Sharif Afifi is the sole performer on the sparsest of sets as he offers the story of the Creation of everything… condensed.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this
00:06morning to speak to Sheree Fikifi and you are doing a remarkable thing in the Minerva
00:10Before Long, Lost Dog. It's Paradise Lost, Lies Unopened Beside Me. It's February 6th
00:17and 7th, Chichester's Minerva Theatre. It's a one-man take on the epic poem by John Milton
00:23and you were saying you attracted this because, well, it terrified you, that was part of the
00:27attraction. How does that work? Well, you know, obviously as your career continues you're waiting
00:36for these projects to show up that you feel like are going to stretch you in some way,
00:40that are going to be somewhat exciting and this on paper, this one-person interpretation
00:46of Paradise Lost, using contemporary dance and spoken word and theatre, I mean, again,
00:53on paper for me it felt insane. So I was like, I have to do this because then you think
00:59there's something unexpected I'm going to find on the other side of it and also just a one-person
01:06show against something I never thought I would ever do, take on and yeah, so it was like, I feel
01:13like it's come my way, I have to grab it. And it sounds like immense pressure. The fact is, it's a show
01:19about creation which you are creating single-handedly on the sparsest of sets, there's nothing there
01:24apart from the chair that you bring on. Does that feel like pressure or is that a kind of liberation?
01:31It's both. There's this moment before I start the show, every time, where I wait to walk on
01:40and I genuinely go, do I know what I'm doing? Am I going to forget this? And it doesn't
01:46matter how much I've done it, I stand there every time and think that. But what's amazing about
01:51walking out and having nothing there is like, all your innate senses kick in because you are aware
01:58once you've stood in that space, it's all on you. And as much as that is pressure, something else
02:04fires up where you're like, right, okay, I have to generate this storytelling, I have to
02:08meet these people and communicate something, like the very, very simple art of just communication.
02:14So, actually, in its simplicity, it is really liberating because you're not relying on anything,
02:19you've got nothing else to blame, it's just you. It's just you doing the very, very basic art of,
02:25yeah, storytelling. And on top of that, it's fascinating too, isn't it? You're saying
02:30everything is in there, really. It's witty, but it's also moving. Yeah, totally. I mean,
02:37in terms of forms, the show plays with comedy and multi-rolling, and then there's great drama
02:46in it. But it's also, it's somebody's... Ben Duke, who originally made the show,
02:50it's his one person show. And so it was very personal to him. And in me taking that on,
02:57I've made this person a character that I step into. And so there's these very deeply personal
03:05moments that are woven through this playful, silly, messy show that we're doing, this scrappy
03:11show about creation. Yeah, there's this really honest sections. And I think the moving between
03:16the two and it feeling incredibly human. I mean, for me, again, I find the show itself on paper,
03:24very moving because of that. Absolutely. When you say multi-rolling,
03:27it's worth pointing out you're multi-rolling with some pretty big characters.
03:30Yeah, some fairly familiar names. Yeah, we've got God in there. We've got Lucifer.
03:35We've got Adam. We've got Eve. We've got a little sprinkle of Jesus. So yeah, some big names. But,
03:42you know, again, playfully taken from Milton's view of this story from Paradise Lost.
03:52Well, it sounds like something that's going to work brilliantly in the Minerva. It's in
03:55the Minerva Theatre at Chichester, February 6th and 7th. Looking forward to seeing it.
04:00All the best and lovely to speak to you. Thank you.
04:03Thank you so much.