A trio of plays by English poet and children's writer Ted Hughes will be performed collectively on stage for the first time when Nottingham-based New Perspectives tours the UK with The Tiger’s Bones and Other Stories.
The three “hugely imaginative and funny” stories set in “a joyous world of mischief and mayhem” are The Coming of the Kings, Sean, The Fool, The Devil and the Cats and The Tiger's Bones. They can be seen at various venues across England, with the tour finishing in West Yorkshire, Hughes’s birthplace.
In The Coming of the Kings, a greedy innkeeper is central in an original take on the nativity. Sean, The Fool, The Devil And The Cats is the former Poet Laureate’s allegory to the treatment of workers and The Tiger’s Bones hints at the dangers of technological advancement.
New Perspectives artistic director Jack McNamara said, “Ted Hughes is a giant of 20th century literature and wrote fantastic, sophisticated work for children, pieces that don’t patronise his young audiences but challenge, inspire and excite them.
“It’s amazing that these three stories haven’t been performed collectively before and I’m delighted that New Perspectives will be remedying this, giving children across the country the opportunity to enjoy these wonderful tales. They’re everything children’s theatre should be: beautiful, mysterious, funny and quite mad.”
The ensemble cast includes Ed Thorpe who performed in Hood, a New Perspectives co-production with Nottingham’s Theatre Royal to celebrate the theatre’s 150th anniversary, Heather Dutton who was in Bryony Lavery’s adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island at the National Theatre in 2015, George Eggay and Harry Egan.
Composer and sound designer is James Atherton, designer is Amelia Jane Hankin and lighting designer is Azusa Ono.
The Tiger’s Bones and Other Stories can be seen at Nottingham Lakeside Arts (Saturday 20 until Tuesday 23 February), Polka Theatre, Wimbledon (25 until 28 February), Exeter Northcott Theatre (31 February and 1 April) and West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Courtyard Theatre (7 until 9 April).