Tell me about your show. What can audiences expect?
It’s a one person adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic novella The Little Prince. Audiences can expect a feast! A feast for the senses, a feast for the mind, a feast for the heart. Not wanting to pat myself on the back too much of course, but I’m proud of this production. If you don’t know the story of The Little Prince, it’s one-of-a-kind: profound and playful, silly and serious, poignant and cosmic, intimate and vast. At its heart it’s a story about, well, about the heart, and what it means to look at life through it. In simpler words, it’s a show about friendship. It lasts an hour. It’s advertised as 8+, but adults without children are very much welcome. There’s something for everyone here.
Can you talk about some of the creative team involved?
YES. My favourite subject. Nik Partridge is the director and also worked closely with me throughout the writing process. Anisha Fields is responsible for the exquisite design. Nick Laws deftly handled the abundance of projections that light up the backdrop. George Seal complimented, enhanced, and frankly spellbound the whole shebang with his lighting design. And as for Alex Heane, Joseff Harris and Bethany Stenning, words cannot describe the love I have for the full original score they created. Let’s see, who else? I won’t swamp you with names, but the rehearsal room also swarmed with prop makers and costume inventors, stage managers, producers, dramaturgs, production managers, video engineers and god knows what else. It was heaven.
Do you tend to take inspiration from events happening in the world around you in terms of your work? Do you think artists have a responsibility to respond to what’s happening?
Yes and no. I think artists have a responsibility to attune to their context. I think we probably all have that moral responsibility. To open to what’s around us. Although it’s so complex these days, because you’d have to be a Buddha to stay open to everything you’re being told is wrong in the world all the time. Finding the balance between an avoidant and an overwhelmed nervous system is a crucial and difficult challenge. I can’t pretend to know where the spot is.
But in terms of the artistic response itself, I think there’s a place for all different kinds of art. As long as it’s honest, it doesn’t need to be ‘delivering a message’. There’s nothing wrong with a message, but I think the best works of art are like life: paradoxical, beautiful, strange, true, alive, and a hundred other things besides. Whether or not they speak directly to a particular issue, authentic creativity will always cast a worthwhile light.
Why are arts festivals such as the Fringe so important for international exchange?
I’ve never previously given this a moment’s thought! I guess I must just sort of take “international exchange” happily for granted. I can say that I treasure the experience of being surrounded by people from different parts of the world. I’ve got no idea what goes into the organising. I thank my producers and all producers everywhere for making it possible for theatre shows to travel around the world. From my perspective on the ground, it’s just a continuous stream of beautiful encounters with wonderful people who are all quite different and all quite the same. Long may it continue.
How do you feel about the current arts landscape in the UK and your part in it? Does it excite you and inspire you to keep pushing the boat out?
As may have been evident in my last answer, I’ve not got much of a brain for the high level stuff. Also I’m a bit of a recluse. I only see a tiny fraction of what makes up ‘the arts landscape in the UK’. What I see, I tend to be inspired by. But in truth I’m just as inspired by the sight of the ocean at twilight, or by a newly purchased Bill Evans vinyl from the 70s, or by something I overhear my mum say on the phone. It’s a bit like how all sound was music to John Cage. There’s an arts landscape everywhere I look.
And finally, your adaptation of The Little Prince celebrates the beauty of Earth and connection – what’s something small and everyday that reminds you life is magical?
This fortnight I am staying with my auntie in Normandy. I wrote much of the script for The Little Prince here. The skylight blind in my bedroom is broken, so that when I lie down to sleep at night, I gaze directly up at a rectangle of distant stars. In those moments, the briefness of everything comes in close. My auntie is selling this house at the moment. Soon it’ll be a memory. And by the time your readers read these words I’ll be elsewhere, in Edinburgh perhaps, on the stage or in the courtyard. The photons that make up the light from the stars through the rectangle have travelled for millions of years just to enter my eyes. It’ll all be gone in a blink. And yet for now it somehow feels like it will all last forever. I call that magic.
The Little Prince, Pleasance Courtyard, 30 Jul-25 Aug (not 4, 11, 18), 12pm