Simple Times was made in North Edinburgh Arts for the Luminate and Mental Health Arts and Film Festivals 2016. It was re-rehearsed and taken to Langside Church with a further showing at North Edinburgh Arts in March 2017.
A poignant, funny story of growing up in Glasgow in the 50s and 60s evoking memories from that time using original poetry and story- telling and well known song. Written and performed by Valerie Munro singer/performer Accompanied by pianist / performer Sarah Stephenson Directed by Freda O’Byrne Set and lighting design: Freda O’ Byrne Technical assistant : Euan Jackson
With very grateful thanks to Kate Wimpress, Kate Craik and all at North Edinburgh Arts for support and guidance.
The story of a young woman who discovers, from gossip overheard at her workplace, that she had seven brothers who were cursed and turned into Ravens when she was a tiny infant. Despite her parents pleas to stay at home, she resolves to set off on a quest to rescue them.
Ada sets off for work
This was first shown as a work in progress, working title The Keeper, at the Hidden Door Festival, In Between Space, The State Cinema on Saturday 2nd June 2018
The show was presented hourly from 2 pm to 9pm and, though suitable suitable for 8s to adult – it enjoyed success with the Festival’s mainly adult audiences.
Images from Hidden Door 2018
Audience Feedback
This has an enormous amount of potential . Many interesting issues presented and performed in an engaging and visually attractive way.
I [name given] liked everything on display, thank you
I liked the materials used to create the piece. Reminded me of the film Coraline.
Use the carpet shapes more! Also, wanna see those ravens!
Loved it! Fluidity of movement was fantastic! Beautiful!
Very beautiful and atmospheric installation.
Loved the light!! And I liked the felt landscape.
Loved the colourful felt landscape, the puppet, iceblock, story sound, light, words, and performance. Well done – very engrossing.
Love the intimacy and directness of the performance.
Really liked the puppet and felt landscape.
Great carpet exploration and love the north star 🙂
Very evocative and imaginative piece.
Was really drawn in when puppet appears … just want to know how it ends!
Background Information
The Keeper draws inspiration from a Grimms’ fairy tale, The Seven Ravens, and is aimed at adult and family audiences with a lower age of 8 years (parental discretion for children younger than that threshold). It is a performance/installation with puppetry, live image capture, processing and display; projection, needle felting, and specially composed music and song.
The Keeper is a creature who guards the Glass Mountain. In the traditional version of this Grimms’ fairy tale, he is a rather friendly gnome. This project involved the creation of a non-human marionette or puppet who guards the glass mountain and which contained a Raspberry Pi computer, a Pi camera and a small screen. It was programmed to steal, in real time, the images of all it encountered and to store them in the glass mountain.
The character of The Keeper will contain a raspberry pi, a pi camera and a screen.
The design and creation of this creature for Hidden Door 2018 explored how the function of housing the microcomputer and its camera might influence the design of the final form of the marionette/puppet. It also explored how to make the creature move, interact with other puppets and people (audience members) it meets. The sole desire of The Keeper is to capture the images of all it encounters – and to keep them within the walls of the Glass Mountain forever. Puppetry is important to the realisation of this character because he is not of our world, he is formed, shaped by what he needs to be – a collector of images.
There is an obvious connection to be made between The Keeper and his Glass Mountain and social media, online identity theft, and the digital rights of children and adults; this is not an oversight or happenstance. The setting for The Keeper and his mountain will be within an updated Grimms’ fairy tale world of digital exploration, exploitation and experimentation.
Exploring a way to make the puppet
The installation element of this stage of the work involved creating the glass mountain in which images were ‘stored’ and displayed, creating some of the artefacts and environments of the future play, exploring some modern day parallels to the original story and working out how these might fit into and inform a narrative, exploring some of the data around young people’s use of digital products, issues around safety and the checks, balances and measures they use for personal safety online.
Why This Story?
The inspiration for The Keeper came from several sources. The primary one is the story itself – a strong female hero who rescues her seven brothers turns the usual fairytale fodder of ‘damsel in distress’ on its head. The Keeper character is a simple and age appropriate exploration of the issue of sharing images online without realising that once they are posted control is lost.
Future Plans Tragic Carpet plan to develop The Sevens set in the modern day, having as its lead puppet a young woman who sets off on a quest to find and save her brothers who are being kept in the Glass Mountain, and who will use her STEM knowledge and experience to help her on her quest.
It will be suitable for primary school aged children and their families and will tour to festivals, museums and galleries and arts venues. It will address the issue of gender balance in the digital and other STEM industries, will present a strong digitally competent female lead character, and will have as one of its themes the exploration of online identity and keeping safe. We are looking for partners.
Creative Team at Hidden Door on The keeper (work in progress)
A radical, immersive work using a mix of puppetry, soundscapes and projection to shine a light on post 9/11 human rights violations.
On the morning of 11 September 2001 the world changed forever…
Four coordinated terrorist attacks on the United States killed 3,000 civilians, injured 6,000 and set in motion a response that quickly became known as The War On Terror.
The Rendition Project is a unique collaboration between academics and human rights proponents, which undertakes and publishes research into the involvement of the US and its allies in human rights violations in the aftermath of 9/11. With information on detainees, the global network of detention facilities and over 11,000 so-called ‘rendition flights’, at its core the project holds governments to account for their actions, whilst representing the victims of their abuses.
Tragic Carpet’s radical new work, Rendition, uses these detailed research findings to tell the story of one man’s nightmare experience as the first suspect to be taken into the CIA’s detention programme. First performed at Hidden Door Festival in May 2017 and then at Manipulate Snapshots at the Traverse in February 2018, Rendition has been developed into a full-length work that aims to visualise the data from research findings using an innovative mix of puppetry, music, soundscapes, visual theatre and installation art.
“profoundly moving piece of total theatre… this beautiful, exquisitely made show, driven by a quiet but fierce sense of humanity”
Rendition premiered in March 2019 at the Assembly Roxy Snug Bar which was transformed into an installation within which the audience experienced the work. This potent, immersive production shines a light on the collusion between the CIA and the British Government and explores the juxtaposition between extreme vulnerability and absolute power.
Carolyne Latham Critical Response Process Facilitator
Tony Pinchuck Graphic Designer
Lyndie Wright Marionette Maker
Audience Feedback
Audience members were asked for feedback after the 5-night Edinburgh run in March 2019.
“I was aware of Rendition and was concerned and welcomed the opportunity to discover more about it”
“It was something I hadn’t experienced before and it really brought me into the story”
“not just the proximity, but also the ability to walk around before and after the production to look at the set and interact with the performer more closely.”
“Being so close was perfect for this piece because, in a way, it made us all complicit in what was going on. The audience was a part of the action, and that really worked”
“…you felt involved on what was happening on stage and being able to walk around the set/installation felt welcoming and informative. I felt invited into the piece.”
“The performance did a terrific job of conveying torture in a non-spectacularization, non-voyeuristic way.”
“‘I found it very moving, loved the relationship between the actor and puppet”
“Liked the way the different views were represented, made me want to follow it up. We talked about it all the way home.”
“The medium of theatre and puppetry suited the delicacy of the work .The music, visuals, spoken word, puppet and performance seamlessly came together to create a harrowing piece of work.”
”I felt moved and strangely implicated in the tragedy. I felt compassion for the victims of Rendition and I also felt anger at the cover ups and inadequacy of UK government response to this violation of human rights law”
“Moved, touched and disturbed by the personal stories. Inspired by the artistry”
“The performance really struck a chord in me, it made me feel sadness, guilt, disgust towards the people it was about, it was an absolutely amazingly emotional performance!!”
“Everything about this piece is beautiful except the subject matter itself. That’s what makes it such a surprising and enlightening experience – because the content is shocking, but it’s so subtle, and all the more effective for that.”
Supporters
Supported by National Lottery through Creative Scotland, North Edinburgh Arts Centre, Puppet Animation Scotland, The Rendition Project, Platform, Hidden Door Festival, Curious School of Puppetry and Assembly Roxy.
‘Burlap’ is the working title for an ongoing research and development project working with young people and the organisations and professionals that support them to explore themes, stories, characters, settings and outdoor performance spaces and places. This process involves them at a very early stage of development in an age appropriate critical response process, drawing on and valuing their insights and creativity.
The resulting outdoor interactive play will be accompanied by an optional creative arts workshop programme focussing on: making puppets out of recycled plastics and compostable materials, and using compostable cups to grow crops, flowers or trees.
Concept: Burlap is a young dragon living in a cafe underneath the coffee machine. He is made of fully compostable cups and sacking and his world is also constructed of compostable materials. Burlap will live for hundreds or maybe thousands of years but, he needs help to find his story.
The world is changing and sometimes he feels that it is hard to imagine what these changes might mean or that there is anything we can do to influence them. In the research and development phase we are engaging with young children in working out what Burlap’s story will be as he grows up and how we can help make his outcomes better.
The first phase of this project involved working with P1 pupils in Castleview Primary School exploring ideas around planting, working and learning outdoors creatively, making performance sequences and stories.
The second phase involved working with two primary 4 classes in Castleview Primary School to create a stage play involving puppetry, poetry, performance, movement, artworks, a dragon (which became a sea serpent), and looking at plastics, the environment, recycling, planting trees.
This project is aimed at creating an interactive performance for 5 to 8 year olds and their families in that is designed to be performed outdoors in forest, garden and community outdoor spaces and places. Tragic Carpet’s partner in this project is Karin Chipulina of Carr Gomm.
Scatterbox Films is a youth arts programme set up to develop independent film making and associated skills particularly, but not exclusively, with young people. Freda O’Byrne co-founded the group with young people and other adults.
The group has made narrative films written, performed, filmed and edited by cross generational groups of adults and young people. Scatterbox has made documentaries for The Big Project at Broomhouse with Kim Edgar,involving Karine Polwart, King Creosote, Rachel Sermanni and Findlay Napier.
Scatterbox has also supported several third sector groups with recording their events and making mini documentaries for them to share with their members and funders.
This production was developed in partnership with The Court Theatre Training Company, The Courtyard Hoxton and Buckinghamshire New University in May 2016. The ensemble worked from the Alma Classics recent translation by Hugh Alpin to explore, deconstruct and then reconstruct the narrative.
Korotkov on the roof
“Comrade Korotkov works at The Main Central Depot of Match Materials as chief clerk. One day, he makes an easy but fatal error which catapults him into a surreal, mind blowing world of twins, match boxes, lost jobs, mistaken identities, stolen papers, unrequited love, Moscow’s absurd and labyrinthine bureaucracy, bedevilment, fire engines and soldiers’ underwear.”
Korotkov contemplates the street below
“This early satirical story was first published in 1924 and incurred the wrath of pro-Soviet critics. Mikhail Bulgakov became one of his era’s most brilliant and daring writers. His career was plagued by Soviet censorship and his masterpiece The Master and Margarita , was never published in his lifetime”. (Alma Classics)
Korotkov reads a letter
The production used physical theatre, dance, song, puppetry, object theatre, design, light and sound to explore the surreal nightmare that overwhelms Korotkov.
This spectacular community event was hosted at Craigmillar Park in the mini forest beside the Jubilee adventure playground. Tragic Carpet (Freda O’Byrne, Pete Searle and Euan Jackson) worked in partnership with Forestry Commission Scotland, Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust, Karin Chipulina of CarrGomm and Craigmillar Community Grows, Birgit Harris of City of Edinburgh Council and Craigmillar Library, Playbase Training and Saheliya. .
Tree dressing, in the first week of December, is based on many old customs from all over the world and at different times of the year.
Tree Dressing Day falls on the first weekend of December. It was initiated by Common Ground in 1990 and has grown to become much more than an expression of a love for trees. It is a chance for the whole community to gather and celebrate the leafy friends we all have in common. It’s also a chance for communities to reflect on the social and cultural history of their local area, and the role trees have played in shaping this story.
A community play telling the story of East Renfrewshire from the early settlers to the present day. The project involved over 80 participants who wrote, acted, sang, played music and created artworks and dance. The play took place within a big top circus tent in Rouken Glen Park and was directed by Freda O’Byrne who was also artistic director of the 10 month community theatre project. An excerpt was presented in The London Dome.
written by D Harvey Vox D Harvey Guitars J Cameron Clarsach N Harvey
Based on the book of the same name by Anatoly Kuznetsov, Babi Yar tells the story of the German occupation of Kiev from 1941 to 1943 and the 2 day massacre of 33,000 Jewish civilians that took place in the ravine on September 29th and 30th 1941.
Babi Yar Edinburgh Fringe 1988 Reviews
This production was presented in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1988
FishorMan explored man’s relationship with a marine coastal environment set against an epic backdrop of the history of Mull and Iona from millions of years BC to the present day. The play focussed on scientific fact, history, myth and legend, oral history and traditional and original music.
Originally commissioned by the Tobermory Arts centre (now An Tobar), FishorMan was researched on the Isle of Mul and northern coastal Argyll in partnership with First Bite Theatre Company, the people of Mull and the West Coast of Scotland including Trish Haworth, Gordon Maclean and Dramattack! Ross of Mull, Fiona Reid and the children of Ulva Ferry Primary School, Mary Cameron and Jackie Chapple and the children of Kilchoan Primary School, Sheena Walker, Bunty McIver, and the Tob Posse Youth Drama Group, Tricia Slater and the Oban Youth and Community Drama Group, Val Leckie and the Artstronauts Community Arts Group, Duncan McGilp of Tobermory and Richard Fairbairns and staff at the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust.
An adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novella The Heart of a Dog translated by Misha Glenny. Script by Phil Smith, music by John Moore, Directed by Freda O’Byrne.
The Big Data Show tells the story of four teenage hackers in the 1980s and how their passionate involvement with the emerging internet led to two of them being imprisoned, charged and finally released when the law lords decided there was no law against hacking. Even though Rupert Goodwins had hacked in to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Prestel email account…
The Big Data Show uses drama and a mobile app to tell the story of Rupert and his friends, how they were responsible for the emergence of the Computer Misuse Act and, through this prism, examines the vulnerability of young people’s data and the consequences of not reading those terms and conditions…
tragic carpet 
