A DARTMOOR-based theatre company celebrating its 30th anniversary has secured National Lottery support to explore the impact of World War Two in rural Devon.

MED Theatre, a community theatre based at Moretonhampstead, has received a £40,000 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant for their new, exciting heritage project Dartmoor, Devon and World War Two.

The project will look at the impact of the global crisis of the Second World War on rurally isolated areas of Devon and what we can learn from it today.

This project will provide the opportunity for a wide range of people to creatively engage with the Second World War heritage of their local area in a way that is relevant to them. Participants, young and old, will be able to engage in plays, music and dance and explore how communities in rural environments such as Dartmoor, Exmoor and the Braunton Burrows were affected by WW2.

2019 is the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War. The heritage of first-hand memories is starting to disappear due to the ageing community. This project will capture spoken memories, which our young participants will record from people who remember Devon in the Second World War, using the common link of experiencing rural living to integrate the generations.

The recording of these fading memories before they disappear completely will form a fuller and important ‘human’ picture of the time.

Nationally relevant changes to Devon’s rural areas came as a consequence of the war, such as the creation of national parks and changes to farming traditions. Food use was radically altered due to rationing. MED will research how this affected people in rural Devon, how they adapted and what effect this had on the natural environment. Parallels will be drawn with how present-day society responds to globals threats such as climate change, as well as how attitudes and wellbeing are influenced by our rural environment then and now.

This year, MED Theatre celebrates 30 years of producing original drama inspired by current issues thrown up by the interface between the human and natural worlds.

The company was founded by poet and dramatist Mark Beeson as the Manaton and East Dartmoor Theatre in 1989 to stage plays he wrote himself performed by actors of all ages from Dartmoor communities.

It is the drive and vision of Mark that underlies everything that MED has achieved since. Raised on a moorland farm in the village of Manaton and ‘obsessed by verse and drama’ from an early age, he has an insider’s and a poet’s feeling for Dartmoor.

His community plays include The Hedge, which won a prize in Ann Jellicoe’s Village Community Play Competition. Dartmoor, Devon and World War Two builds on MED Theatre’s extended experience of working with rural communities, and engaging them with the moor’s contemporary issues, history, ecology and folklore.

See www.medtheatre.co.uk to find out more about the project.