The Animals and Children took to the Streets

Once upon a time, little Agnès Eaves and her Mummy came upon a strange place called Bayou Mansion, a building lost in the middle of nowhere, desolate and abandoned in a run-down and neglected suburb. Once upon a time there was a fairy story you might flick through in a book with moving pictures projected onto screens in front of which strange figures loom up to confront our heroines: a wolf who must be kept from the door; neighbours eager to tell over all the old, local stories, and to add their own comments... A whole universe of drawing, music and song which combine to form a unique piece of work. It's a dark and dream-like world, playful and terrifying, which each audience member, according to age, will fill up with his or her own memories and references. For some, it will be Tim Burton or Méliès, for others Roald Dahl or Dickens, Fritz Lang or Kafka, The Triplets of Belleville or The Threepenny Opera... Like an Alice cast adrift in a world of poverty and harsh realities, Agnès Eaves takes us with her into a story part childish dream, part adult nightmare, where anything might happen, the worst as well as the best. With magical precision, poised between laughter and tears, the show finds a poetic and political way to ask the question of what hope is possible in a world which doesn't seem to offer any. A thing of beauty and of subversive originality for young and old alike. JFP

conception 1927
text and direction Suzanne Andrade
film, animation and scenography Paul Barritt
music Lillian Henley
costumes Sarah Munro, Esme Appleton

with Suzanne Andrade, Esme Appleton, Lillian Henley
voice of the caretaker James Addie

production 1927
coproduction BAC (London), Malthouse Theatre (Melbourne), The ShowRoom (University of Chichester)
with the support of Corn Exchange (Newbury), of The Arches Glasgow, of the Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival, of the Arts Council England and of the British Council