Previous Projects…
Roofing the County of
Surrey with Crystal
When campaigner and journalist Harriet Martineau visits the relocated Crystal Palace with her friends Charles and Erasmus Darwin, she bumps into the art critic John Ruskin. Harriet is an enthusiastic supporter of ‘The People’s Palace’ and its mission to educate the masses. Ruskin sees it as an abomination. Why can’t the people be given real art, he demands, instead of these tawdry fakes? Rows break out among the exhibits, while down among the dinosaurs Charles Darwin meets a ten-year-old girl whose life may one day be changed by the Palace …
Treasure
‘PAIN … ache … suffering …’ In this monologue Peter Mark Roget, creator of the famous Thesaurus, talks about his early years in Manchester when he was Chief Surgeon at the Infirmary, and about the lists he made to keep depression at bay. ‘CLASSIFICATION … arrangement … analysis …’ The shades of meaning implicit in words fascinated Roget, and he started obsessively noting down all the variations he came across. ‘ADMIRATION … affection … tenderness … .’ In 1852, when he was 73, his catalogue of words was finally published, as Roget’s Thesaurus, or Treasure-House. Its author may well have been pleased to learn that this book is still in print in the twenty-first century. But he would almost certainly have preferred to be remembered as a scientist – as a doctor, researcher, teacher, inventor of the slide rule … the list of his achievements goes on.
Slasher
Mary
When Canadian art enthusiast Mary Richardson joins the Women’s Social and Political Union, some of her fellow suffragettes soon start to doubt the truth of her hair-raising stories. But it is only when she loses the trust of her new friend Lillian Dove Willcox that she is finally shamed into action. Imprisoned in Holloway for slashing the National Gallery painting ‘The Rokeby Venus’, Mary sets about freeing herself from her chief inner tormentor, her tyrannical grandfather. Years later she has to repeat the exercise when she becomes entangled with another bully, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Fascists.
189 Pieces
The Portland Vase is a Roman glass masterpiece of the late first century BC, made by what is known as the cameo technique. It probably took at least two years to make the Vase, and there is only one other Roman cameo vase in existence - found in Pompeii - which matches its quality.
Possibly owned by the Emperor Augustus, the Portland Vase was at some point placed in a Roman tomb - perhaps that of a late Roman emperor. Rediscovered in Rome in 1582, it was acquired by a succession of high-class Italians, including Pope Urban VIII. Eventually in 1783 it was brought to London by Sir William Hamilton, who sold it to the Dowager Duchess of Portland for £1800.
Josiah Wedgwood borrowed the Vase in 1786 to make some ceramic copies. These were to have a huge impact on neo-classical design in late 18th century Britain.
Recent Productions…
