The Farmer’s Wife review by Sue Allen

And even today, despite Clarkson’s Farm beaming out from our TV screens, that image still clings, managing to gloss over the actual isolation, financial stress and gruelling hours that define day-to-day farm life.

In The Farmer’s Wife, Hannah Khalil’s new play, directed by Liz Stevenson, inspired by Lakes farmer Helen Rebanks’ bestselling memoir of the same name, it is the women who are getting on with holding everything together.

Set around three generations of women from the same family – a daughter, a mother and a grandmother – the play cleverly weaves past and present set around a farm kitchen table.

With three women at different stages of their lives, the 90 minutes shines the light of truth on their role as a farmer’s wife.

The animals need feeding, the bills need paying. The forms need filling in. The meals need cooking. The vet needs calling. The list is endless.

The set added to the intimacy and the feeling that you were in the kitchen with the family.

It showed not only the depth of work farmers and farmers’ wives have to deal with, but also how many of the issues which the grandmother’s generation went through were repeated with the young generations.

The trio of women, simply referred to as Young, Older and Oldest, are played tenaciously by Eireann Devlin, Christine Entwisle and Roberta Kerr respectively.

They demonstrated the changing roles of women in society, with the teenage daughter striving to be the farmer, not the farmer’s wife.

Her desire to drive the farm forward with innovations was countered by her frustration that her mother didn’t share the same drive, not realising there were other factors affecting the future of the farm she was not aware of at first.

As the play unfolded it gave the audience the idea that they were attending an event, but it didn’t become clear, until the very end, just what that was, coming together with genuine warmth and a feeling of community.

“Overall, it gave a warm and sympathetic perspective on the role that farmers’ wives play in the success of the family farm and also within the community, supporting each other,” one audience member said. “You will leave the theatre feeling moved, entertained and appreciative of the sacrifices that being in a farming family demand and the challenges they face, dealt with with both humour and sorrow.”

“A rollercoaster of emotions,” another said, and a third added: “I’m a farmer’s wife, and I felt part of it.”

At Theatre by the Lake, Keswick until October 10