Written by Martin Figura
Director Mick Wood
Performance Martin Figura
Soundscape Jacquot Pfau
Creatures & Contraptions Paul Finlay, Amanda Nichol & Helen Ivory
Visuals Natty Peterkin with Martin Figura & Andre Barreau
Stage Design Helen Ivory
Producers Théâtre Volière and Lucy Farrant
A multi-media theatre piece commission by Théâtre Volière. Shed is set on the Suffolk Coast, facing mainland Europe at our most eastern point beyond which lay terror, but also hopes for future adventure and a better World.
Shed was originally intended to premiere at The Library Theatre London in 2020, but Lockdown got in the way. Later that year, I performed a showcase at Norwich Arts Centre to a ‘socially distanced’ audience. In 2024 I performed at Ink Festival and Cockpit Theatre London. In March 2025 the show will tour beginning in March with details to be announced.
Jack was born at the exact moment Bolton Wanderer’s first goal hit the West Ham net in the very first Wembley Cup Final. He loves buses, the sea, hoarding and telling small lies. In the final hour of his life the boundaries between fantasy and reality blur. He offers up the small downfall of his life; recounts the loss of his father and his bold young evacuee French wife in World War Two.
After her death, Jack retreated into a private constructed world in a shepherd’s hut on the Suffolk coastal marsh. He’s watched over by crows, has the companionship of a mollycoddled butterfly and a spider he doesn’t quite trust. He finds solace in obsessive ritual and hoarding of totems and keepsakes drawn from a sometimes imagined life.
Shed’s subject matter and use of artefacts provide an opportunity for creative workshops drawing on personal memory, history and place.