A Spanish play re-imagined in Hexham promises to be an autumn sizzler, reckons DAVID WHETSTONE

DREAM of a garden in Andalusia, drenched in fragrance and desire, implore Hexham-based theatre company Théâtre Sans Frontières (TSF).

Outside, the autumn leaves are falling from the trees, a market vendor is bellowing and cars are cruising in search of a parking space outside the Queen’s Hall.

Andalusia seems a long way away and as for fragrance and desire...

But, inside the church hall on the corner, a very different kind of atmosphere is being conjured up by a pair of actors (one male, one female), a musician and director John Cobb, one of the founder members of TSF nearly 20 years ago.

They are rehearsing for a play by Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain’s great 20th-century playwright, to mark the 75th anniversary of his death.

It is called Love in the Garden, or Amor en el Jardin in the original Spanish, and you don’t need the script to know that we have walked into something intense, passionate and vividly contrasting with a midweek shopping day in a Northumberland market town.

The lady strumming flamenco chords on a guitar has something to do with it. So does the tall chap with the fiery eyes and the swirling cape.

But mostly it’s due to the actress, Nuria Garcia. Urged to perform a passionate scene from the play, she smiles, nods and delivers a short performance of such fiery intensity that she appears to cry real tears.

John Cobb says that’ll do nicely and tells the cast they can nip off for a bite of lunch. He’s not worried about Nuria. Far from it, in fact. He says he’s seen her do this before and that’s why she’s here. It’s called acting, I suppose.