A Big Big Love

For the past 15 years, Sally Brown and Steve Tiplady have been creating theatre from everyday materials. Having worked with the RSC, and expert in using the most mundane materials for magical movement, they arrive at Zoo with an all ages tale based on the Chalk Giants who once lived alongside humans...

"We're using a cycle of old English folk tales, based around the character of Jack, but told from the Giants' perspective," they explain. "There are also ancient and famous chalk carvings still present in our landscape,
(we see these as the Giant's grafitti) and we wanted to connect the two."

While the story itself is inspiring, the genesis of this project came from the material itself. They continue: "We always start with a material which suggests a story, this time chalk! For the Chalk Giants, we thought about it for mark making, but it also defines the landscape in which we live – this chalk escarpment, where in legend, Giants are moulded into the landscape (the Gog Magog hills) and traces of ancient civilisations are found carved in the land."

Although this is a show that will entertain children, it still demonstrates one of the major themes within contemporary theatre practice: the integration between different art forms. Brown and Tiplady are veterans of this sort of process, and their alliance was an organic extension of their existing work. "As a visual artist, my exploration of materials and processes had become more concerned with time based work, installation and performativity. This led to wanting to explore the theatrical potential of materials," says Brown, while Tiplady admits "I had tired of puppets, moved on from objects and got curious about Sally boiling large vats of sugar on the stove. We decided to integrate our practices to create something new.

"The challenge is that life and work are often blurred! We also like to argue a lot, and realised we could spend more time doing it if weworked together." Chalk, puppets and ancient giants: these ingredients are far from Fringe staples, but Indefinite Article believe that they'll fit in well. "We can't be too specific but there are a number of taboo-busting moments for the parents in the audience – not the children," they claim. "So I think we have the requisite quota of scandal for a fringe performance."