{"id":122,"date":"2015-02-10T14:44:39","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T14:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/?page_id=122"},"modified":"2015-10-21T14:35:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T14:35:31","slug":"theatre","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Island \u2013 a new play for young audiences<\/h2>\n
Now a novel<\/a> illustrated by Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell…<\/div>\n

In the middle of the Arctic Ocean lies an island where it is always day. The ice groans and cracks, the ground shifts under your feet, and skies flash with ice storms that freeze flesh in thirty seconds flat. Little wonder Cameron is reluctant to spend a week of his school holidays there.<\/p>\n

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Cut off from the rest of the world on this deserted island, he has no computer or phone and \u00a0his iPod is fast running out of battery. Cameron can either assist with his mother\u2019s scientific research or leave camp and explore. Armed with bear spray to ward off any danger, he sets out to see if the island is, indeed, uninhabited.<\/p>\n

\u2018No one\u2019s an island, Cameron. You, your parents, London, Qikiqtaruk, the whales, the guillemots, the living, the dead. We\u2019re all connected. If one moves we all move.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The National Theatre\u2019s terrific new play for over-eights is set on what we call Herschel Island in Northern Canada (the Inuit have another, much older name for it). The one-hour \u00a0play explores the impact of global warming \u2013 think Frozen Planet brought to life for children with characters the audience identify with and care about. \u00a0Island explores the conflict between scientific and metaphysical truth, colonialism, the exploitation of other people\u2019s environment, the role of religion and the power of storytelling. So it isn\u2019t short of issues for children to think about afterwards, but at the same time it avoids any sense of worthiness and stands up well as a piece of compelling, moving drama. Independent<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Sound designer Tom Gibbons made the incredibly haunting soundscape for Island, the play.
\nListen to a sample here. Be patient, it begins quietly, but beware polar bear roar…
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http:\/\/www.nickysinger.com\/new\/sounds\/island.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><\/p>\n

How I came to write Island:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once upon a time the National rang me up and asked if I wanted to write a play. There was a\u00a0silence my end of the phone. \u2018You\u2019re not going to say no?\u2019 \u2018Well,\u2019 I began, \u2018you think I\u00a0know how to write a play because of ‘Feather Boy’ the musical and ‘Knight Crew’ the opera \u2013\u00a0but those were both adaptations of my novels. I\u2019ve never actually written a play before.\u2019 ‘A\u00a0week,\u2019 they said. \u2018You can have a week to think about it.\u2019<\/p>\n

As luck would have it, I spent that week in Morocco visiting an old friend. One morning at\u00a0breakfast, his daughter Fan began talking about a trip the family had made on a previous\u00a0posting to Canada. They\u2019d travelled with a permafrost scientist to an arctic island called\u00a0Herschel. On that bright sunshiny Moroccan terrace, Fan talked of blizzards and whaling\u00a0boats stuck in ice; of shallow graves and things which should be buried being uncovered;, of\u00a0bear prints in the sand and twenty-four hour daylight. \u2018I felt,\u2019 she continued (in a phrase that went straight into my notebook) \u2018awake for possibilities.\u2019<\/p>\n

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I returned to England and phoned the theatre: \u2018There\u2019s this Grandmother,\u2019 I said, \u2018and two\u00a0kids and they\u2019re on this island in the middle of nowhere and there\u2019s an ice storm and\u00a0erupting graves and probably a polar bear. And the whole thing is full of sounds, wind and\u00a0waves and icebergs and krill and whale song. What do you think?\u2019 \u2018That you\u2019d better start\u00a0straight away,\u2019 they replied.<\/p>\n

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The show played in the National\u2019s Cottesloe Theatre and in 40 London schools<\/p>\n

What the audience said:<\/p>\n

My favourite moment in the play was the dream because it\u2019s really emotional and it touches\u00a0your heart about what\u2019s happening.<\/em>
\nA nine year old child<\/p>\n

An authentic portrayal of many issues that Inuit and Inuvialuit face in their encounter with\u00a0western society: How do we know what we need to keep and what we can leave behind as\u00a0time passes? How do we know what of nature we must preserve at all costs, and what can be\u00a0displaced by development? How do we communicate meaning between generations?\u2019<\/em>
\nProfessor Christopher Burn, Canadian permafrost scientist<\/p>\n

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Although the story had many layers to it the children surprised me by how well they\u00a0understood it and also were able to unpick some of the higher level ideas without help. Acting\u00a0was excellent and the children were gripped throughout.<\/em>
\nA London class teacher.<\/p>\n

The word to describe the show is ‘Breath-taking’. \u2026Through the amazing writing, acting and\u00a0technical skills you managed to transport us all from the comfort of our ‘westernised world’,\u00a0into the world of Inuluk and her island. We all had a great discussion after the show,\u00a0identifying how we have caused changes within our environment – and the children even said\u00a0that when Cameron listened to the music at the end of the performance it ‘Wasn’t right’ and\u00a0that they wanted to hear the sound of the whales!\u00a0It even impacted them in the playground, when lining up for class, they stopped and listened\u00a0to the bird song despite the loud thumping of the heavy road traffic behind them!\u00a0It was a truly wonderful production and the quality of the children’s written work as hugely\u00a0improved thanks to the work of you all- thank you so much!<\/em>
\nJudith Barber, Assistant Head Teacher, London<\/div>\n

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Independent review:
http:\/\/blogs.independent.co.uk\/2012\/02\/06\/the-power-of-theatre-to-educate\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Telegraph review:
http:\/\/www.theartsdesk.com\/theatre\/island-national-theatre<\/a><\/p>\n

Shortlisted for the Brian Way Award for best new play for young people<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Island photo credits: Clare Park<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Island \u2013 a new play for young audiences Now a novel illustrated by Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell… In the middle of the Arctic Ocean lies an island where it is always day. The ice groans and cracks, the ground shifts under your feet, and skies flash with ice storms that freeze flesh in thirty seconds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"fullwidthnoheader.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-122","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry","6":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P5JE8T-1Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":756,"href":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/122\/revisions\/756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}