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Interview with Mike Shepherd, founder of Kneehigh Theatre

February 15, 2008

Mike ShepherdWhat were your original aims and intentions when you set up Kneehigh?

I called Cornwall my home and I’d been in the sharp end of the theatre business in London and got really jaded with it. So I went back to Cornwall as a place I believe you can make things happen and started Kneehigh as a company for children and their families. There aren’t really any theatres down here – there were quarries, old gunpowder works, some amazing places to tell stories. That was the original notion and if you see ‘Rapunzel’ I think it’s pretty close to those early shows.

They tell a good story, the use of music, colour, lots of humour – it’s quirky and witty as well. People recognise it as being immediate and it gives you a good night out. It’s the opposite of being in a black box studio theatre or behind a proscenium with a metaphorical fourth wall. We grew up playing in daylight and it’s embarrassing if you’re pretending the audience isn’t there, you can directly talk to the audience. Then the story can get darker and more emotional and take people on a journey. Read more

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Gwyneth Herbert interview

January 31, 2008

Rich Jevons discusses British singer-songwriter Gwyneth Herbert’s Blue Note album Between Me and the Wardrobe in advance of her show at Leeds College of Music’s The Venue.

How much of your work is autobiographical?

Between Me and the Wardrobe is a particularly personal album and I did it at a time when it was something I really needed to write. Some of them are about me and some of them are loosely autobiographical, the songs take on a life of their own and progress into things that you never thought would be. Read more

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Stacy Makishi on Bull: The True Story

January 24, 2008

Rich Jevons talks to Hawaii-born Stacy Makishi, an artist who works in a variety of media including site-specific installations, video, new writing, physical theatre and live art. Her latest work, ‘Bull: The True Story’ is inspired by the film Fargo.

What particularly interested you in the film Fargo to make it a trigger for the piece?

Initially I was interested in the film because I’m obsessed with Steve Buscemi, who plays a kidnapper. But also I liked the ‘noir’ overtones, the ‘dark humour’ in a white landscape, the countless (white) lies… snowjobs…etc. I love the snow. For a person from Hawaii, Fargo is a mighty contrast, it’s pretty ‘far to go’.

But after I began to discover the various thematic strands within my own show, I saw how Fargo provided a structure, a kind of overall map. Fargo is supposedly based upon a ‘True Story’…. which in fact is a lie. My  research brought me to another lie, the one about Takako Konishi, the 28 year old Tokyo woman who supposedly was obsessed with the film Fargo, and supposedly died looking for the buried ransom money in the snow. But that story is also a lie. Read more

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