Daniel Nelson

 

The Edge

The Edge

Image by The Edge

It’s on tour: London, Ipswich, Canterbury, Folkestone, Bristol, Leicester, Portsmouth, Cardiff and Salisbury.

This one is particularly topical, because it involves a refugee – a climate change refugee – as well as someone planning to swim the (English) Channel. They are the children of a man swept up in a storm surge in West Bengal 20 years before and another woman who stepped into the Channel, and they meet on a beach by an English town that’s been abandoned to the sea.

The deviser and director of the 90-minute piece, Douglas Rintoul, describes it as “poetic” and “fantastical” – “it’s about looking to the future, looking forward to issues such as migration – what happens if somebody from the south-east coast of England comes across a climate-induced migrant who may have swum the Channel.”

The play may be fantastical, but as Rintoul points out, evidence of an attempted migrant channel swim was turned up by a Norwegian journalist: in 2011 two bodies were discovered and after learning that the victims had been wearing wetsuits the journalist tracked down the shop in Calais where the swim gear had been purchased.

Similarly, the idea of an English town given up to the sea is real.

“Sea-level is rising,” says Rintoul firmly. “There’s no doubt about it. It’s rising and at a certain point, and not too far into the future, we will have to make decisions about our own communities: which ones to protect and which ones not to protect.”

And like the migrant Channel swimmers, “It’s happened already - to a village in Norfolk. It was left and it’s gone to the sea.”

The play uses an encounter between two people “to look at the connections and ask, “Who is responsible – for looking after these people, for our own population and the global population?”

But Rintoul’s imagination soars far beyoncd the practicalities of adaptation:  he brings in Bonbibi, the guardian goddess  of the Sunderbans, venerated by both Hindus and Muslims, and talks about “celebrating the beauty of waves and tides … and telling narratives through our bodies, which hold a history … if we look at our mitochondrial Y chromosome we can trace back how all of us came out of Africa … because sea-level dropped 80,000 years ago… we’ve got an intrinsic relationship with climate change.”

·         The Edge is on tour and in London will be at the Rich Mix on 18 October and  at the Canada Water Culture Space on 4 November

TOUR DATES
IPSWICH, New Wolsey Theatre
Thurs 8 – Sat 10 October
7.45pm Thurs – Sat, 2.30pm Sat
Box Office 01473 295900
www.wolseytheatre.co.uk/

·         CANTERBURY, Gulbenkian
University of Kent
Fri 16 October
7.30pm
Box Office: 01227 769075
www.thegulbenkian.co.uk/

·         LONDON, Rich Mix
Sun 18 October
7pm
Box Office: 020 7613 7498
www.richmix.org.uk/

·         FOLKESTONE, Quarterhouse at Folkestone Library, Grace Hill
Weds 21, Thurs 22 & Sat 24 October
7.30pm Weds – Thurs, & 2pm & 6.30pm Sat
Box Office: 01303 760 750
www.quarterhouse.co.uk/

·         BRISTOL, Tobacco Factory Theatres
Tues 27 – Weds 28 October
8pm
Box Office: 0117 902 0344
www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com

·         LONDON, Canada Water Culture Space
Weds 4 November
7.30pm
Box Office: 0208 692 4446
www.canadawaterculturespace.org.uk

·         LEICESTER, The Y
Thurs 5 November
7.30pm
Box Office: 0116 255 6507
www.leicesterymca.co.uk

·         PORTSMOUTH, New Theatre Royal
Fri 6 – Sat 7 November
7pm
Minghella Studio
Box Office: 02392 649 000
www.newtheatreroyal.com

·         CARDIFF, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama
CAERDYDD, Coleg Brenhinol Cerdda Drama Cymru
Weds 11 November
7.30pm
Box Office: 029 2039 1391
www.rwcmd.ac.uk

·         SALISBURY, Playhouse The Salberg
Thurs 12 – Sat 14 November
7.45pm Thurs – Sat, 2.45pm Sat
Box Office: 01722 320 333
www.salisburyplayhouse.com

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