The HighTide Festival in 2013 had a predominance of plays with environmental themes or connections.
Pastoral
written by Thomas Eccleshare
at HighTide Festival: 2- 12 May
at Soho Theatre, London: 15 May - 8 June Moll thinks she’s going on holiday but something more sinister is afoot. As menacing cats and strutting voles advance, a dangerously fertile countryside just keeps on growing – humanity is on the brink. "They first noticed it a few weeks ago, creeping round the war memorial and through the crack outside Subway. Just little weeds at first, little sprouts. Herbs and reeds and wild mushrooms. It’s amazing how quickly they’re growing." A darkly funny first play by Thomas Eccleshare, the winner of the Verity Bargate Award, Soho Theatre’s national competition for the best new play by an emerging writer.
Smallholding
written by Chris Dunkley
directed by Patrick Sandford
production company: Nuffield Theatre, Southampton
previews at Nuffield Theatre - 25 April - 4 May
at HighTide: 7 - 11 May
Andy and Jen have just moved on to a new farm, returning to the village they grew up in. The plan is to plant parsnips, breed pigs and live off the fat of the land. But escaping their shared demons was never going to be easy.
"She's got no business being a junkie… She had looks, brains... Everythin' goin' for her. Whereas you, Andy… You deserve addiction." While the couple try to make a fresh start, trust, responsibility and bio-dynamic farming challenge their rehabilitation in this darkly comic love story.
The Last Wild
written by Piers Torday
4 May This is the story of a boy named Kester. He is extraordinary, but he doesn't know that yet. All he knows, at the moment is this:
1. There is a flock of excited pigeons in his bedroom.
2. They are talking to him.
3. His life will never be the same again...
In a world where animals no longer exist, twelve-year old Kester Jaynes sometimes feels like he hardly exists either. Locked away in a home for troubled children, he's told there's something wrong with him. So when he meets a flock of talking pigeons and a bossy cockroach, Kester thinks he's finally gone a bit mad. But the animals have something to say. The pigeons fly Kester to a wild place where the last creatures in the land have survived. A wise stag needs Kester's help, and together they must embark on a great journey, joined along the way by an over-enthusiastic wolf-cub, a spoilt show-cat, a dancing harvest mouse and a girl named Polly. The animals saved Kester Jaynes. But can Kester save the animals?
Adventure Capitalism
by Mark Borkowski
10 May
A theatre on the back of a bike, runaway taxmen turned circus performers, Hitler’s nephew, a human exhibit in London Zoo, Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando, and a man intent on eating a Cessna jet: roll up for Mark Borkowski’s rollercoaster ride through the weird and wonderful world of the Maverick. An autobiographical performance lecture outlining the benefits of introducing the Maverick into your life, Adventure Capitalism is a celebration of risk takers, outliers and artists, and why they might be more essential now than ever before.
If Room Enough
withWings Theatre Company
11 - 12 May
If Room Enough transports the audience across an unknown sea into a world where a 400 year old play: Shakespeare's The Tempest, can be played with.
Prospero and Miranda live a confined existence in an unpredictable beach hut. The Island they call theirs is full of noises; it breathes live, original, infectious music. Those who love, fall in and out of cupboards; those who grieve, are suspended in sleep; those who made mistakes, are instructed to pedal incessantly to power electricity; and those who drink, will dance.
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