Roam

A co-production between GRID IRON and the NATIONAL THEATRE OF SCOTLAND.
An imaginative journey through, in and around the possibilities of air travel.

Written and directed by Ben Harrison
Devised with the Company

4th – 22nd April 2006

BAA Edinburgh International Airport (audience departure point, Traverse Theatre)

AWARDS

  • Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland: Best Production of 2006, Best Technical Presentation, Best Ensemble

  • Ogilvy Arts & Business Creativity Award

  • Arts & Business Community Award

  • Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland: Best Design, Best Music

“Few seconds in life are more releasing than those in which a plane ascends to the sky… accompanied by the controlled rage of the engines we rise fluently into the atmosphere and an immense horizon opens up across which we can wander without impediment. A journey which on earth would have taken us an afternoon can be accomplished with an infinitesimal movement of the eye…”

Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel

Are modern air passengers the contemporary equivalent of angels, bearing messages across the globe, or nomadic wanderers for whom home is no longer bound by national boundaries?

Inspired by a diversity of texts from Michel Serres, Pico Iyer, Alain de Botton and many others, as well as testimonies from refugees and airport workers, Roam combined a multinational company of ten performers together with a large group of non-professional participants aged five to eighty-five.

Roam begins as the last flight leaves, that liminal time when airports become something other, a twilight world of memories, travellers’ detritus, ghosts and echoes of tearful and joyous conversations. Roam reflects on national identity, the gross inequalities in our world, and the politics of terror and also on flight itself as a symbol of human achievement.

Roam - Programme

“This partnership shows how the arts can transform the physical working environment and in so doing alter the experiences and motivation of a workforce.”

Barclay Price
Regional Director, Arts and Business Scotland

Production photography by Richard Campbell.

What The Press Said

“The sharpness with which this show identifies the airport as one of the places where the key points of postmodern issues of identity, entitlement and belonging are played out – matched by Grid Iron’s sheer practical genius in weaving its drama through the structures and spaces of an airport – make this vital and important 21st-century theatre, which should perhaps be re-enacted in every international airport on earth.”

“In a class of its own for site-specific work, the technical execution of Roam is astonishing. There is not an aspect of the air travel experience, from check-in to the carousel, that is not used in the service of director Ben Harrison’s narrative, which skilfully interweaves the stories of staff, ordinary travellers and refugees. Roam is a sensational experience.”

“Every aspect of the airport is recreated or subverted with delightful sound and design touches ranging from passport programmes to witty Tannoy announcements and slogans on luggage trolleys. A superb professional cast is complemented by community performers to great effect. And the airport itself – already the stage for countless fond farewells and tearful reunions, retains an emotionally charged atmosphere that lends itself brilliantly to theatre.”

Video

View the trailer for Roam here…

Cast

Sarah Belcher

Claire Cochrane

Andrew Clark

Gergo Danka

Saseen Kawzally

John Kazek

Lisette Merenciana

Itxaso Moreno

Musicians:
Galo Ceron-Carrasco & Kerieva McCormick

COMMUNITY CAST

Dennis Chakonda

Clive Desmond

Lucy Gogoliuk

Lorna Gow

June Gray

Willie Green

Louise Green

Jane Heron

Ciara McCaw

Ailis McGuinness

Caitlin McGuinness

Jane Mitchell

Aurora Palko

Sebastian Palko

Xander Palko

Eloy Pena

Arnold Smit

Zozek Tayeb

Saula Vasakula

Dorothy Wilson

Production Team

CHAPERONES

Caroline Aston

Helen Corbett

Ben Godfrey

Barbara Gray

Phillipa Tomlin

Jo Timmins

Justine Wortsman

CREATIVE TEAM

Written & directed by:
Ben Harrison

Devised by:
The Company

Assistant Director:
Jemima Levick

Producer:
Judith Doherty

Composer/Sound Designer:
Philip Pinsky

Set Designer:
Clifton Dolliver

Assistant Set Designer:
Davy Dummigan

Costume Designer:
Joan Hickson

Assistant Costume Designer/Dresser:
Ailsa Rendell

Costume Assistants:
Kathryn Smith & Sophie Ferguson

Lighting Designer:
Paul Claydon

Choreographer:
Fleur Darkin

Dramaturg:
Zinnie Harris

Production Manager:
Fiona Fraser

Technical Manager:
Paul Claydon

Stage Manager:
Michael Graham

DSM:
Laura Edwards & Natasha Lee-Walsh

ASM:
Catherine Ireton

Props Maker:
Claire Halleran

Sound Engineer:
Claire Bromhead

Production Electrician:
Mark Sodergren

Technicians:
Phil O’ Halloran & Susie Peters

Dresser:
Rachel Godding

Set built by:
Scimitar Scenery

AV Consultants:
Fifty Nine Ltd

General Manager:
Deborah Crewe

Office Manager:
Fiona Dougal

Print design:
Emma Quinn

Print production:
Big Byte

Office Dogs:
Hector & Tigger

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