Hold the Hearse!
Walter Riddle and Mad Mary are on the run. Desperate to evade Hunter’s henchmen – they hide amongst the collections in the old Museum. If you’ve a penchant for grime, gruesome grave robberies and grisly murder ballads, this extraordinary tale is all yours!
Julie McNamara has been examining the collections both hidden and on display to record what becomes of the bad, the mad and the plain unruly in our midst. Touring museums in June, this interactive piece is a great celebration of defiantly different humans.
Read about the making of Hold the Hearse!
Big Issue North: Julie McNamara Hold the Hearse!
The Lancet: Exceptional and Extraordinary artists
Cast and creatives
Written by Julie McNamara
Performed by Julie McNamara and Eden Webber
Volunteer Director and Dramaturg – Terry Galloway
Assistant Director – Emilia Teglia
Volunteer Dramaturg – Donna Marie Wade
Producer for Vital Xposure – Chas de Swiet
Production Managers – Crin Claxton and Chas de Swiet
Assistant Stage Manager – Alan Clifton
Technicians – Simon Jackson-Lyall and Tom Eyles
BSL interpretation – Vikki Gee-Dare
Audio Describer – Alison Clarke
Captioning by Stagetext
Sound Design – Chas de Swiet
Voiceover Artist – Jean Osborne
Screen Visuals – Zed Gregory
Set built by – Richard Rudnicki
Rehearsal stills – Zbigniew Kotkiewicz
Stage photography – Christian Sinibaldi
Hold the Hearse! is commissioned as part of Exceptional & Extraordinary: Unruly bodies and minds in the medical museum
Exceptional & Extraordinary is an RCMG-initiated project led by Richard Sandell and Jocelyn Dodd from the University of Leicester
Producer – Steve Mannix
Tour Manager – Ali Pottinger
Project advisors
Dr Sam Alberti, Director, Hunterian Museum
Tony Heaton OBE, CEO Shape Arts
Dr Katherine Ott, Curator, Division of Medicine and Science, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Museum partners
Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, London
Royal College of Physicians Museum, London
Science Museum, London
Royal London Hospital Museum and Archive, London
Langdon Down Museum of Learning Disability, Normansfield, Middlesex
Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Beckenham, Kent
Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds
Surgeons’ Hall Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh
Read more about the programme and the artists involved here
