Kneehigh Theatre at The Lost Gardens of Heligan
By Pentewan Sands on the March 31st, 2015 in
Back again for it's fifth season, the Kneehigh Theatre brings Michael Morpurgo’s story of the D-Day training operations to The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall this summer
25 July to 23 August 2015
This summer Kneehigh’s world-renowned Asylum theatre space will return for a fifth season to Cornwall’s The Lost Gardens of Heligan with 946. This is an exciting new production that tells the little known story of the rehearsal of the D-Day landings, and of the 946 people who were killed during Operation Tiger at Slapton Sands in Devon in 1944.
946 is a collaboration between Kneehigh joint Artistic Director, Emma Rice, and Michael Morpurgo adapted by them both from Morpurgo’s book The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips.
946 explodes everything we thought we knew about the D-Day landings. With the kind of storytelling sorcery Kneehigh is famous for, 946 uses music, puppetry and Kneehigh’s unique brand of craziness to tell this tale of war, prejudice and love. At once, tender, political and romantic, this production speaks to all ages, revealing the secrets the US and British government tried to keep quiet.
Emma Rice and Michael Morpurgo workshopped the production of 946 with a team of performers at the theatre company’s famous barns on the cliff tops at Gorran Haven near St Austell. This is the first time that the War Horse author has co-adapted one of his own books for stage, and Morpurgo says of the experience, “There is no theatre company that tells stories more imaginatively, more unexpectedly than Kneehigh. 946 is a story that emerges not just from the legends and the rocks and the landscape, but is based on historical events that took place in and around Slapton as the Americans trained for the landings in France a year later. I have witnessed first-hand the way Kneehigh weaves a tale and makes it live on stage for us. For my story to play a part in this is simply a joy.”
Emma Rice says of 946, “It’s about English village life, the beauty of it, the danger of it and the capacity for it to change. The other thing I love about this is that my mum gave this story to me and said it was something she longed to see Kneehigh do.”
946 is directed by Emma Rice, with a cast including Mike Shepherd, Craig Johnson, Giles King, Patrycja Kujawska and Katy Owen, composition by Stu Barker, design by Lez Brotherston and lighting by Malcolm Rippeth.
Kneehigh has enjoyed huge critical success in recent years with UK and international tours of Tristan & Yseult, Brief Encounter, Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs), and are currently touring a version of Rebecca which is being produced by David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers.
946 will be staged in the Asylum, Kneehigh’s award-winning, purpose-built tent and nomadic theatre space, described by the The Guardian as, ‘a place predisposed to magic’. In Cornwall’s Lost Gardens of Heligan for the fifth year, the Asylum seasons are a chance for people of all ages to enjoy theatre at its most spellbinding and charismatic.
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Notes for Editors
Contact:
Philippa Perry m: 07774 264826, e: [email protected] or
Dann Carroll at Kneehigh e: [email protected] tel: 01872 267910
•Booking, Performance Schedule and Prices
Tickets on General Sale from 26 February 2015, priority booking opens on 19 February 2015
All performances take place in the Asylum Tent, The Lost Gardens of Heligan,
Pentewan, St Austell, Cornwall PL26 6EN.
25 July – 23 August 2015
Tuesday – Saturday Evenings, 7.45pm
Friday & Sunday Matinees, 3pm
Online booking: www.hallforcornwall.co.uk and search ‘Kneehigh Asylum’
Phone: 01872 262466
Hall for Cornwall Box Office (Lines open 10am – 5pm, Monday –Saturday. Phone booking closes 3pm on the day of each performance).
In person: Pop into the Hall for Cornwall Box Office on Lemon Quay in Truro
(9.30am – 5pm, Monday – Saturday).
A £1.50 handling charge will be added to each transaction.
Prices
Show Ticket Show and Garden entry
Earlybird Adult £19 £25
Earlybird Family £58 £74
Adult £24 £30
U26s &
Concessions** £14 £18
Over 65s £22 £28
Family £62 £92
*Earlybird tickets are available for performances from 25 July – 9 August only and bookable until 19 April 2015 inclusive.
** NUS, JSA, ESA & PIP. Proof of eligibility is required.
Pay What You Like performance on
Sunday 26 July, 3pm
Reserve your place online at www.hallforcornwall.co.uk
BSL performance on 19 August, 7.45pm.
• Kneehigh
Kneehigh are a UK based theatre company with a local, national and international profile. For over 30 years they have created vigorous, popular and challenging theatre and perform with the joyful anarchy that audiences have come to expect from this ground-breaking company. Kneehigh tell stories. Based in Cornwall in breath-taking barns on the south coast they create theatre of humanity on an epic and tiny scale. Kneehigh work with an ever-changing ensemble of performers, artists, technicians, administrators, makers and musicians and are passionate about their multi-disciplined creative process.
www.kneehigh.co.uk
• The Asylum
In 2010 Kneehigh launched The Asylum, a beautiful and flexible nomadic structure, which means they now have a venue to call home as well as being one of the leading touring theatre companies in the UK. The Asylum returns to Cornwall’s Lost Gardens of Heligan in 2015 for its fifth season.
Visitors to Kneehigh Asylum 946 will be able to enjoy the atmosphere of the gardens and have supper at the Heligan Restaurant, with produce from the garden and estate. Inside the Asylum tent there will be a fully licensed bar and hot drinks and cakes – open before and after the show and at the interval.
946 is presented in association with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre and is based on The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo, published by Harper Collins Children’s Books.