The Clockwork Crow
Based on the novel by Catherine Fisher
Directed by Paul Davies
Designed by Guðný Hrund Sigurðardóttir and Bourdon Brindille
Movement Director Catherine Bennett
Design Supervisor Bourdon Brindille
Design and Construction Team: Bourdon Brindille; Joseph Loftin; David Morgans; Inge Nagel, Erika Elizondo
CAST
Christopher Elson
Lucy Havard
Elin Phillips
Geoffrey Punter
and
Eva Carver
Georgie Bo Davies
Sol Firmanty Gomes
Elena Gower
Kaija M’Lenga
Alicia O’Toole-Bateman
Taeha O’Toole Bateman
Scott Hayes
December 17-19, 21-23, 28-29
A wintry adventure with Volcano. Adapted from the novel by Catherine Fisher.
A very, very long time ago in 2020, Volcano ran a dress rehearsal for a wintry family adventure, The Clockwork Crow, based on a novel by Welsh author Catherine Fisher. The very next day Wales was in lockdown. No audience ever got to explore the various areas of Volcano’s vast Iceland building transformed into the array of fascinating and fantastical settings that made up the orphan Seren’s journey to (and new adventures in) the frosty country mansion of Plas y Fran, accompanied by her annoying mechanical companion. A year on, we aim to put that right, and The Clockwork Crow is back for Christmas 2021.
After the death of her last remaining relative, Seren Rhys waits at a freezing railway station for the train that will take her to her new life at the remote Welsh mansion of Plas-y-Fran. She hopes there will be hot baths and glittering chandeliers and plum pudding and friendly faces. And perhaps a cat. Minutes before her train arrives, she is handed a mysterious package by an anxious, long-fingered man who then vanishes into the night. With the train departing and the man nowhere to be found, she makes a split-second decision to take the parcel with her. Arriving at Plas-y-Fran in the dead of night, she finds a house as cold as the landscape she has travelled through – icy with grief, shrouded in secrets, and apparently occupied by only a handful of staff. Alone in her room, she turns her attention to the baffling contents of the parcel…
You will travel through Seren’s strange and magical new world, guided unreliably by her clockwork companion, dodging the attentions of the formidable housekeeper Mrs Villiers, and searching for Tomos, the missing boy reputedly taken by the Tylwyth Teg. Join Seren on the platform, spy on the staff in the kitchen, wander through creepy corridors, and travel through mazes and meadows, in search of the golden staircase that leads to the magic realm…
Our class trip to the Volcano Theatre was phenomenal. I didn’t quite know what to expect but am so glad I went in ‘blind’, to truly appreciate the element of surprise that an immersive theatre provides. It was a great opportunity to see the children so engaged throughout the whole performance – literally from start to finish – they were “ooh”ing, “ahh”ing, laughing and following the story in a way I don’t think they’d have done so well in a normal theatre experience, or reading of said story. I’d look to find opportunities to have this experience with a class, again – 100%!!
