Historic six-day rave turned into stage show

The story of a six-day rave, which saw more than 20,000 people turn up in rural Worcestershire in 1992, has been turned into a stage production.

Rachel Tobin's play, The Last Free Rave, is touring local venues this August and is based on the Castlemorton rave, which started as a small free festival near Malvern and became the largest illegal rave ever held in the UK.

Ms Tobin said she wanted to tell a fictional story, based on tales she has heard over the years, of an interaction between a reveller and a married farming couple.

The production will be part of the Malvern Ink & Curtains Festival.

Ms Tobin said she had lived in the area for 20 years and had discovered "so much folklore" locally about the rave, which started during a bank holiday weekend on 22 May 1992.

"The whole play is set in a farmhouse," she said, "and the rave is happening around the farmhouse.

"So it's only when the doors are open, the windows are open, that you hear the rave going on."

She said the production also included footage from the time, and interviews with people as the event made news headlines.

Ms Tobin said tales from the rave included stories about things disappearing, fenceposts vanishing, sheep going missing, but added: "I don't think some of it probably even happened, but it gets a little exaggerated generation to generation."

"It was absolute chaos for six days," she said. "The police, of course, were powerless, so they were sitting around on the outskirts trying to just keep everything calm."

After the rave, injunctions and road blocks were used to prevent a similar event happening again.

In 1994, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was passed, giving police powers to stop vehicles anywhere within five miles (8km) of a rave and turn them away.

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