Theatre presents Watership Down as their Christmas Show
For the Lyric's 2006 Christmas show, Melly Still and Rona Munro bring Richard Adam’s bestseller Watership Down to the stage with music by Harvey Brough.
Director Melly Still brings her formidable reputation for blending direction, movement and design to create the feral world the rabbits inhabit, in Richard Adams’s celebration of deviousness, courage, faith and the joy of living.
This is an epic story of a small band of rebel rabbits, their heroic leader and the visionary who sees their future. They take on all the dangers of the human, natural and rabbit world in order to find and establish their ideal warren- somewhere high and safe, where they can spot enemies for miles around. To reach this place, and to win the does who will make their home complete, the group of refugee rabbits must stick together, be quick, and be cunning.
Melly Still’s previous work includes Coram Boy for Royal National Theatre (running concurrently with Watership Down); The Jungle Book, Grimm Tales and More Grimm Tales, Young Vic (Designer and Movement); Tales from Ovid, RSC (Designer and Co Director); Beasts and Beauties, Bristol Old Vic /National Theatre of Norway (Director/ Designer); Haroun and the Sea of Stories, National Theatre (Designer and Co Deviser).
She says, “ I first read Watership Down when I was 12, as a child on the edge of adulthood. I was happy to accept the fantasy of animals thinking, feeling and communicating like humans - so vivid was their world; at times evoking pastoral perfection, at times harsh and deadly. I'm more than happy to return to this world.”
Watership Down was written for all ages; a gripping story told in language that does not patronise, and is less anthropomorphised than most animal stories (the animals do not wear clothes, or use human technology). Richard Adams grew up in the 1920’s knowing the real Watership Down in Berkshire, and became a captain in World War II aged only 21. He drew on his knowledge of the countryside, and the characters and the relationships he encountered during the war to create the realism that makes the story so magnetic. The book received seven rejections before going on to become one of Penguin’s best selling book of all time.
Harvey Brough studied at Clare College Cambridge before forming Harvey and
The Wallbangers. Compositions include the music for Start the Week, Loose Ends and Citzens (Radio 4), Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, BBC2’s In A Land of Plenty, and DV8’s Strange Fish, Blight. He has worked extensively with Jacqueline Dankworth, Emma Kirkby, Cleo Laine, Jocelyn Pook, and Natacha Atlas.
November 24, 2006
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