News
My Mother Told Me Not to Stare
Dr Martyn Harry's new opera for children, My Mother Told Me Not To Stare, is now on national tour, with 43 performances planned in both theatre venues and schools. Commissioned by Theatre Hullabaloo and Action Transport Theatre and setting a text by award-winning Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer, My Mother is a dark morality tale in the tradition of Shockheaded Peter and Tim Burton's film The Nightmare Before Christmas. Despite presenting an extremely bold fusion of children's theatre and contemporary classical music, the opera is proving to be a great success with audiences of children, as shown by its first fortnight of performances in Darlington, Middlesborough, Keswick, Washington and Poole.
A notable feature of the work is how every member of the cast both sings roles at different times in the work and plays the instrumental accompaniment at other times, making the work a fascinating kaleidoscope comprising of the talents of the cast's unique talents:
Andrew Sparling (baritone/clarinet), Eleanor Meynell (mezzo soprano/piano), Eva Karell (soprano/violin), Gary Hughes (tenor/flute/piano) and Tom Bates (narrator/counter-tenor/musical saw).
If you are interested in seeing the show, please note the run of performances at the Unicorn Theatre in London (17 to 21 March) and particularly the show at the Half Moon Theatre on 25 March, for which tickets are still relatively easy to obtain.
Here is a brief synopsis:
In the town of Upper Crumble, children meet every week to recite a list of rules that they are not meant to break. Nobody knows for sure what happens to a child who breaks one of the rules, but eventually children start to disappear. Two children, Bobby and Emily, set out to rescue the disappeared children. Emily breaks a rule by letting her hair down on a Sunday, and disappears. It is now up to Bobby to rescue her from the Fixing Kitchen.
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MY MOTHER TOLD ME NOT TO STARE
REMAINING TOUR SCHEDULE (THEATRES ONLY)
25 March
Half Moon Young People’s Theatre, London
Box Office: 020 7709 8900
www.halfmoon.org.uk
27 March
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield
Box Office: 01707 281 127
www.herts.ac.uk/artsandgallery
30 March
Rose Theatre, Ormskirk
Box Office: 01695 584 480
www.edgehill.ac.uk/rosetheatre
3 April
Ammanford Theatre, Carmarthenshire
Box Office: 0845 226 3510
www.carmarthenshiretheatres.co.uk
7 April
Mercury Theatre, Colchester
Box Office: 01206 573 948
www.mercurytheatre.co.uk
9 April
South Street Arts Centre, Reading
Box Office: 0118 960 6060
www.readingarts.com
10 April
Nuffield Theatre, Southampton
Box Office: 023 8067 1771
www.nuffieldtheatre.co.uk