The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe

The cast & crew of 'The Lion, The
Witch & The Wardrobe' 2018

“Utterly brilliant, spellbinding and wonderful.  I have a lump in my throat as I think about it ....” Celia F

“Great evening last night - your show is amazing!!! Well done and very pleased that the BCA supported this production.” Steven Mindel, Chairman of the Barnes Community Association

“Emma King-Farlow has mounted a truly magical production…” Mia Gibbons, Churches Together in Barnes

Edmund (Alice Hope Wilson) & Lucy
(Lucy Evans) in the Narnian snow

“This production was such a pleasure.  The fine story by C.S. Lewis was performed by a great team of actors, all of them perfectly in character. The Christian allegory worked gently but effectively in the beautiful mediaeval St Mary's Church, Barnes. Acting the part of Aslan, the lion King of Narnia, is inevitably impossible, but Will Forrester gave it drama and dignity.  The White Queen & her wolf were superbly malevolent & frightening!  The opening 40’s dance set the scene in wartime Britain, from where the evacuee children escape through the wardrobe to Narnia.  Costumes were inventive & the simple set was used imaginatively.  Many thanks to all. A special evening.” Anonymous audience Member

Maugrim (Carly Borrow) captures
 Edmund (Alice Hope Wilson) 

These were just a few of the many personal reviews that we received from audience members, following our recent(ish!) production of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe at St Mary’s Barnes (29^th Oct – 3^rd Nov 2018).  The show turned out to be rather more of a challenge than I first envisaged, and perhaps not quite as financially successful as it could have been if we hadn’t found ourselves up against the final of The Great British Bake Off early in the week!  It was, however, even more successful than I hoped in terms of the glowing feedback received and, it seems, the very different but similarly positive experiences enjoyed by cast, crew and audiences alike.  Indeed, the cast and crew - quite possibly the loveliest group of people I have had the privilege of working with - remain astonishingly close knit and in regular contact, and we are still hearing how much the audience thought of the show nearly three months after closing night!

Mr Tumnus Sr (Martin Parsley) watches
Maugrim terrorise small children!

None of this would have been possible without the financial and practical support of St Mary's Church and help from the Barnes Community Association, who recognised the potential of the project early on and awarded us a £500 grant to put towards the considerable costs involved.  I am extremely grateful to both organisations for their faith in the production, and to Bishop Richard Harries, whose fascinating pre-show talk on C.S. Lewis ensured that, despite adding as many extra chairs as we could, we still had to turn people away on the Friday night!

The White Witch (Kat Merrick)

Finally, I am delighted that the success of the production has enabled us to make donations not only to St Mary's but also to two fantastic children's literacy charities, both doing invaluable work with disadvantaged children around the country: BookTrust and First Story.
This wonderful play brought to an end a year of exhausting and exciting achievements for Shadow Road Productions and we now look forward to an equally exhilarating 2019!

Introducing UNBROKEN...



AN INVITATION FOR SUBMISSIONS TO A NEW MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MINI-FESTIVAL IN AUTUMN 2016

Have you written a short play or a standalone scene – or created a piece of spoken word, music, movement or dance – dealing with mental illness, its effects and consequences, or the realities and myths surrounding the subject? Would you like to? Or would you like to direct one?

As part of my tiny theatre company's longstanding commitment to the issue of mental health we will be staging UNBROKEN, a mini-festival on that very subject, in London this October and we would like to invite anyone interested in getting involved – either as a writer, director, choreographer or composer – to get in touch.

UNBROKEN will showcase a number of new short plays and performance pieces, all dealing with the issue of mental health from different angles. It will also include at least one or more panel discussions.

As mentioned above, we are open to both short plays and scenes/extracts from a larger work that are able to stand alone in performance, as well as pieces of music, movement, spoken word or dance. Each of the chosen pieces will deal with some aspect of the issue, but the precise approach taken or subject explored will be up to its creator – for example, living with someone suffering from mental health problems can, in some ways, be just as difficult or alienating as suffering from the condition yourself.

UNBROKEN is an entirely voluntary event which will be staged in connection with one of the UK’s main mental health charities. This mini-festival will be the first of its kind for Shadow Road. Given our enduring concern with the issue of mental health, however – particularly when examined in relation to the military, as was the case with our original full-length play, Dreams From The Pit – we do hope that it may prove to be the first of many.

If you are interested in getting involved with UNBROKEN, there is plenty more information available – including submissions details and dates etc – here on our website: www.shadowroad.com/page6.htm

Please have a read and then drop us a line at shadowroadproductions@gmx.com.

We look forward to hearing from you! :-)

Ten in Ten #1 - Me!

Having submitted the old blog to a little digital ‘spit and polish', with the intention of turning it into my main personal website (together with Shadow Road's site, I think the Internet already knows far more about me than it really needs - or indeed wants - to, without me having to maintain yet another site!), I am going to kick things off by submitting myself to the very same questionnaire that I'm hoping a few of my creative friends may be willing to answer here over the coming months.

I've called it Ten in Ten - the idea being that it asks only ten questions, all of which should be answered in no more than ten minutes.  Thus, I hope I may get a few more takers than I would if I was asking them for the biographical equivalent of War & Peace - and we may all get a little insight into their lives and interests. 

Since I try never to ask others to do anything that I wouldn't be prepared to at least have a go at myself, however, I'm going to get the ball rolling.  Usually, we'd begin with a short biography of the person answering the questions but as you've probably already read all the information about me in the blog header above, I'll spare you that and skip straight to the answers!

The timer on my phone has been set for ten minutes* so here we go... :-)

TEN IN TEN - 10 questions to answer in 10 minutes or less - don’t think, just write!

1. Who inspires you?  People who step in when they see someone else in danger – fearless, selfless people.  All the people – Veterans, soldiers, civilians and counsellors alike – whom I spoke to when researching my play, Dreams From The Pit.  The Invictus Veterans and all our brilliant Paralympians.  Laura Bates – creator of The Everyday Sexism Project – who has given a voice, and a community, to countless previously unheard women from around the world and drawn attention to a problem that many are not even aware still exists. Actors and other creatives – most of the actors whom I have met and worked with have been amazing people, so open, giving and empathetic, while also committed, professional and driven.  My parents.  People who make a difference.  Too many other people to mention!

2. Who/what most annoys you?   Overpaid, over-privileged footballers, pop singers and Hollywood stars – basically, celebrity culture and its celebration of the vain, vacuous and inane.  The modern-day tendency to exalt all the wrong people for the wrong reasons, while ignoring or undervaluing those who make a genuine and positive difference to other people's lives - often at their own expense - really infuriates me.

3. The last three plays or films you saw? Around the World in 80 Days, The Firework Maker’s Daughter and Miss Saigon.

4. The first four books that you think of when asked which ones have stayed with you since reading them?  The Girl in the Box – Ouida Sebastien, Among You – Jake Wood, A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini, The Penguin Book of WWI Poetry.

5. Your five favourite fictional characters?  Ellen Ripley, Jason Bourne, Katniss Everdeen, Pug/Milamber and Paksenarrion Dorthansdottir.

6. A hidden gem you’d recommend (could be a place to visit, a book to read, a play to see, a song to listen to etc)?   The London Wetland Centre in Barnes.  It's pretty incredible to see a nature reserve of that size tucked away in the corner of a huge city like London.

7. What are you most proud of in your professional life so far? Dreams From The Pit.  I can't wait to get the new and improved version back onstage!

8. What is your greatest as yet unfulfilled ambition?  To win an Olivier award and direct a play on the stage of the Olivier Theatre at the National!

9. Your favourite quotation?  Too many to choose between but time’s running out so I’ll go for one of the two that I currently have up on my study wall: ‘Be who you were created to be and you will set the world on fire’ -  St Catherine of Sienna.

10. Your hoped-for epitaph?  Hmm.  ‘She lived, loved, laughed - and left the world a better place than she found it.'

 

*In the interests of full disclosure, I should make it clear that while I did try and answer the questions in ten minutes, it took me a lot longer than that to put this whole post together, writing and editing the intro, adding links and checking names etc! :-D