News Archives - The Space

The Space announces 2023 Autumn Season

The Space are proud to announce our Autumn programme from July to December 2023. We have an array of established and emerging companies and artists, which blends pirates, futurism, musicals, immersive theatre, ghosts and the very best new writing. We continue our livestream and on-demand service, meaning you can still enjoy the majority of our programme from the comforts of your own home!

Delving into the darkness of the past, we bring to light both historical fact and revel in historical inaccuracy. A Health to The Company, is a rollicking, epic romp that busts the myth of the ‘Golden Age of Piracy’. The Kaspar Hauser Experiment documents the true story of a man who claims to have been locked in a darked cell for 17 years. Oubliette casts facts aside to embrace magical melodic realism as a new camp and macabre musical.

We cast our eyes to the not-too-distant future with End of The World FM, as a lone radio host rages a one-man war to stay on the airwaves. The prospect of AI looms large: A solo traveller in space clings to life and artificial companionship in Adrift; A lone worker tinkers with mechanisms in an enormous block, with only their helper in Highrise.

We re-examine recent history with Teacher of The Year, transporting us to Liverpool, 1989 and the height of the poll tax protests. September explores the parallels of two 9/11s in both New York City, 2001 and Pinochet’s Chile, 1973. We become immersed in the memories of a childhood home in solo-immersive show Now Entering Ely, Nevada.

Closer to the present, we visit a Northern Town for a spooky Halloween experience as Alex and Maggie Go Ghost Hunting. Void takes us inside the minds of a struggling artist, battling anxiety as she seeks help and hopes to heal. While Transit and its migrant-led company explore the toxic cycles that marginalise artists in gripping new physical theatre.

The Space welcomes international artists from across near and far ponds: Three Things That Are Never Seen celebrates Old-Irish and Celtic mythology in a blend of music, movement and storytelling. From New York, The Pigeon & The Mouse is a cutting-edge contemporary dance piece of two lovers as they shelter in a post-nuclear American Civil War.

We continue our proud partnership with East 15 Acting School as we host a double bill of works: Bringing Greek Tragedy to the 90’s My Name is Cassandra combines movement and music to re-imagine the classic myth. In Friction Burn, a couple on the edge play love games in the style of Beckett and Pinter.

We also welcome the return of Rising Tides Theatre Company and their dedication to make work that addresses and responds to the climate crisis in their two-week festival Good COP, Bad COP 28: On Jackson’s first day as a drone pilot, he discovers the impossible – a real, living bee in Newbie. And more climate experts are paired with playwrights to create new pieces in Further Evidence.

We are proud to continue working with our Associate Company Mrs C’s Collective, who are presenting four new works from their writer’s collective programme in The Big Share: Nine Moons; Good Boy; Roobaroo & Routine. We are also hosting 5, free to attend, rehearsed readings through our own script development service, ScriptSpace.

The season will be launched, as is Space tradition, with a special Autumn Season Launch Night on Thursday 20th July, where each of our shows will share a preview of what’s to come, and a glass of something fizzy shared by all.

Florence Bell is a writer, director and performer whose credits include TV dramas Wolf Hall, The End of the F*cking World and Clink. In 2015 she co-founded new writing initiative Brave New Word which has to date showcased over one hundred pieces of new writing. The Open is the debut production from her fledgling company FIASCO, a multidisciplinary production house dedicated to reflecting the dark and absurd times we live in.

What inspired you to produce a show of this calibre?

“The play was inspired by the events of 2016; the result of the EU referendum in the UK and Donald Trump’s presidency in the US. That year felt like it rocked the world, and those two events certainly made everything feel like there were suddenly no rules for how things were ‘supposed’ to go. The idea of the Great British Golf Course came out of imagining the worst case scenario caused by those events: that adrift from the EU the UK would be at the mercy of right wing governments eager to sell off our assets to the US in trade deals. Trump’s eyeing up of the NHS recently has proved to be evidence of this. The Great British Golf Course is a satire of this outcome – that the whole of the UK would be sold and turned into a golf course. It’s kind of nightmarish and kind of not far from the truth. “

How has the production process been thus far? What have been some of the most memorable moments?

“Without a doubt one of my most memorable and treasured moments has to be hearing the play with this cast for the first time. It just really came alive and became it’s own entity, rather than this slightly mad idea rattling around in my head for three years. Another truly memorable moment was waking up about three weeks into the production period and hearing the news that Trump had tried to buy Greenland. That was really surreal. It was like the play was coming true, just in time for us staging it.”

Why was a golf course chosen to invoke the “feelings of fear and isolation” as your twitter states?

“So no offence to golfers, but golf is weird to me. In writing and rehearsing the play I’ve realised there’s more to it than I thought – the transition of the land from public to private, the degradation of the environment; it’s all epitomised in golf! When you see golfers playing golf they’re in nature, but it’s this totally clipped version of nature tamed to their needs. The optics of largely white, male, elite golfers strutting around chatting about business is pretty powerful I think, cause at the end of the day it’s exactly that demographic of people who are wrecking the environment with unregulated capitalism.

The idea of the whole UK as a golf course is therefore quite scary and isolating. Outside of the EU (and I know the EU is not perfect) we’re no longer tied into the environmental and employment protections we’ve been enjoying.”

As it seems an outsider changes things for the worst (Donald Trump), but then an “immigrant rebel” comes in to shakes things up. Why is there a potential dynamic shift?

“I find the characterisation of Trump as a maverick rebel hard to swallow to be honest. Yes he’s a political outsider but only in the sense that he doesn’t play by any rules of decency. The Open portrays Great Britain after 30 years of intense political turmoil, a radically changed landscape where the characters that call themselves British have forgotten what it means to be British at all. I don’t know whether there is such a thing, but if I can associate it with anything it’s tolerance, decency and courage. It takes Jana, an immigrant who returns at risk of her life, to remind Arthur and Patrick who they were, what Great Britain was, what it meant.

So in a sense the play is about returning to a previous state rather than overthrowing the present in search of something new. It’s about remembering as an act of rebellion, because their memories and sense of identity has been taken away.”

How do the show’s themes of politics, such as national identity and human rights, tie into the endurance of love?

“That’s a good question. Love is only politicised in a way that makes it sound cheesy as hell, (see hippies and ‘Choose Love’ t shirts) but it’s actually pretty powerful and shouldn’t be underestimated. I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘Choose Love’. It’s harder to love, it’s a more sophisticated human response than fear or hate.

At the start of the play Patrick – the depressed romantic who’s been separated from the love of his life because she’s from a different country seems mad for believing in love above all else. His plight seems impossible. The play is about how the politics of national identity and human rights bring us to that point, and how love (not just romantic love) can be very powerful in the face of all that. “

What advice should the audience keep in mind as to why this play is being produced now?

“There’s a quote my mum told me, I think it’s Jerzy Grotowski, about the audience being witnesses. I really like that. I want the audience to be entertained but I also want them to leave feeling like they’ve witnessed something, they’ve been let into a secret. At different times in the play the audience is cast in different roles (not literally, but in a subtle way). They’re the prisoners, they’re the rest of the world. I want them to leave the theatre feeling like they can do something about what’s going on, that they’re powerful. Cause I think we spend a lot of time feeling like we’re not.”

The Open

Running from September 24th-October 12th

BOOK HERE

Describe Delicacy in three words.

Scabrous. Domestic. Dark.

What inspired you to write the play?

I’ve always been inspired by the blackly comic plays of Martin McDonagh and wanted to write something that brought elements of horror into a very domestic, relatable setting. But, overall, the idea came from — and this is very random — watching a documentary on Russia’s Toughest Prisons. It was an interview given by an inmate and, I don’t want to give away the game, but before the guy was locked up he duped his neighbours into doing something awful — something they’ll have to live with the rest of their lives. It was just a throwaway moment, but I HAD to try to understand what happened to this family afterwards. So, the Gibsons were born as a way of exploring that.

The Gibsons are a tad dysfunctional… based on anyone you know?

The family aren’t strictly based on anyone I know, but there are definitely traits in each of them that I identify with (only the good ones, of course.) The idea was to present a seemingly normal family who view themselves as ‘good people’, then slowly chip away at this facade under the intense pressure of the media spotlight. Their behaviour becomes, at best, questionable, and in many eyes, immoral. But, if it means the family stay together, maybe it’s worth it in the end.

Who’s your favourite…?

It has to be Amber. A misfit who struggles to keep friends and has a penchant for funeral photography (why is this not a thing??). She’s the innocent teenage daughter caught up in all of this, and she’s also the one who goes on the biggest journey, culminating in the most unconventional of teenage rebellions.

What do you want the audience to talk about in the bar afterwards?

For sure, I’d hope that the audience go away and talk about the final scene. It’s quite a shocking moment, but also touching at the same time. It’d be great if people were debating whether the Gibsons did the right thing. What happens in the final scene, you say? You’ll just have to come along to find out.

Have you had any cottage pie since writing this play?

Absolutely not. I was very suspicious of it in the first place.

Any advice for playwrights writing their first play?

The ‘debut’ is a myth. Your ‘first play’ to get staged will very likely not be the first play your write. It’s often people’s sixth, seventh — we just don’t get to see the others. So, don’t worry if the first play you write isn’t the bees knees. It’s a process and you’ll get better at it each time. Plus, only send your work to peers for feedback after you’ve put in a few drafts. My ‘first draft’ that people see is often my second or third. It’s tempting, but they’ll appreciate it and you’ll get better notes.

Delicacy by Mark Jones runs 7th – 11th May

BOOK HERE

We sat down with Iskandar R. Sharazuddin, the writer of the new show Post-Mortem, to talk about relationships, physical theatre, and pallor mortis.

Describe Post-Mortem in 3 words:

Love, Trauma, Past.

What inspired you to make this show?

I wanted to make a play about a shared experience between two characters that was formative but where they both had very individual and almost different ideas about what that shared experience was. I also wanted to make a play about young love, which is something relatable and universal. Finally, I wanted to make a work that blended a physical vocabulary with text, usually I would let narrative dictate form but in this instance the two informed each other and helped build the work.

The show explores the relationship between two high school sweethearts who haven’t spoken in ten years, what happened there…?

What happened is that like a lot of teenage sweethearts they separated, but their separation was under some pretty hard circumstances. Nancy & Alex were thrown into a very grown-up situation and tried their best to be very grown-up about it. The pressure of that situation broke the relationship apart, nearly caused permanent mental damage, and evolved into a physical and emotional distance which neither of them was ready or able to confront.

They meet again at a wedding… speaking from experience at all?

Sort of. Nancy and Alex are composites. I have drawn from my first relationship, my relationship as an actor with Imogen Irving (the woman in the show image), and completely fictional elements.

Do you think Nancy & Alex represent a typical couple?

I don’t know what a typical couple is. I think Nancy & Alex resemble a couple we would recognise, a couple that meet when young and fall in love. A love that is obsessive, saccharine, but also tender. I think the love they have as teenagers is perhaps something a little more than you would expect from your average high school romance.

The show is partly physical theatre – why did you decide to use movement in the show?

It has movement sequences associated around the stages of decay a body goes through after death. That is quite a grim concept and it isn’t as dark as you would think. Nancy & Alex are revisiting their relationship after is has ended (died) to assess what went wrong, that is the very definition of a post-mortem. The stages of body decomposition have very physical & emotional ideas attached to them i.e rigor mortis has a stiffness to it, where as pallor mortis (the paleness that appears after death) has a sense of coldness to it. I wanted to use these stages of decay as a scaffolding upon which I could hang the narrative. When I was thinking about them, I was wondering how to realise them and kept coming back to physical choices. From there I expanded and wondered what it would look like if those moments became completely physical. I also have a physical vocabulary as a performer so a natural tendency or inclination to lean towards physicality to build character or narrative.

How do you combine this with script?

I don’t know. This is a big challenge. In some ways the text and movement exist in separate spaces but feed one another and support the same story. I have never done anything like this before which is a little scary but that often means it is something you should jump into with two feet. As we develop the piece further it would be interesting to me to find ways in which the physicality can bleed more into the naturalism and vice-versa.

What’s the main discussion you want audiences to have in the bar afterwards?

I want people to come out and talk about their first love. Sometimes those experiences were painful, sometimes overwhelmingly disappointing, or funny, or heart-breaking. Sometimes people are still with that person. However, I think one common factor in a lot of people is that they mythologise their own pasts. I feel we place these relationships on pedestals, or sweep them under rugs, we do our best to forget them, or to glorify them. They are such crucial experiences, integral to our learning, and often can really shape who we become. I think it is important to not mythologise them and remember them as they were, what they taught us, and what we’ve taken from them. Sometimes it is fun to look back, and that is OK, in a world that is constantly looking forward I get lost a lot of the time and have to look back to work out where it is I am going next.

Post-Mortem is Running until the 20th of April, you can find out more and book tickets here.

We sat down with Highly Suspect to discuss their new show, We Now Know Snowmen Exist. Running until the 23rd of March, you can find out more and book tickets here.

Describe We Known Now Snowmen Exist in three words.

Mysterious, Compelling and Chilling.

(Or Snowmen Do Exist!)

We Know Now Snowmen Exist is based off the mysterious Dyatlov Pass murders. Why did you chose to focus on this unsolved mystery?

It was first introduced to Michael Spencer (writer of the play) by Executive Producer Adam Morley, as a concept he thought could be adapted for a really interesting theatre show. There are so many creepy specific details and questions surrounding it that (why did they cut their way out of their tent? Why did they swap clothes?), that when I came onboard I was immediately intrigued by the urban legend and the fact that it is still unsolved to this day.

It’s giving us the creeps in the office! What do you think happened?

There’s a new-ish theory that was proposed by writer Donnie Eichar in his 2013 book “Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident,’ surrounding Infrasound Frequency which I think is really interesting. The theory is that the combination of high winds and the curvature of the mountains surrounding the campsite had produced an infrasound frequency, a sound too low for human ears to register. They can induce a state of panic in human beings. According to this theory, the panicked hikers cut their way out of the tent and fled, but by the time the group was far enough away to regain their senses they were too far away to make their way back to safety and succumbed to hypothermia. There’s a lot of science in this, but the idea of this unexplainable panicking settling on them is certainly a creepy one!

You’ve taken this mystery and put it in a modern setting – why did you decide to this?

It’s a deliciously juicy mystery but we wanted the focus to be on the characters rather than the background of potential cold-war angst. Frightening things happening far away somehow makes them feel safer. By bringing the setting far closer to home and bang up to date the chills are less easy to dismiss…

How did Highly Suspect get together?

Michael Spencer (playwright and author of WE KNOW NOW SNOWMEN EXIST) and myself met 11 years ago in Carlisle whilst I was in training at Cumbria Institute of the Arts. We immediately hit it off over a love of comedic plays, and have worked together on various shows ever since. We formalised that with the creation of Highly Suspect when Michael received a commission to write a bespoke murder mystery for Tullie House Museum in Carlisle, off the back of writing one for my birthday with our friends. The company developed from that first performance when the audience at that first mystery asked us when we were coming back to do our next, so we had fans before we even had a company name! Over the last 5 years we’ve created over 30 original mysteries that we’ve performed all over the country at some amazing venues such as Durham, Cathedral, The National Centre for the Written Word and Blackpool WInter Gardens. Last year we created a bespoke Halloween event for Lowther Castle in Cumbria, which involved a spooky storyline for 30 actors and an audience of 1300 – that was a pretty epic highlight of 2018!

You also host popular performance mysteries and self-performed mysteries, what inspired the transition into writing and producing plays as well?

It was simply a case of coming home to roost! Michael was writing plays and I was directing before we joined forces to start killing people for a living.

The Murder Mysteries are so much fun – they’re simultaneously hilarious and larger than life, whilst retaining the beating heart of a true whodunnit. There’s no arbitrary dice roll deciding our killers, but a clear (if convoluted!) trail of evidence leading to the guilty party. We’ve created over thirty original mysteries including the death of Shakespearean Scholar Professor Oliver Worldsastage in ‘Et Tu Shakespeare?’ to the board game spoof ‘Cluedunnit’ with such suspects as Colonel Helman Mayo and Professor Mario Plumber. They’re heavily interactive experiences and as much fun to perform as they are to create!

The show is filled with suspense, what advice would you offer for audiences coming in? Wrap up warm?!

Haha! Hopefully we don’t create THAT chilling an atmosphere, but I would say be prepared to suspend your rational logical thoughts and consider all possibilities of what could be out on that mountainside…. and try not to be too spooked by our snowman Keith!

What’s next for Highly Suspect?

We’re off performing our murder mysteries across the country in the short term, before heading to Edinburgh Fringe in August where you can catch up performing two mysteries on alternate dates at Bar Bados in Cowgate 5.30-6.30 as part of the PBH Free Fringe. We’ll also be exploring a couple of ideas we’ve had for our next theatre show, mainly revolving around creating a more traditional comedy (we are huge fans of Mischief Theatre!) so watch this space…!

The Space will be joining the national cultural response to the climate and ecological emergency in reading ‘Letters To The Earth’.

Organised by members of the creative industries – including actors, directors and playwrights – the ‘Letters To The Earth’ project is the beginning of a wider campaign which calls on culture to do its part to tell the truth about the climate and ecological crisis and take necessary action.

We are facing an unprecedented global emergency, the planet is in crisis and we are in the midst of a mass extinction event. Scientists believe we have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown.

In October 2018, the International Panel on Climate Change reported that we only have 12 years to change how we live, globally. That doesn’t mean that we have to act in 12 years-time – it means we have to act now to avert disaster, and already we are behind.

People have been invited to write letters in response to this crisis.

“This could be a letter to or from the Earth, future or past generations, those who hold positions of power and influence, other species. The idea is open to interpretation: it can come from a personal place, be dramatic in form, be a call to action.”

To find out how to submit a letter, please click here.

The ‘Letters To The Earth’ will be presented as part of a ‘day of joint action’ on Friday 12 April across theatres, arts venues and community spaces nationwide.

9:30 pm

12th April

Free

We sat down with Danny Wallington, Deborah Wastell and Joseph Skelton of The Conductor to have a chat about their upcoming show, opening on the 26th of March.

Describe the show in 3 words.

Danny: Exploration, Persistence, Fellowship.

Deborah: Words and Music

Joseph: People making hope

The show has been on quite a journey – how did it all start?

Danny: On my birthday back in 2015, my Dad bought me Sarah Quigley’s book – ‘The Conductor’and the CD of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony. The story helped with active listening to the music, and I formed the idea about dramatising the programme notes to classical pieces in the hope it would encourage people to listen to the music. With this in mind, I reached out to my theatre friends.

Deborah: I joined The Conductor in mid-February of 2016. Danny had worked on it for part
of a project at Music College, and having got Jared and Joe involved when they
needed a female actor to help workshop the script, Danny took to the internet and
found a friend of mine who was lined up to do it, but then was unable to – so she put
me in touch with them. And that was that…. they’re probably still wondering how I
got the idea that they needed me beyond that one day…

Joseph: Danny, the pianist, and I went to school together – we had a band when we were 11
called ‘The Blobsters’. I think Danny rang me because I was the only actor he knew.
The rest is history.

What was the biggest challenge in bringing The Conductor to life?

Danny: With the whole symphony lasting 1hr 30 mins, condensing that to roughly 25 minutes of solo piano music was an exercise in restraint. With many rich themes to choose from, it
was inevitable that I would try to cram as many into the arrangement as possible. Being
pianistic was my main goal, however, we aimed to stick to the score as much as we could.
Shostakovich himself arranged the symphony for chamber musicians and solo piano,
although no such scores could be located.

Deborah: From a personal perspective, the biggest challenge has been differentiating
between the 6 roles I play without ending up with caricatures of people. Particularly
as a couple of them are just a few lines. From a company perspective, the logistics
are probably the thing that stands out. All the spaces we have played have been
very different – large, small, outdoor, stages that were circular, stages that were
square, stages that were shallow and wide, or deep and narrow. We’ve performed it
in the round, with proscenium arches, in black boxes, in thrust…. and that’s not to
mention the different dimensions of pianos… We’ve had on average a few hours to
adapt the show to each of these playing spaces, and I think we’ve managed to pull it
off…

Joseph: There was the incident with the noodles. When the artistic director of a fringe festival
loudly ate noodles in the back of our very quiet show. That was a challenging
moment. And then the men’s club who were playing cards next door came in and
were smashing ice with a rolling pin in the bar at the back. But I’m sure these things
would never have phased Karl Elliasberg.

The show takes place during the Leningrad Blockade, a time of political
turmoil, was it hard to recreate this feeling?

Danny: After watching actual footage of the siege in the film ‘Blockade’, what stuck out the most was the people of Leningrad. Children walked past tanks to school but were still playing.
Adults dug down into the snow for water, but still had conversational faces. Surviving was
getting on with their day to day lives. Interestingly, in terms of the music, we felt that slow, quiet and sometimes beautiful passages from the symphony worked better to give a sense of the endurance. This has everything to do with Shostakovich’s masterful use of melody. Below the proud nationalistic themes are these more sinister, sarcastic harmonies that aren’t always
noticed by all, but it’s impossible not to feel them.

Deborah: I would like to be able to answer that it was difficult to be able to recreate the
feeling of living in a time of political turmoil, but sadly, it was not.

Joseph: Yes, absolutely. We experimented in rehearsal with trying to ‘replicate’ some kind of
genuine emotional response but we found that whatever we tried it came across as
untrue. Because how could we ‘feel’ what this was. So we decided to take it back to
the story, to tell it with simplicity and honesty and not layer too much on top of it to
get in the way. To let the story communicate, and get out of the way of the words.

The Conductor focuses on a group of people going through negative times but
using art to benefit themselves immensely. Do you think the power of art is
still prominent today?

Danny: Over my lifetime, I have definitely benefited from music, the type of art I identify with the most. I think I believe art will always be there if you believe it and want it to be. Be it
through the negative, or to enhance the positive.

Deborah: Yes, I think it is. Art is now more readily accessible than it ever has been before,
that is why it’s so important to use it responsibly. The job of an artist is to convey
ideas and philosophies whilst holding up a mirror to society to show it both its
strengths and flaws. And to hold it accountable for those. Different people classify
different things as “art”, but if you turn on a TV show, whether it’s a one-off feature-length drama starring the great and good of Hollywood or a soap that is in
thousands of living rooms every night, you will be hard pushed to find something that
doesn’t address some issue of importance – even issues that don’t affect the majority
of the population – it’s almost more important to address those and bring them to the attention of everyone. People bond over art, and it makes them think of things from
a different perspective. I think, now more than ever before in my lifetime, that’s so
important.

Joseph: I often ask myself this. It’s so hard to quantify how art changes our lives. But I believe
it does. I believe it deeply… I believe it’s as necessary now as it was then. It’s an
expression of our inner reality. And we will always need to do this otherwise we will
crumple in on ourselves. The same way a flower in a field must express itself. It’s
that insignificant and that powerful.

What’re you hoping for the audience to take away from this politically and
musically driven show?

Danny: I wish more than anything that they will go and listen to the symphony. That’s what the story did for me. And the symphony inspired me so much that I spent the next 3 years
playing it, so I can highly recommend! Try and listen out for the march theme in the first movement, which starts after about 10 minutes. It starts out as an innocent and distant melody over a snare drum pattern. This melody is repeated and continues to grow until it crashes into a twisted, formidable force. It’s a great metaphor for the rise of fascism. Starting quietly in the distance it doesn’t present any concern, but as it gains traction, it soon becomes uncontainable.

Deborah: A little hope. But also a reminder of how dark society can become when we are
not vigilant and proactive. That’s a bit bleak, isn’t it? Maybe stick with the “hope”
rather than the alarm bells of doom! I think in times like ours it’s easy to feel
overwhelmed and impotent in the face of everything. There is so much pain and
suffering in the world, of unimaginable magnitude, so it’s good to be reminded that
everyone can make a difference and give others hope. And it’s important to know
that “this, too, shall pass” it’s not always easy to see that. So yes… I think that is the
main thing I’d like people to take from it – a little faith in humanity and hope for the
future.

Joseph: I would just like them to be touched by the story and to feel the power within them to
transcend dark times.

What’s next for you?

Danny: I’m starting a postgrad degree at Trinity College of Music in September. My main focus this year will be jazz style improvisation and studying the music of Ahmad Jamal, Red
Garland and John Hicks.

Deborah: About a year ago I co-founded the “Female Edit” – a collective of female
creatives, and we’ve been working on various bits and pieces of feminist theatre, so
I’ll be continuing with that, that’s exciting to be working on. But you know… I can
probably fit Kathryn Bigelow in if she calls, though…

Joseph: For me, I’m working on writing a new play. It’s set contemporaneously but is about
the clash between far left and far right politics today. It’s also just a story about a
mother and a son and their journey to understanding each other. So it’s about the
same things in many ways, just eighty years on, and set in Derbyshire!

The Conductor runs from 26th March – 13th of April with tickets from £9.50; you can find out more information, and book tickets here.

We were honoured to be the host venue for the start of Sir Ian McKellen’s 80th birthday tour with two very special performances. Proceeds from Ian McKellen on Stage are going towards the venues on the tour, an amazingly generous gesture by the acting legend. A generosity that was matched by our equally amazing audience, whose donations helped us to raise over £7,000 from the event. We’ll be using the funds to maintain our beautiful, grade II listed building, ensuring a home for the arts on the Isle of Dogs for many years to come.

As patron of the Space, since before the venue had even opened in 1996, Ian has performed with us on a number of occasions and described the building as one of his favourite performance spaces in London. Following the shows, our audiences took to Twitter to show their appreciation, describing it as ’truly humbling’, ‘inspirational and an honour to watch’, ‘utterly magnificent’ and there being ’so much to learn from his talent, experience and generosity’. We’re not going to give away any spoilers but suffice to say that fans of Shakespeare and Tolkien will not be disappointed!

Artistic Director of the Space, Adam Hemming, said, ‘We’re so proud to have Sir Ian McKellen as our patron, a legend of the stage and screen and a tireless campaigner for equality, he’s an inspiration to all. This tour – it’s an incredible thing to do, sharing the incredible things that he’s done, to support venues such as ours, so that we may strive to do incredible things. We’re so deeply indebted and wish Ian all the best for the journeys ahead.’

To find out where Ian is headed next, click here.

To become a member of the Space, click here.

To make a donation to help the Space maintain it’s grade II listed building, click here

Pictured above:- Pradeep Jeyaratnam-Joyner (Chair of the Board of Trustees), Sir Ian McKellen (Patron) and Adam Hemming (Director) at Space20 in 2016.

The nights may be drawing in but here at the Space we are launching our spring season! We’ve got gig theatre, psychological thrillers, concert plays, award winning playwrights, true stories, unsolved mysteries, ex-lovers and … a doll that comes to life.

12 companies. 14 shows.

This is spring at the Space.

Opening the spring season is Edinburgh Fringe hit BRAWN. Christopher Wollaton’s gives a “commanding, tormented performance of remarkable physicality” (Broadway Baby) as Ryan, a young man whose fitness drive soon becomes a threatening obsession. A one man show that dives into our powerful desire for physical perfection and the silent struggles of the men who experience it today.

Next, the melting pot of madness that is Milk and Blood career around the Space with their Edinburgh sell out, psychedelic drug comedy THE DIP. The story of Al, and one epic, epic night. Expect confetti canons, harpoon nerf guns, original music and a 6ft tyrannical police fish (you heard). Describe as “wonderful batshit chaos” (The Skinny), this is the best bad trip of a lifetime. Oh and don’t forget nestled between the madness is the incredible Flamenco Express with a night of the “finest Flamenco” (Time Out)

Then, following their critically acclaimed Off West End run this year, Proforca theatre company bring their “extraordinary” (Spy in the Stalls) FEEL to the Space. A modern, millennial love story about a search for fulfilment, second-hand love and the hope of one day becoming something better than you are. Get ready for all the feels. (Plus if you want more check out FEEL MORE, seven brand new short plays from the FEEL universe).

Then we have the darkly comedic THE SOUTH AFREAKINS, the story of Helen and Gordon, two retirees on the brink of a life changing move but how do you build a new life when you left everything else behind? Based on writer / performer Robyn Paterson’s personal experiences this “achingly poignant” (The Stage) story about belonging and home.

The air hums with static. A black car idles across the street. Paul McCartney has been dead for 51 years. Welcome to the world of PORTENTS, a wonderfully unsettling new show from Why The Sky theatre company. From deserted motorways to city streets, this is a story of conspiracy, isolation and rebirth.

“This isn’t fair! I should be get off my tits without being bundled into the back of a van” That’s right, the Space’s Associate Company Wonderbox are back with FFS! a night of, bitesize plays from the makers of ‘A Womb of One’s Own’. Expect taboo subjects and untold stories in this proudly feminist night of theatre.

Next theatre meets psychological thriller in WE KNOW NOW SNOWMEN EXIST. Based on the true story of Dyatlov Pass Incident this is the story of five women who set off camping and none return. A mystery that has remained unsolved in 60 years, brought to life on stage. Gripping, goose bump inducing drama from up and coming director Lexie Ward.

For lovers of beautiful live music and theatre don’t miss Jared McNeill’s award winning concert play THE CONDUCTOR. Based on the composer Dmitri Shostakovich who, amidst a siege on his city in WWII, composed his haunting “symphony for the people”. The rousing true story of a sound that lifted an entire city in its darkest hour Featuring the music of the “Leningrad Symphony” performed live.

Next up award winning playwright Iskandar Sharazuddin presents POST MORTEM. The story of Nancy, Alex and a love that shattered. Fusing physical theatre and touching new writing this is an honest and comic look at young love and old trauma. Expect secret letters, messy nights and mixtapes.

From two ex lovers to two re-united school friends The Undisposables present THE WASP, an explosive thriller about two destructive women who are out to take each other down. Think childhood grudges, bittersweet revenge and the offer of a lifetime…

Last but by no means least we have Paperback Theatre with not one, but two shows! ME AND MY DOLL is a surreal comedy about workaholic Kate and her blow up doll boyfriend (you heard). The anti-rom com to end all rom-coms. Never ones to shy away from darkness they’re also performing “powerful and thought provoking” (Broadway Baby) WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BOBBY (OFF EASTENDERS), the story of a child star, a life of fame and a dark story line…

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The March family

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the kindly chaplain whose daughters Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth are at the heart of the coming-of-age story that is Little Women. It wasn’t that I didn’t think he was important to them, either. But finding a modern way to adapt (and relocate to London) a novel that is really far more than that – Little Women is only volume one in a series, and we are including much of its sequel, Good Wives – meant hard choices. Every element we included had to earn its place.

The original story begins against the backdrop of the American Civil War. Mr March is absent for almost the whole of Little Women at the front, where he brings spiritual support to soldiers fighting against the slave-holding South. While his young daughters yearn for him to come home, his absence means that they face life without male protection or male moral guidance. This is what allows the sisters and their strong-minded mother the freedom to test their strength and learn by their failures and triumphs.

Miranda Horn as Beth and Amy Gough as Jo

How does that sit with us in the 21st century? Not so well. It seemed to me that while the girls missed their father and feared for him, underneath Louisa May Alcott’s always brilliant writing was the far more profound influence of their mother. It is Ma who sets the girls’ moral compass throughout both stories: it is her advice and judgement that they take to heart, and it is her absence when their father falls ill that brings them into a state of crisis. Their father’s absence plays a greater role in their lives than his presence, and so, in our version, he is just as important to the girls, but he isn’t coming home.

Finding Mr March’s place in a new version of the story wasn’t the only challenge. The original is packed with incidents. Not only can we not include them all, but some have changed meaning. What to make of Jo cutting off her hair to raise money for her mother to go to her sick father? Back then it partly signified her desire to shake of the restrictions of femininity – half thrilling, but half mortifying too. But perhaps there are other sacrifices Jo can make in our context that show how impetuous she can be for the things that really matter to her – and how hard it still is to find one’s place in a world packed with frustrating conventions.

Victoria Jeffrey as Ma and Amy Gough as Jo

There were other challenges – writing eight characters’ storylines over two acts (my previous play had one act and two characters, and I thought that was hard): writing a (SPOILER ALERT) harrowing loss that occurs during the course of the story (and rewriting it again and again, always tearfully); trying somehow to bring in Alcott’s wise and humorous eye without having the luxury of all her words – though some do remain in key moments.

The greatest challenge, however, was trying to make these changes while staying true to the four lively women Alcott created, and the complex relationships at the heart of her novel.

Fingers crossed.

Little Women tickets available now.
Must end 15th December

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