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Clever-Clogs & the Cunning Princess is now our principle show for theatres, arts centres and the rural touring circuit, having played in schools over the last academic year.

The Princess and the Soldier vie to tell their version of the incredible adventures that led to their meeting.

This is a lively and colourful take on a traditional Russian tale and is proving as popular in venues as it was in schools.

Sealskin is our latest play for adult audiences.

Their father having died, a brother and sister sift through the family history to try to reach an understanding of why their mother left them. In particular they examine the traditional Sealskin story that their mother used to tell them. Why did she tell it? What relationship did the tale have to her own life - and theirs?

The play had its first performance at our own Barnstaple Fringe TheatreFest. It is playing at various schools and venues over the next few months and we are taking it to the Brighton and the Prague Fringe Festivals in May 2010.

Barnstaple's Fringe TheatreFest 09 boasted a high-quality programme of pretty well every kind of theatre form - from African song and dance to Performance Poetry and storytelling by way of wry comedy, moving drama and thrilling contemporary dance. Audiences were 30% up on the previous year.

We are inviting applications for Fringe TheatreFest 2010 up until January 29th.

Further details at www.theatrefest.co.uk.

Beast! is proving a big hit with secondary schools and colleges.

An amalgam of fact and myth, the hunt for the Beast of Exmoor provides the framework for a taut psychological drama about our need for Beasts and what happens as we hunt them. The hunter becomes the hunted and hero and beast are in danger of becoming indistinguishable.

This is entertainment with substance for adult and student audiences.

We've played a large number of colleges, schools and community venues in the South West and beyond with great success.

Backward Glance, fairly extensively reworked after its initial outings at the Brighton and Barnstaple Fringe Festivals, proved a major success at Prague Fringe Festival in the Summer, netting multi story the Kreativni Cena (Creative Award) as well as a glowing review from the Prague Post.

We are particularly grateful to David Taylor and his students at Truro College who provided a very detailed and lucid critical commentary after our performance there, which helped us to clarify what we were trying to create.

You can reach a description of the play by clicking the image.

Prague preview video

 

 

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Twelve Wild Ducks is our latest production for the 5-11 age-group. It is currently playing in schools around England and is being offered to theatres and Rural Touring circuits.

The play is our own version of the traditional Norwegian folk-tale, which is part of a family of similar stories.

When Princess Snow-Rose is born, her 12 brothers are transformed into Wild Ducks. When she learns of their fate, Snow-Rose sets off on an epic journey to save them.

We have set the production in a dreamy, bedtime state - somewhere between sleep and wake. Gentle songs weave through the piece. Books become castles and wild ducks. Simple elements of physical theatre transport us from palaces, to forests, to cottages, to nettle-patches and dungeons.

The children are enthralled and teachers have been known to shed the odd tear.

Over the last year we have been working in partnership with Arts and Learning to tailor theatre-visits, workshops and extension activities around the differing requirements of a number of primary schools in Cambridgeshire.

We have performed specific productions as requested by the schools to dovetail with curriculum and themed work. In some cases we have provided follow-up drama workshops ourselves. In other cases Arts and Learning have taken the work into other areas ranging from dance, to kite-making and ceramic murals.

The project, supported by Cambridgeshire County Council, has encouraged schools to think imaginatively about how to get the best value out of a theatre visit and additional creative input.

We are now about to start Phase 2, inviting a new group of a dozen schools to a performance and introductory discussion before rolling out the programme over the autumn and spring terms.