Kneehigh have an illustrious history in the vibrant adaptation of fairy tales (from The Red Shoes to Rapunzel and beyond) and so Jim Dodge’s much-loved first novel, Fup – often graced with the suffix ‘a modern fable’ – is a choice that resonates with their back catalogue. The short novel, published in 1983, has achieved […]

‘Finally an artform where you can fly, just like in your dreams.’ – Laurie Anderson.  Dorothy Max Prior and Aislinn Kelly journey through Laurie Anderson & Hsin-Chien Huang’s virtual reality installation Chalkroom Do oceans have walls? I’m flying, on ‘slow fly’. If this is slow, how fast might ‘fast’ be? I haven’t come across an ocean […]

A name in lights, a vintage caravan, a chorus warming up, stagehands sweeping, a band running through a soundcheck. The houselights dim. The caravan spins to reveal an open-fronted side, showing a comfy pink-cushioned den. Two ‘ladies’ in identical embroidered satin kimonos look out. Our narrator, Dora Chance, tells us that she was born on […]

I expect the empathetic burden to be entirely my own when I visit the Empathy Museum: A Mile in My Shoes. I expect the museum to put my empathy through its paces. What I experience is something more balanced. The speakers whose shoes I wear speak to me – via a recording on an iPod […]

I was shocked recently to learn that dock leaves offer no scientifically proven relief to nettle stings. What I had taken as a given all my life was not ancient folkloric wisdom but yet another tale told by those mischievous ‘old wives.’ What we choose to believe depends on how it is sold to us. […]