Written by Mark Haddon and Simon Stephens, it will be directed by Harry Atkinson who is offering a workshop on January 15 and auditions on January 22.
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00:00Good morning. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. It's lovely
00:06this morning to speak to Harry Atkinson. Now, Harry, you've got quite some challenge coming
00:10up in April with the Arundel Players. It'll be their first play of 2025. You are going
00:16to be directing the curious incident of the dog in the night time. Now, Harry, the point
00:21is of us speaking at the moment is you've got some roles to fill, which you need to
00:25do by, well, the auditions are on January the 22nd, 2025. And you've got a workshop
00:32on January the 15th. Tell me first, why this play? This is your choice, and it's clearly
00:38a challenging play. Why do you want to do this one?
00:41Yeah, well, I first saw it in London at the National and it absolutely intrigued me because
00:49it's not a play in the conventional sense of the word. There is no set as such as an
00:57open stage. So we do have, we do have some flats around it. And it's very much physical
01:04theatre. It's also something that depends, we're using a multimedia multimedia approach.
01:11And it also is a play which depends very much on the integrated use of multimedia. And that's
01:20projections, lights, and music. And also it's very much physical theatre as well. So it's
01:29not a standard kind of a play of people sort of sitting around in a lab.
01:35All of this is to give us the audience a perception of what it's like to view the world through
01:40the eyes of the main boy who is autistic, isn't it?
01:44That's correct. That's correct. Christopher never leaves the stage.
01:49It's not an exploration as autism as such, although we can learn things about autism from it.
01:56But it gives us a view of the chaotic notion of the chaotic experience of what can be a chaotic
02:07experience of an autistic person. Absolutely. And it sounds
02:12particularly challenging play to mount for all those reasons. Is it going to be particularly
02:16challenging, do you think, to cast? Is it a difficult one to cast?
02:20Well, I think it is. I think a lot of it is the experience of physical theatre
02:26that the auditionees have. It's not something that amateurs tackle all that often, really.
02:35So it would be a new experience for people.
02:38Fantastic. Well, people, if they're interested, ideally should get in contact with you via your
02:44email address, which I'll include in the article. But your point is, if anyone wants to just turn
02:49up on the day of the audition, that's absolutely fine, isn't it?
02:52There is no deadline. There is no deadline. Absolutely. If you walk through the door on
02:57the audition and you're brilliant, you'll get the role.
03:00Fantastic. So all open, all up for grabs then.
03:03Indeed.
03:04Fantastic. Harry, lovely to speak to you. Thank you.
03:06Yeah, very kind to speak to you. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.