From the Oswestry & Border Counties Advertizer, 4th February 2025

Longnor audience enjoys new play about Shropshire woman

On February 1, Longnor Village Hall was packed with an eager audience for the debut performance of ‘Miss Plymley Recollects’.

This dramatic monologue was written and performed by Alison Utting, a resident of north Shropshire. Ms Utting has gained recognition for her presentations that spotlight women from Shropshire’s past. Her first talk, as part of an Ellesmere project, was about Eglantyne Jebb, the co-founder of Save The Children. She then turned her attention to Dame Agnes Hunt, whose memoirs became the basis for ‘Aggie’, a dramatic monologue that captured audiences across the county and beyond.

Ms Utting said: "It has taken about a year to develop my new performance. "I was inspired by an exhibition at last year’s International Women's Day event in Wem Town Hall. Some students from Thomas Adams school had put together a display about important women from Shropshire’s history and I saw the name ‘Katherine Plymley’. Before that, I had never heard of her – and I suspect many people will be the same."

Katherine Plymley lived in Longnor, south of Shrewsbury, during Jane Austen's era. Her brother, Joseph, became an Archdeacon and was a passionate campaigner against injustice and poverty. He was closely involved with the movement advocating for the abolition of slavery and was friends with campaign leaders like William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, the Darwins, and Thomas Telford. The family was also visited by Black Africans Oloudah Equiano and Prince Naimbana.

Ms Utting said: "Luckily for us, I think Katherine had a sense of the historical nature of what she was witnessing, and she started to keep a journal. There are more than 200 handwritten notebooks held by Shropshire Archives, plus several large boxes of Katherine’s beautiful watercolour paintings of butterflies, moths, and insects. This is a treasure trove for me. Being able to read someone's own words and bring them to life for an audience is a really special experience."

Ms Utting's costume for the performance was made by Holly Kirby, a local Austen enthusiast, using genuine Regency patterns. The fabric, covered with a pattern of moths, is a nod to Katherine’s love of nature. 

The first performance was enthusiastically received by the audience at the hall, which is only a few hundred yards from the house where Katherine was born, lived, and died. Members of the Corbett family, descended from Archdeacon Joseph, and a Plymley cousin were present, along with visitors from Attingham Park and Powis Castle, both mentioned in the script. 

The audience stayed to chat over homemade cakes and tea provided by the Village Hall volunteers. They were also able to purchase copies of ‘Son and Servant of Shropshire’, a biography of Joseph, written by the late Douglas Grounds, with significant assistance from his wife, Adele, who was an honoured guest at the performance.

‘Miss Plymley Recollects’ will be performed at the Unitarian Chapel in Shrewsbury on April 26, at Ludlow Fringe in August, and at other venues yet to be confirmed. Ms Utting is also busy taking all three talks to W.I.s, U3As, schools, and history groups all over Shropshire and beyond.

Ms Utting said: "It is such a privilege to share the stories of these women. I love people coming up to me afterwards, saying that they’d never heard of this person but now they are going to be telling everyone about them. That’s a really special feeling and I hope Eglantyne, Agnes, and Katherine would be proud that people are celebrating them and keeping their names alive."

Letter to the Oswestry Advertizer, July 2023

"Shropshire audiences have been treated to a remarkable tour-de-force show shedding light on the remarkable life and story of one of the county’s most famous names.

You probably know that Agnes Hunt co-founded the Orthopaedic Hospital and Derwen College - but how much do you know about her life and how she got to that point?

Local author and performer Alison Utting has been getting rave reviews for her one-woman performance about a nurse who sowed the seeds for what is now Oswestry’s world-renowned Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital.

For many, Dame Agnes is frozen in photographic time as a stern-looking older woman. But black and white picture-portraits from the early part of the 20th century (Dame Agnes died in 1948) do tend to be stiff and formal.

But Utting’s thorough research into Hunt’s past, including through her diaries and letters, has been translated into ‘Aggie’ – a remarkable and dramatic stage monologue that brings both laughter and tears.

Utting sweeps across that stage, giving an enthralling insight into Dame Agnes’s life from day one, her fun and fortitude, her family life, finding love and finding her true path.

Hunt was determined to qualify as a nurse. Born in 1866, she became lame at ten when she contracted sepsis. She survived it, but suffered often excruciating pain throughout the rest of her life.

She also survived the early loss of her father, the rough and tumble of growing up with ten siblings, and a charismatic mother who at one stage whisked them all off to try out a new life in the Australian outback.

Utting’s mesmeric performance, using many of Hunt’s own words, brings both laughter and tears, paints pictures in your head of so many happenings in Hunt’s life, and introduces colourful characters along the way whom you feel are right there on stage with her.

‘Aggie’ finished its local tour at a sold-out Hermon Arts Centre in Oswestry – but deserves to be seen more widely."

James Bond.