Deer Life

It’s dangerous out in the open grassland. Just you.

Better in the dark forest. Or lost in the crowd. The collective transcends, after all. Transcends status, transcends sex, transcends self.

Deer Life is a new piece about the cycle of life in a herd. It’s about the animals in it - strong-hooved, antlered, powerful, delicate. Of the earth and of the air. It’s about them. And about us.

Deer Life is inspired by many stories: Felix Salten’s shocking Bambi; Deer Man: Seven Years of Living in the Forest, by Geoffroy Delorme; The Buck, by Sr Johanna Caton; Helen MacDonald’s short story ‘Deer in the Headlights’.

“The forest that has been colonised by modern man leaves no room for the other species that also live off it.” - Geoffroy Delorme.

“Salten believed that all humans should become more like animals. If they did they would paradoxically become truly humane and violent acts would gradually diminish”. - Jack Zipes from the prologue to his translation of Salten’s Bambi: a life in the forest.

This deer research has been supported so far by 101 Outdoor Arts and RADA as well as the Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill and the Omnibus Theatre, Clapham Common. Thank you.

If you want to read more about some of the development process then do go to the late November blog/news post The Phenomenon of Theatre Clan.

You can see some of this work in its first draft! Two dates for your diaries.

Saturday the 16th March 2024, The Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill, London. Click on the link for times and tickets.

Saturday the 23rd March 2024, The Omnibus Theatre, Clapham Common. Click on the link for times and tickets. *This is a promenade performance.

Thank you to the wonderful actors involved in this ongoing research. Dylan Aiello, Daniel Barber, Jamie Bell, Stefanie Bruckner, Graham Butler- Breen, Arianna Calgaro, Eleanor Cobb, Isobel Collyer, Ellie Cooper, Timothy Dodd, Bartel Jespers, Fanny Le Pironnec, Matthias Moret, Valeriia Poholsha, Tori Sasso, Barnaby Simmons, Charles Sobry, Ludovica Tagariello, Jake Walton, Catherine Abigail Ward

Thank you also to the creative advice on sound tracks and visits to Bushy Park Tamsin Collison, dramaturgy from Peta Lily, and digital print consultation from David Alleyne. My thanks also to Kristin Winters and William Wollen.