Brunel Community Play

Working with people of all ages from across the City of Bristol, our latest community play performed at the L-Shed from April 20 – 22; interpreting and celebrating the life and achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Castles in the Air was part of the the city’s Brunel 200 programme. With three out of four performances a sellout; Castles in the Air was a city wide community play that drew brand new audiences to enjoy a fresh perspective on Brunel’s story.

Castles in the Air - The Brunel Community Play

“Once again you have proven your immense talents… You always manage to bring me to tears…you manage to bring so many ages and abilities together and so clearly value every contribution it is very humbling to see. The stories are so well told, and the props fantastic, having seem many of your productions you still manage to suprise me every time. All I can say is well done!”

- comments from Castles in the Air audience member.

The Making of Castles in the Air

As early as summer 2003, acta and Andrew Kelly of Bristol Cultural Development Partnership were planning a community play to celebrate the life of one of the city’s most influential denizens, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. This grew out of the City’s bid to become Capital of Culture in 2008.

We began to research Brunel, his life and work, and were astonished and impressed beyond measure at the size and extent of his achievements, and their continuing impact on our city, indeed, on the world. We ploughed through books and biographies, and were swamped with gauges and tonnage, acts of parliament and debates, ups and downs, plans and schemes, railways and bridges and boats and tunnels, until our heads were spinning. So much detail, too much detail for a theatre presentation. The problem was, he just did too much!

Brunel

Then, while researching for another project, we discovered a fragment of a ghost story; how Brunel’s spirit is seen to wander from Leigh Woods to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and stand, looking out across the Gorge. And it got us wondering why. Why would such a man have a restless spirit, having achieved so much? We began to ask questions, to look at the research again in a new light. We found a thread to follow, the theme of Time – his apprenticeship with the clockmaker Breuget, his maternal grandfather Thomas Mudge, the famous chronologist, his punishing self-imposed work schedule. Why did he work so hard? What was driving him? We had found a way in!

Community cast rehearsals

We began devising the play with a small group of performers in June 2005, taking events from Brunel’s life, and developing scenes. We decided that the play should tell Isambard’s story at a fast pace, reflecting the way he lived his life. The story would be told by a central group of storytellers, strange, unreal characters who inhabit his world, people who in their lives had some connection with the man – people who worked for him, invested in him, loved or hated him.

In September the group grew, and we began to work in Oldbury Court and St Mary Redcliffe CEVC Primary schools, developing song lyrics with our musical director Shirley Pegna. The devising process continued, and the script and songs completed by late autumn.

Rothehithe Tunnel workers

Mary Brunel (Horsley)

The devising process was key to the way the play developed. Usually when acta creates a community play, we start from the experiences and knowledge of the participants, and build the story from that. But with this show we already had the story, and for a while we wondered what our performers would be able to put into the play. We needn’t have worried. From the very first session we found that our cast using their creativity to interpret the different moments of Brunel’s life, using movement and freeze frame, creating dialogue, bringing characters to life, and above all, bringing a wonderful sense of humour and fun to the process. This lightened the sometimes weighty and technical detail we had to cover, and made the whole experience immensely enjoyable – we do not know whether young Isambard had a nurse called Fifi, or a dog called Rover, but we loved the imagination that suggested he did!

When the script was complete, we cast around for more people to join our central group of performers, and when rehearsals began in January had a team of 28 people of all ages from all over Bristol. Rehearsal began with the Misfits Theatre Company, and Weston Park, South Street and Gay Elms Primary Schools got involved in making the giant lanterns for the show.

Creating this play has been a real team effort; not only the many performers, but also the artistic team at acta, designers, musicians, directors. We have striven to make the play full of fun, action, spectacle and event; not to try to tell the whole story – there’s books to do that, and you don’t all want to be sitting here at midnight!. No, our aim has been to give an interpretation, a flavour, a sense of the man. He did, after all, always long to be an actor, and certainly used his flair for theatre and showmanship in his life and works. We would like to think that Castles in the Air is a fitting tribute to his restless spirit.