Inspired by the short stories of Anais Nin, NYT present new fables of modern love and ritual. On the night bus, on the last train, amongst the detritus of deserted pubs and clubs and in the secret corners of the city, pickpocket poets steal the stories of the lost. We return to devising a new show for 2018, but in a departure from previous years, … Continue reading Of Rags and Bones

Following a number of successes working with adaptations and scripts, we realised that we hadn’t devised a production from scratch since The Lost Letters of Mr Corrigan in 2009. So with that, and copy deadlines looming, we put forward a title and some copy that would read well but be generic enough for us to get away with, more or less anything. Our only rule … Continue reading The Glorious Invention of Emmanuel Stork 2017

In late 2015 we realised that it had been over a decade since we had tackled a fully scripted play. Inspired by the story of The Cottingley Fairies and by letters from soldiers to their children during WW1, we decided to write a piece that brought together the wide-eyed hopefulness of youth and the horrors of trench warfare. The result was, luckily widely praised by … Continue reading Fairies and Dragons of the Desolate Plain 2016

In 2015 we returned to Hilaire Belloc’s deliciously dark morality stories for children. There’s something about the irreverent playfulness, rhyming couplets and grisly death sequences that draws children in. In order to keep this production separate from our previous version, we tackled some different tales from the collection and even devised our own one! Cast: Tom Hazelden, Jake Mawson, Abi Quaintance, Katie Gale,  Lydia Schofield, … Continue reading Cautionary Tales 2015

We found a copy of Frank R. Stockton’s beautiful story in the Children’s section of the library. There was something about the philosophical tale, in conjunction with the magical illustrations by PJ Lynch, that was truly captivating. We felt that, although a children’s story, it didn’t patronise or speak down to its audience. The result was tremendous fun to put together and perform, incorporating the … Continue reading The Bee Man of Orn 2014

Four years had passed since we had last devised a play, as a company from scratch, so we decided to return to this style of original storytelling. Inspired by Edward Gorey’s alphabets and John Kenn Mortensen’s Sticky Monsters, we became interested by the fears that adults have for their children being alone in the world. The result was a strange compilation of children encountering (real … Continue reading The Curious Case of the Ugglie Wump and Other Mysterious Monsters 2013

Five years after our original production of Kipling’s Just So stories, we felt it was time to dust off those we adapted previously and one or two we didn’t in a brand new production that, following our success in 2011, proved to be another big hit. This came to a climax when we were given our second award, a Broadway Baby BOBBY. Cast: Amy Scarrett, … Continue reading Just So 2012

Nikolai Gogol’s haunting story of greed and narcissism was a difficult tale to adapt for the stage. However, such is Gogol’s cult status that, in 2011, we received a record NINE reviews for one of our shows, with many members of the press and audiences giving us the highest possible praise. Cast: Matthew Hodgkin, Rob Lees, Callum Battersby, Lola Wingrove, Georgia Scarr, Lucy Kane, Lizzy Hayes, Kathryn Kaiser, Tom Serruya, Tom Norman, Josh … Continue reading The Portrait 2011

2010 saw us perform at the Zoo Roxy, following a mix up with The Quaker Meeting House. The space was a high-ceilinged former church with pews raked steeply into the gods. It has subsequently been renovated and has more recently been operated by Assembly. This adaptation of Hilaire Belloc’s gory stories for children was another big hit for us, it was the first year we … Continue reading Cautionary Tales 2010