The Selfish Giant comes to Tobacco Factory Theatres

Since its first inception in 2018, The Selfish Giant has toured extensively, to widespread acclaim, and is now set for a welcome return to Bristol.

A co-production from Tessa Bide Productions and Soap Soup Theatre, it brings together physical comedy, puppetry and a mesmerising soundscape in what Bide calls “a nice twist” on the original Oscar Wilde story.

Reflecting on the evolution of the show, Bide is very mindful that though the enchanting quality and beautiful aesthetic at its core have remained unchanged over that time, the audiences coming to it now might be in a wholly new headspace from where they were before the pandemic.

“It should be a really lovely way to get back into the theatre for children and adults,” she remarks. “It’s a big honour for us. Quite often we get children coming for their first-ever theatre experience so we don’t take that responsibility lightly.

“There are various tweaks we’ve made to the show this time, to make sure everyone is feeling safe in their seats, but really we’re trying to provide a little bit of magical escapism for those families who have not been able to go out and do special things together over the last 18 months.”

For Bide, the enforced break from live performance in 2020 became the unexpected catalyst for a fast and decisive pivot. Partly due to a desire to keep engaging with audiences and potentially reach new ones, and partly, she recalls, “to keep a bit of my identity as theatre maker”, she put together a weekly online schedule of self-funded and free-to-access innovations and resources for budding artists, including storytelling, digital workshops, streamed shows and puppet-making.

Her passion for sharing her knowledge in this way is helping to inspire the next generation of creatives, not least by sharing the breadth of careers available to young people interested in the field.

“What I really wanted was to give some insight on how shows are made, for young people and adults who might not be performers. For The Selfish Giant, although you see two performers on stage, we had about 12 artists working on it, between movement directors, a lighting designer, composing and sound design from Matt Huxley and Chris Menes, and beautiful puppets made by Emma Powell and Tomasin Cuthbert.”

Sharing inspiration from the garden. Production shot from The Selfish Giant. Photo by Paul Blakemore

One of the company’s masterstrokes was to rework their caravan show The Anarchist Mobile Library for the digital space after its 28 date summer tour was cancelled due to the pandemic. Assisted by Martin O’Leary, creative technologist at Pervasive Media Studio, where Bide is a resident artist, the show was transformed into an interactive ‘choose your own adventure’ style game.

“We released it for families to play in their living rooms all together, solving problems and hunting for props around the house,” she explains. The show has toured digitally and has now been viewed by thousands of members mostly accessing it for free. The project has continued to evolve since, with the making of a subsequent British Sign Language version featuring the performer David Ellington, and a Welsh language iteration, for which Bide’s company was co-commissioned.

Audience feedback and outreach continues to be at the very foundation of the creative process for Bide and her long-term collaborators.

“Rather than impose our ideas to an audience, we think it makes much more sense to work with our audiences to find out what they want to see,” she says. “Our work tackles big themes – with previous shows exploring immigration, activism, disability, death and grieving – and we need to work with people who have lived experience of these realities, in order to give the work integrity.”

That integrity is manifest in all Bide’s work, in which emotional power combines with the beauty and deftness of the storytelling on different levels that allow it to connect simultaneously with adults and children. The result is intelligent and timeless work that reaches young audiences without patronising them, while also inspiring “excited discussion between the generations”.

Poppy in The Selfish Giant. Photo by Paul Blakemore

Looking ahead, there is an intergenerational focus to Bide’s first work aimed at an adult audience, which will also involve community performers. The Grand Women Project, in partnership with Tobacco Factory Theatres, will seek to “elevate the voices of older women”; those who “often describe themselves as feeling invisible post-menopause”.

“Instead of celebrating and revering our matriarchs like some cultures do, we close the door and forget about ours,” reflects Bide. Over a six-week period, volunteer participants and subjects will come together in an informal interview process to record their personal stories. These will be turned into a live performance from the volunteers themselves, accompanied by an exhibition of the women’s lives.

“This will be a really lovely community project, and an exciting new direction for our company,” Bide enthuses.

Recruitment of volunteers will take place in January following a funding decision, but interested people are invited to sign up to the mailing list now.

Wrapping up our conversation, I ask Bide about what excites and inspires her about Bristol as a city of creatives. ‘I’ve lived in Bristol for nine years and still find it an exciting place to live and make theatre,” she says.

“We have world-class theatre, puppetry, dance, spoken word and circus being created and showcased on our doorstep and so many excellent independent venues to see it in.

“And, as a relatively small city, instead of being competitive between artists it’s incredibly supportive. We borrow each other’s equipment/puppets/set, give each other feedback from shows (when asked!) and sing each other’s praises at networking events. This weekend I’m off to see a couple of Circus City events across the city and can’t wait to be blown away.”

Main photo by Paul Blakemore

Read more: Review: The Selfish Giant

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