name more than one Shakespeare play, Kynren offers a great family event where some of our nation’s history might just sink in.

Kynren is performed at 11 Arches Park in Bishop Auckland, just 25 minutes from Durham and Darlington.

The performances are every Saturday from 19th July to 13th September.
Performances start at sunset and last 90 minutes. Check website for performance times as they vary.

For more information and show dates click here

Tel: 01388 436030 or email info@kynren.com