Brief Encounter With … Skellig Author David Almond

Last year
the Birmingham Stage Company presented their own highly acclaimed version of
the show, performing to full houses in Birmingham and London. This autumn the
production returned with a ten-week tour that culminates in a Christmas run at
the Bloomsbury Theatre, the BSC’s actor/manager Neal Foster leading a cast of
10 actor/musicians.

Has your thinking about
Skellig changed since having seen it adapted it for stage, opera and film?

The amazing thing about seeing all the adaptations and all
the collaborations is each time it happens you see the story anew and you learn
new things. One of the things that I’ve learnt with Birmingham Stage is the
importance of the choral narration and that rhythmic beat behind everything. It
gives the play lots of energy.

How does seeing your work acted out live compare
to the experience of reading it?

When I first saw somebody stand up and act out something
that I thought I knew, I learnt a lot about where the roots of the story came
from. The first time I saw someone become Skellig in front of me, I realised
that there was a huge influence from my mother on the character. It was a story that seemed to tell itself, it came from
nowhere. It obviously draws deeply on my own experiences, on my own history.

In the book the huge mass of words on the page is very seductive.
When you take away that huge scaffolding it brings everything down to the bare
bones. So you take away a lot of the words then you put in stage direction,
movement, design and music in its place and the action of the characters become
much more naked in a way.

Some of the reviews of the Young Vic production
were critical of your decision to take the first person narrative away from
Michael – how did you make that choice and how do you respond to those
criticisms?

In a sense I had to do it. The thing that really amazed me
when I began to open up the story and adapt it for the stage was that the whole
thing seems like a conspiracy, everyone seems to be in on it, even though
Michael is the one who’s narrating it. Characters who were in some way fringe
characters in the novel are actually central to the action. Replacing that
reflective first person narration with a chorus of speakers actually seemed
very natural.

Was it difficult adapting
Skellig for the stage, transforming a piece of your own work
into an entirely new format?

I felt free. I didn’t feel too burdened by the novel. I had
written my play, Wild Girl, Wild Boy, by the time that Trevor Nunn came along and asked me
to adapt Skellig so it gave me a lot of confidence. It felt
in a sense quite natural to me, to my amazement. When Skellig
came out there was lots of interest from
theatre companies, which was maybe something about the way that I write. The
adaptation process did feel like doing something new and I felt quite brave
about dispensing with some things.

How was it working on the first staging of the novel?

It was just fantastic, I learnt so much. I learnt a huge
amount about actors and direction and the incredibly painstaking nature of
putting together a stage show. Trevor was just stunning actually, that
attention to detail. I also discovered how hard everybody in the theatre works.
It’s total physical, emotional and intellectual commitment from everybody involved.

And it’s been great working
with Birmingham Stage, with Neal Foster in rehearsals and workshops. Last year I made

just a couple of small
adjustments to the script,

it just felt in place by
then.

Having worked on the
show several times now, do you feel like an old hand at the staging
process?

No, I don’t. I think you have to
keep on feeling quite new and even with writing novels I don’t feel like an old
hand. I still think every time I sit down to do it, ‘how do I do this?’ You
have to keep on taking new risks and pushing yourself harder. Each time it’s a
new challenge.

Would you ever be interested in adapting other
people’s work, following in the footsteps of someone like David
Wood?

That’s not something I’m naturally led towards. It’s hard
enough adapting your own work. Adaptation is incredibly difficult because you
have to be able to free yourself from the constraints of the story that already
exist. I think I’m pretty good at that but whether I’d be good at it with
anyone else’s work, I’m not so sure.

So can we expect a new show soon?

I’ve just written a mystery play, Noah and the
Flood, for Durham Gala Theatre
for a new cycle of mystery places to be staged in May next year. It’s building
on an ancient story but it’s a brand new piece and it was wonderful to be doing
something new. It’s a play that will be performed in the streets of Durham for
everyone and will use local people, local actors, local children,
to perform it.

One of the things that I thought when Skellig
was performed at the Young Vic, it didn’t
matter how old anybody was, all kinds of people came to see it of all ages. I’m
really interested in the fact that if a story’s a good story then it’s a good
story for everybody. That’s one of the big attractions of Noah
and the Flood; mystery plays are
an incredibly democratic and non-exclusive kind of form of writing and
performance. When I saw this opportunity I would have crawled to Durham to do
it because it just seemed so wonderful.

Skellig continues at the Bloomsbury Theatre until 23 January 2010.