We’ve all had a whale of a time
IT is promising to be a busy autumn for Birmingham Stage Company with two new shows heading to Birmingham.
The company’s stage adaptation of children’s book Skellig will be re-opening the newly refurbished Old Rep in October and Why The Whales Came will usher in Christmas.
Actor manager Neal Foster is particularly pleased to be able to stage Skellig as he had long admired David Almond’s best-selling novel.
It tells the tale of ten-year-old Michael who discovers a stranger living in the garage of his new family home. But when he brings the stranger into the light, is his new friend simply a tramp or a secret angel?
“Skellig is a wonderful book which won lots of awards and there was a very successful production at the Young Vic a few years ago. Since then I have been trying to get the rights,” says Neal.
“I was ringing every few months and it literally happened that I rang just hours after a producer had let them go. David Almond wanted to meet me so I had to persuade him that his story was safe in our hands.”
Neal then faced the decision of whether now was the best time to create the show.
“With all this talk of a credit crunch I did wonder whether people would want to be buying theatre tickets,” he says. “But because of our long-standing relationship with the Old Rep I was really keen to be the first show after the refurbishment so we decided to go ahead.
“In the event it was the right decision as ticket sales have been going really well.”
Neal, who takes the part of Skellig in the show, is then hoping to take the show on tour.
And he is also busy with the company’s other new show, Michael Morpurgo’s Why The Whales Came.
Having successfully staged Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom in the past, Neal met the author when BSC was invited to take part in a royal Garden Show in honour of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
“Michael Morpurgo came up to me and said he really wanted us to do Why The Whales Came,” says Neal.
With a story line featuring strange islands, a mysterious Birdman and a pod of whales, it may not sound like the easiest show to stage but after last year’s Treasure Island, BSC is ready for anything.
“There is a question of ‘how do you put a whale on stage’ but we have come to learn that you can do very stylised productions,” says Neal. “This show is very theatrical and you don’t necessarily have to put everything on stage to represent it.”
Neal and his company are also working on tours of two popular shows The Jungle Book, which plays Wolverhampton Grand Theatre this November and Birmingham’s Alexandra Theatre next March and Horrible Histories. Plus they are working on their third Horrible Histories production.
“This will be the Frightful First World War and the Woeful Second World War,” says Neal. “We are currently working on the first scripts. This time they will be more of a story and less of the feeling of a series of sketches. After all these are very difficult subjects to treat in a fun way.”
All of these productions ensure that BSC is continuing to expand.
“We have always determined to never compromise,” says Neal. “And if you continually give people good quality theatre, for whatever the age audience, then you build your reputation for that. It means that people have faith in our productions.”
* Ticket Info
The Old Rep hosts Skellig from October 7-20 and Why The Whales Came from November 12 - January 24. Tickets: 0121 303 2323 and 0121 605 4444.
