FROM OUR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR – JOIN US ROUND THE CAMPFIRE FOR AN EPIC HORROR STORY!

Nikki & JD are Nikki Rummer and Jean-Daniel Brousse who work together as an acrobatic duo. This Saturday, they invite you to join them round the campfire for an awesome, ancient, epic horror story.

Since starting out together in 2016, Nikki & JD have made 3 incredibly successful shows – Knot, Unbroken and (le) Pain. All these shows were made for indoors and all of them came to our theatre at Watermans in Brentford. Unbroken was actually made at Watermans before going off on tour.

So when they wanted to make a show for the outdoors, we were excited to continue working with them – and so Fireside comes to Bell Square this Saturday evening.

I recently met up with Nikki to talk about how it has been for them making their first outdoor show.

Jan: Although your 3 shows together as Nikki & JD have all been indoor shows, have either of you ever

actually performed outdoors before?

Nikki: Well. We did both perform outside together once. I was performing as a goat and had to go up a ladder and do a handstand. JD just held the ladder. It was a comedy-filled moment but our previous experience is quite minimal!

Jan: So, you’ve made this show and done a few performances now – how’s it been going?

Nikki: It’s been great, we’ve been really loving it. At the performances, we see different audiences than you see indoors in a theatre. People come and talk to you after the show! In a theatre, it can feel more of a transaction - you do the show, they sit and watch, and then they leave. Outdoors, you have to work at it a bit more. You get more scepticism, you have to win the audience over - but you also get more enthusiasm from the audience.

As a performer, there’s also more to contend with when you’re performing outside, variables that you can’t control – like the weather, or dogs getting on stage. Outdoor performance feels more real and immediate for that.

Jan: Where did the idea for this show come from?

Nikki: Well, we wanted to do something with fire and something outdoors. The idea of gathering around a fire takes us back to the origins of theatre, where people would gather round to hear a story. This feels very natural, very human, an historic way of making connections between people. You know, without all the modern trappings of digital technology, screens, audio-visual effects or whatever, everything is boiled down to just a really good story.

So we wanted to find a story that we could base the show on, and bring in these ideas about people gathering together as the central theme.

Jan: So were you looking for an existing story?

Nikki: Yes – although there weren’t many that we could find that were based on these ideas and themes that we wanted to do. But then we thought of Beowulf.

Jan: Beowulf is an incredibly old folk tale, with many people thinking that it dates back to the 8th century. It’s about this incredible hero, Beowulf, who travels great distances to prove his strength and slay all kinds of demons and great beasts. He travels to help the King of the Danes who has been plagued by attacks on his court by a monster, Grendel. After a violent tussle, Beowulf kills the monster.

The following night, though, the monster’s mother, angry at her son’s death, sets out for revenge – and kills the leader of the king’s warriors. The warriors, of course, are enraged and track down the monster’s mother to her lair. Beowulf finally gets the better of her and kills her.

Beowulf returns home and many years later becomes the king of his own people. One day, someone steals a golden cup from the den of a dragon. The dragon is furious and leaves his den, burning everything in sight. Beowulf and his warriors go to deal with the dragon, but Beowulf tells his men that he will fight the dragon alone. Eventually he kills the dragon but he is mortally wounded himself and also dies.

This is a very big story – what have you taken from it for the show?

Nikki: It’s a story of revenge at heart. It’s also about how we feel about the night, how we feel about fear. But underneath it all, it’s also about how we think about the ‘other’ – in this case, the monster, but really about people who are different from ourselves. When we see the mother seek revenge for her son’s death, it makes the monster seem more relatable, it maybe makes us reflect on how we perceive people who we think are different or ‘other’.

Jan: So how have you incorporated these ideas into the show?

Nikki: Well, it’s circus. It’s got a real old-world folk atmosphere about it. Some of the show is absurd and silly. But there’s also a tension there and sometimes it drops into dark moments. Children have said to us after a performance that it’s scary but not too much - not terrifying!

In the show, we never actually see the monster and because you can’t see it, it feels more ominous. This is about our own personal perspectives, though - that tend to come out of our own cultural

ideas about what is a monster, what is fearsome.

Jan: Thank you so much, Nikki – it’s going to be great. I can’t wait to see it at Bell Square on Saturday! Come and join us round the campfire for this modern re-telling of the ancient epic, Beowulf. The performance starts at 8.00 pm, as it starts to get dark…

As always, it’s free, you don’t need a ticket and everyone is welcome.