Co-created/Directed by Nicholas Barton-Wines
Co-created/Performed by Callum ouglas
Supported by Imaginate
In development
Scratch at Traverse Theatre – 6th November 2019
Book tickets here
A schoolboy sits in class bored. He looks around the room for something to distract him. He opens his pencil case. It contains the perfect solution.
Rules is a playful discovery of dreaming, distraction, and daring to hold all your pencils with just your face. Through a wordless part-clowning, part-object manipulation performance we are celebrating the magic of curious minds trying to break free.
Callum is a bright and creative school child of roughly 10 years old. To distract himself, he plays with objects found in his rucksack and pencil case, starting with mundane fiddling and reaching towards hilarious and outrageous games as he gets more and more carried away. He performs only for the audience; his other classmates are not interested in his antics. As his experiments reach their peak he is snapped back into the classroom with a scolding bark and the games tumble around him. Soon his imagination and curiosity take hold once more leading him on to new adventures and games until the end of class/he breaks free.
“A wonderfully minimal structure!”
“I had a huge grin on my face throughout the whole performance.”
“Love the creativity with the props – especially the rocket launch!”
“The flights of fancy were delightful!”
“An exciting and unique model – what a great idea!”
– Audience Feedback
Aiming for a target age of upper-primary school, we want to create a show filled with laughter, escapism, and renewed curiosity in the physical world around us.
Working with Callum Douglas across two days, we developed a twenty-minute scratch of Rules which tested the idea of presenting two shows; one exclusively for young people and one for their grown ups, with an accompanying workshop while the either audience is watching.
Nicholas Barton-Wines 