A YOUNG writer/director breaking boundaries in theatre production is bringing his latest innovative show home to West Devon.
Selwin Teague-Hulme is staging his one-woman show Squidge starring Tiggy Bayley in a venue in Milton Abbot.
His work is different to traditional productions in that it involves cast members in writing the scripts and other aspects.
In Squidge Tiggy is the writer/actor who tells the story of a teacher who takes on a difficult student and finds a renewed purpose in her career and life. The play is being staged in his parents’ Chapel Barn at Tuell Farm, on Sunday, July 7 at 2.30pm. The show is staged by Selwin’s production company White Noise which will also take it to the Phoenix Theatre in Exeter on Saturday, July 6 at 7.30pm. He is then spending a month at the Edinburgh Festival.
Selwin, 25, almost fell into directing by accident after volunteering at the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth, having asked if he could shadow the then director Jo Loyn. He studied and trained in drama earlier in his life, but had not considered directing. That experience and the guidance of Jo opened his eyes to a new career.
The former Mount Kelly College student said: “Jo is also a seasoned actor and is still inspirational for me. She was effectively my mentor and she remains a good friend. I learned so much from her. I came back from backpacking in my trainers in the Himalayas and on the beaches in Thailand on my gap year before studying English and Drama at at Warwick University. I asked to shadow the director at the Barbican for a production of Macbeth which only had eight cast members for a show in the Royal William Yard.
“I just said I’d be happy to sit in the background. But ended up taking on a lot of responsibility as assistant director. I did that for six weeks and decided directing was my future. I then asked if i could use the Barbican’s space to show my pay Coup d’etat which wasn’t very good, but the actors really made it a success. I then developed this as my main point of difference – co-authoring dramas with actors. Which is the basis of my theatre company White Noise.
“Since then I have continued directing for the last seven years. Today I am a busy director working in London. I recently opened a new play called Joe Carstairs at the Omnibus Theatre in London, which will be taking to the Isle of Wight at the beginning of July, then hopping on the ferry back to the mainland for Squidge in West Devon. It is always a joy to bring my theatre work back home where it all began.”