<![CDATA[WONDERFUL BEAST THEATRE COMPANY - Whispers]]>Thu, 22 May 2025 03:58:22 +0000Weebly<![CDATA[wild woods of saxmundham]]>Mon, 22 Jan 2024 10:19:11 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/wild-woods-of-saxmundhamIn December the Wonderful Beast Singers joined forces with The Art Station, for two special performances of Wild Woods as part of Saxmundham's Victorian Christmas Fayre. Here's a snapshot of some of their lovely faces. A short film with excerpts from the show will follow - watch this space! Picture
]]><![CDATA[wild woods]]>Thu, 30 Nov 2023 10:45:08 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/wild-woods1 DECEMBER 2023 · 5.00 AND 6.30PM · THE OLD BANK,  24 HIGH STREET, SAXMUNDHAM, IP17 1AJ
​ADMISSION FREE · Click here to find out more...
]]><![CDATA[the wb singers and richard chew]]>Sat, 10 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/the-wb-singers-and-richard-chewA gorgeous day this summer where the Wonderful Beast Singers had the pleasure of singing a cycle of songs, written by our friend Richard Chew, to the composer himself. We've known Richard since 2014 when he was commissioned to compose the music for our first community opera, The Six Swans. We were all having such a lovely time we didn't get a recording to share with you, but here's a snap of some smiling faces (from left to right): Rob, Rosie, Richard, Annabel, Sharon and Jonathan.
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]]><![CDATA[25 YEARS OF WONDERFUL BEAST]]>Wed, 11 Jan 2023 15:36:31 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/25-years-of-wonderful-beastFrom our Artistic Director:

As well as celebrating our work over the past 25 years, staging Once Upon a Time at Aldeburgh's Jubilee Hall in November 2022 marked the end of Wonderful Beast’s time as a charitable company, and the start of its new life as a creative hub – a theatrical consultancy for anyone who wants to use it.

​Over the years we have amassed a huge library of stories, experience and material that I hope can become a rich resource for schools, arts organisations, individuals, writers, composers, performers, as well as a facility for providing practitioners on request for specific projects. As always, the Beast leads us off on another magical path.

In 1997 I decided to form a theatre company, to dramatise folk and fairy tales, myths and legends. It seemed to me that these stories were not only invaluable for children but for all ages. They’re rooted in timeless moments that eschew age division, when families, friends, children and babes in arms gather together to entertain one another, grow sleepy listening, or stay up all night quarrelling about the ‘right’ version of the tale. As a primary school teacher, I’d seen how the words ‘Once upon a time…’ could captivate children, opening the door to an inner place where they could explore all those powerful emotions evoked by the stories. Seeing Tim Supple’s productions of Grimm fairy tales at the Young Vic clinched it for me. Despite being told I must be mad, I recruited a group of friends, including the poet Adrian Mitchell and actor Roger Lloyd Pack, all passionate about these stories.

Wonderful Beast came to life. Our first play, The Birth of Pleasure (an apt title to herald the 25 years that would follow), based on the Apuleius story of Cupid and Psyche, was produced at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington. Since then, we have never stopped. 
The company relocated from London to Aldeburgh in 2005. Whilst staging new plays – many based on East Anglian folk tales – we toured nationally, collaborating with English Touring Opera, introducing Orpheo and The Cunning Little Vixen to thousands of children. We worked with Suffolk schools, residents of care homes and alms houses, created interactive music theatre shows for babies and toddlers, and formed The Wonderful Beast Singers.

Our festival series, Storm of Stories, which ran from 2012-2016, included two community operas and a glorious mixture of amateur and professional talent – East Anglian step dancers and folksingers, local people telling their own stories, and professional international performers. 

Our latest production, First the Dance, Then the Feast, based on a Hungarian folk tale, gave children from three local primary schools the opportunity to perform Eastern European songs and dances, working with professional musicians and actors. Families, friends, children, and babies filled the audience, sharing in this joyful culmination of everything  for which Wonderful Beast has always stood.

ALYS KIHL, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF WONDERFUL BEAST
]]><![CDATA[Save the date and plans for the future]]>Tue, 19 Jul 2022 15:32:52 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/save-the-date-and-plans-for-the-future
Thank you!​
​
Last month we were delighted to stage First the Dance, Then the Feast at Thorington’s beautiful woodland amphitheatre. The project saw 80 Suffolk primary school children and a full professional cast and musicians performing a collaboratively created adaptation of a Hungarian folktale. 
Children and artists of many nationalities came together on stage as one company under the banner of Wonderful Beast. The sun shone, the birds and children sang, and throngs of you came to see the show, for which we thank you very much. Receiving such an enthusiastic response from the audience made a huge difference to these children – and our team – all of whom had worked so hard to make this production a reality.
Enormous thanks to our generous funders and sponsors, without whom the project could not have taken place.
Save the Date! Wonderful Beast’s 25th Birthday Celebration​
​
To mark our 25th birthday, we’re putting on a celebratory show on Sunday November 27th, 4.00pm at Aldeburgh’s Jubilee Hall. It will be a journey through some of the most magical moments of Wonderful Beast’s quarter century and sees some of our longest-standing artists contributing, including loyal patrons Dame Penelope Wilton and Gemma Jones, alongside many more great talents. Please put the date in your diaries and we’ll be in touch as tickets become available – we’d love to see you all.
The Wonderful Beast Arts Hub
​
Having now had a little time to turn our thoughts back to everyday life, we’re planning some changes for the future of Wonderful Beast.
After two and a half decades of mounting productions, touring nationally, staging our own Storm of Stories festivals, producing community operas, running storytelling and outreach projects for all ages, we have amassed a huge archive of material and experience. So, next year we are shifting our focus and offering Wonderful Beast as a rich and invaluable resource for schools, arts organisations, individuals, writers, composers, and performers, as well as a facility for providing practitioners on request for specific projects.

This transition from charity to sole trader from January 2023 will see Alys Kihl take on the role of consultant and custodian of the archives. To all the Friends of Wonderful Beast, we therefore suggest you cancel your subscriptions after December, and we thank you wholeheartedly for your invaluable loyal support over the years.
]]><![CDATA[making a feast of it]]>Wed, 18 May 2022 12:50:37 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/making-a-feast
We're delighted to announce our three production sponsors for First the Dance, Then the Feast: Henham Park, Ben Wardle Fine Art and L'Escargot Sur Mer. 

Henham Park, just a little way north of our venue Thorington Theatre, is one of the largest listed parks in the country and the home to Latitude Festival. Owned by the Rous family since 1544, the park hosts weddings and events, pop up pizza on Wednesdays and has two beautiful holiday lets. Find out more about this glorious place, which has a fascinating history, at www.henhampark.com.

Ben Wardle is a fabulous local artist based in Snape, Suffolk. He paints stunning landscapes using mixed media, inspired by his time riding horses around the Sandlings area of our AONB. He is especially interested in ecoanxiety and solastalgia (a kind of nostalgia for landscapes lost to climate change) and is currently exhibiting at Ballroom Arts gallery in Aldeburgh. His daughter is one of the children taking part in First the Dance as part of the Snape Primary School class. You can see more about Ben at www.benwardlefineart.net.

L'Escargot Sur Mer are neighbours to WB HQ in Aldeburgh, and the Suffolk coast sister restaurant to the famous L'Escargot in Soho. They're refurbishing to reopen as a boutique hotel with a delicious menu and a stunning wine bar. Opening later this year, you can sign up to their newsletter to be first in line for a truly memorable feast when booking opens. ​https://lescargotsurmer.com.

Huge thanks to all three for supporting First the Dance, Then the Feast. We can't wait to see you all on opening night!
]]><![CDATA[first we dance...]]>Tue, 22 Mar 2022 20:52:50 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/first-we-dance
The Wonderful Beast team had a fantastic week last week at our residency developing our upcoming show and workshop series First the Dance, Then the Feast, which has its taster launches in schools tomorrow and Thursday.

The project involves eighty schoolchildren from three Suffolk primary schools - one urban, two rural - where we'll be workshopping through the summer term. The children will then all come together with their parts of the production, to perform with a professional cast and musicians on stage at the magical Thorington Theatre on the 23rd and 24th June.  

We were lucky enough to have the use of the fantastic West Hill Barn for the residency, where some of you will remember having seen a performance of The Last Woodwose back in 2019. We've got the most fantastic creative team (find out who by clicking here) who were hard at work all last week sharing and learning traditional folk songs, dances and music and composing, writing and developing the structure of the play itself. We're hugely excited about what's to come.

You can find out more about the show and who's involved by clicking here, and tickets can be bought through the Thorington Theatre box office.
]]><![CDATA[thank you party!]]>Sun, 26 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/thank-you-partyWe are grateful to Tim and Lucy Rowan-Robinson (Chair of Wonderful Beast’s Board of Trustees), who hosted in their beautiful garden a late September party for Wonderful Beast, with the purpose of extending a huge thank you our loyal funders, friends, supporters, volunteers and fabulous local artists.
It was a joyful occasion for people to meet - some for the first time, others after a long period of non-socialising due to Covid-19 - in a glorious setting and on a balmy evening. Chatter was dappled with bewitching folk music played by the brilliant Zoe Anderton on her magnificent concert harp. Romanian wine (in keeping with the Eastern European theme of our next project) and canapés, provided by our hard-working and multi-talented trustees, went down famously. 
'What fun it was last night, and how wonderful to be at a party. Not only that, but one full of like-minded people. 
​It made me realise how much I’ve missed things like that, seeing people not just at home.
So thank you, all for your generosity, and long live Wonderful Beast!'
​ - PARTY GUEST
Flares and fairy lights lit the garden as dusk fell and Alys gave her thank you speech, telling everyone of the Beast’s future plans. As the grand finale to the evening, actor Petra Markham read ‘The Hare and the Hedgehog’ from Water de la Mare’s Told Again (Princeton, 2019) with everyone gathered around to listen, in true storytelling tradition.
All photos copyright Sophie Baker 2021. Not to be reproduced without permission.
]]><![CDATA[Bubble Wrap Pop Along Picnic!]]>Mon, 16 Aug 2021 15:29:43 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/bubble-wrap-pop-along-picnicAn invitation from Wonderful Beast and Wardens Trust was enjoyed by participants from our Zoom project, Bubble Wrap, during the last covid Lockdown.  This time, we had the pleasure of actually meeting each other in person at Wardens Hall in its wonderful setting on the clifftops of Sizewell beach. House Manager Bev greeted everyone with tea or coffee and the most delicious array of her home-made cakes.  

It was a beautiful summer’s day and poet Dean Parkin, actor Hilary Greatorex and WB's Artistic Director Alys Kihl led a workshop in a bosky shaded area, with the gentle sound of the sea below and a slight breeze rustling the leaves  over us. 
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Warm up games including ‘Bunnies’ taught by Hilary produced group hilarity
The song Bella Mama was learnt, and poem ‘The Table’ by Turkish writer Edip Cansaver stimulated our creative juices as we all ‘placed’ our own imaginings and wishes on our ‘table’. With Dean’s inimitable coaxing, a group poem emerged that triggered conversation and great pleasure in our achievement though such simple means.  Hilary initiated some wonderful improvisations from the group with her drama exercise featuring an orange, its texture and how we would cut it and eat it. 
 
Caroline Way read for the group her poem 'The Tardigrade', written during the online series in response to this seemingly indestructible creature who became a favourite subject during the Zoom project. Richard Williams also read his beautiful poem 'Swift'. 
 
Then it was picnic time. The fun of chatting to each other in person was what we had been missing during lockdowns. However, Zoom was a boon for those who couldn’t have travelled to a specific venue. Looking ahead to the forthcoming dark winter months when everyone prefers to stay at home, we are hoping to bring about Bubble Wrap 2, which will be open to new participants alongside our original Bubble Wrappers, who we will welcome back with delight. 
]]><![CDATA[Annie Blaber: In Memoriam]]>Mon, 19 Apr 2021 14:12:08 GMThttp://www.wonderfulbeast.co.uk/whispers/annie-blaber-in-memoriamAnnie Blaber, loyal and devoted Trustee of Wonderful Beast since its inception in 1997 till 2019
Words from Wonderful Beast's Artistic Director, Alys Kihl
We are terribly sad to announce the recent death of our wonderful friend, supporter and collaborator, Annie, who was for so many years such an integral part of the company. Together she and I concocted many productions and events, including community operas in our Storm of Stories festivals, for which she generously commissioned composers Richard Chew and John Barber. Her organisation, Children's Music Workshop, co-founded with Jane Pountney (and of which I was fortunate to be a part), provided amazing musical opportunities to thousands of primary school children in deprived areas of London and beyond. Workshops were led by incredibly talented musicians mainly from the Guildhall of Music and Drama, and many of whom, over the years, Wonderful Beast has been lucky enough to recruit for its own productions.
 
Another of Annie’s great achievements was to form ‘Woven Gold’, a refugee choir from the Helen Bamber Foundation. Singing together and performing publicly provided immense solace and joy to everyone involved and to their enthusiastic audiences. None of this would have happened without her vision and energy and determination, together with the leadership of the marvellous  musicians who shared her deep commitment.
 
Above all Annie was a wonderful friend. We travelled to India, Romania, and Spain together and I spent many happy times in Scotland with her. Her beautiful house in London was a place of creativity and activity with people coming and going, where great meals, chats, heart to hearts and huge enjoyment of each other's company took place.  I miss her terribly as does everyone who knew and loved her.
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