Dance Community | Southbank Centre

Bee Detective, part of Unlimited, is a honeybee murder mystery for Deaf and hearing children aged 6+. Here, writer and performer Sophie Woolley gives us some background about the making of Bee Detective.

Would you be able to tell me a little bit about why you created The Bee Detective?
I wrote a funny play about environmental issues for BBC Radio 4. I loved doing the research and then trying to present stuff people don’t already know in a comedic way. I realised people like learning stuff from plays, as well as seeing their own concerns and absurdities reflected.  So I wanted to try and do the same for a younger audience and everyone is bee mad at the moment so I wanted to dig deeper and see what the situation is for British bees. Me and Gemma (director Gemma Fairlie) wanted to lift the lid on the secret world of bees, make the show we’d want to go to as kids. On tour adults have told us they loved learning new stuff about bees from the play. It’s not an educational play per se but we have woven interesting weird facts about bee life into the plot.

The bees in the play are wiped out by a virus transmitted by varroa mites. It was in the news this summer. Check out my beedetective.bz blog for links to the press releases. People know about pesticides but when we started the tour hardly anyone knew about this varroa scourge.

Why did you choose to write for children now?
Unlimited commissions were about stretching the artist beyond their usual practice. I know I can write and perform for adults so I thought I’d try something new and difficult.  It’s also the first show that I would have signed in, but then I broke my shoulder and had to step aside. I also wanted to work with James Merry who is a brilliant Deaf animator who did our fab trailer and all the amazing animations.

I don’t think you have your own children and I think you began to lose your hearing at the age of 18, but were you inspired by any Deaf children you know? Nieces or nephews or friend’s children?
It’s not personal no. I have done quite a few workshops for deaf school children and I can see how starved they are of what hearing kids take for granted. And now the austerity policy cuts are hitting Deaf services for children and deaf education very hard. It’s pretty tragic. The effects are already beginning to be felt by children and their parents. This is the only kids show in the Unlimited commissions.

I wanted to write about bees and kids really love bees, they learn about them in school and like wearing bee costumes etc. Bees are all the rage and I jumped on the beewagon.

Did you look back on your experience as an audience member before you began to lose your hearing and compare it with your experience as an audience member now and feel that you should provide theatre for Deaf children?

I don’t look back. There was a gap where I stopped going to theatre. Then theatre subtitles were invented.

It’s cool to make the show accessible if the money is there. It’s my utopian vision of how a show should be. I like subtitled shows, big subtitles, creatively designed, that are in the middle of the set not shunted off to the side in the corner. Subtitles can be beautiful. I’m trying to show people how modern subtitles should look. I think the company is ahead of its time, I hope one day the  whole world will be subtitled, not just TV.

Catch Bee Detective as part of Unlimited at Southbank Centre from Friday 31 August – Sunday 2 September. Get tickets here. 

Filed under: Family shows, Performance, Theatre, Unlimited | Tagged: Bee Detective, london, southbank centre, theatre, Tin Bath Theatre Company, Unlimited | 1 Comment »