Metal Harvest

My next project is a show called Metal Harvest.  I've been working on it for over eighteen months on and off and it's starting to get there.  It was supposed to have premiered exactly a year ago, (as part of my artist residency at the Quay) on the anniversary of the entry of Britain into the First World War - but a series of complications got in the way of that.  However, the delay has not been without its advantages, it's a more developed piece than it would have been and, I suspect, a better one.
It's the story of a shell - one shell - and the effect it has on the lives it touches.  It's also about cliché and the dangers of stereotypes and the tropes that amass around something as big as the Great War.  It's very easy for a show to fall into familiar patterns, to reaffirm easy assumptions about what four years of history is.  So far I've created the first half, which is all storytelling, music and images.  The second half is going to be something quite different, but will be a secret for the time being.  To myself chiefly.
I'm working once again with Richard Fawcett who's creating and performing the music, as he has for a couple of my shows in the past.  He's being terribly patient with me, as I've delayed any kind of a detailed script for many, many months as other projects have got very much in the way.
I'm hoping that the performance at the Quay Theatre will be filmed, so that I can post it online - so even those who can't make the show (isn't solid state geography a bugger) will be able to catch something of it. Those who can catch it - booking is now open, details below.

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

Metal Harvest

Written and performed by Robert Crighton and Richard Fawcett

“This is the story of a shell...” Throughout the First World War the armaments created passed through many hands – from those in the mines and factories who made them, to those who transported the boxes and those who fired the guns.  This is the story of one shell, the story of those who touched it and whose lives were changed by it.  Told in words, music, image and song, Metal Harvest is the latest work from award-winning theatre producer Robert Crighton, made in collaboration with musician Richard Fawcett. 

Performing on Thursday 29^th October at 7.30pm

Tickets: £9 (Friends £8)

The Quay Theatre, Sudbury

Box Office: 01787 374 745
Book Online: www.quaytheatre.org.uk