Take time out this month to go on an gig-theatre adventure with music, sound and pictures. Platform 4’s Triffids! is a collision of music, text and rich visual imagery, and it’s touring around the country right now.
In this innovative reimagining of John Wyndham’s cold war novel, The Day of the Triffids, there’s a few changes that bring this classic into the modern age. Platform 4’s adaptation sees Jill as the main protagonist, rather than Bill. And many of the outdated comments from the book have been cut out to bring it into the 21st century.
Wacky gig-theatre fun with Triffids!
But that’s not the only thing that makes Triffids! stand out. This B movie-style story of killer plants takes the audience deep into a live soundtrack of Moog, Double Bass, Theremin, Hammered Dulcimer and… a cactus! Platform 4’s tale includes beautiful elegiac violin solos and melancholic wistful melodies inspired by a lost world. It also has wacky, psychedelic 1990s acid house!
Building on their past collaborations with local people, Platform 4 worked with the community at Highcliffe allotments, interviewing the many people on their sites. Asking them questions about weeds, climate change and their memories of Wyndham’s book gave a whole set of disparate answers. Creator Catherine Church mashed these together to act as interventions in the adaptation of the original novel.
Platform 4 is an artist-led company that creates playful and unexpected worlds. Performers and participants use it explore their creativity and the things that matter to them. Their work is highly visual and musical, often intimate in scale and process. Connecting people and putting human relationships at the heart of the event.
And the team behind Triffids! have worked with The National Theatre, Bellowhead, Southbank Centre, Kneehigh, BBC and The Bone Ensemble. Together they create a very special magic, already seen in their previous collaboration, the acclaimed Invisible Music.
For more quirky theatre suggestions, click this way!
When: On until 23rd March 2022
Where: Touring to Poole, Exeter, Winchester, Chichester, Salisbury, Cambridge, Birmingham, Aldershot, New Milton, London and Colchester
£: Ticket prices vary, depending on the venue
More info: www.platform4.org
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