POLARIS, Holly&Ted's New Adventure Through Time and Space, Comes to EdFringe2018

POLARIS, Holly&Ted's new adventure through time & space for EdFringe2018, is inspired by Trump, Brexit and all the animosity in the world!

When asked what made them choose the themes for their latest work POLARIS, Holly&Ted are emphatic; 'Trump, Brexit, the migrant crisis, the need for a #Me-too culture - indeed all the wrong in the world that seems to have developed since 2016'.

POLARIS follows 3 different timelines; one in the cretaceous period about 2 dinosaurs from different cultures - a T-rex called Tracy and a Velociraptor named Val, another period set in 1997 about two best friends at school just trying to survive Year 10 and the other one in the future (2096) about a female astronaut leading a crew of distrusting males (some things just don't change, do they?!). Their stories all intertwine as the show conveys the way people (and dinosaurs) interact with each other.

POLARIS explores the normalisation of hatred, toxic masculinity and the violence of language. The two performers create magical imagined worlds and beguiling soundscapes live on stage with a range of found instrumentation and objects - thanks to a brand new partnership with music-maker, composer, sound engineer and performer Graeme Leak.

Holly&Ted is a female and queer led company made up of performers and writers Holly Norrington and Teddy Lamb and they created it out of a desire to bring fun and accessible feminist theatre into the community. They balance day jobs (Holly in Human Resources and Teddy at the English National Opera) with their commitments to Holly&Ted. Their experience has now expanded to a wider and queerer understanding and interest in both the gender and theatre binary. (Ted, incidentally, will be running a weekly Meet Up Group at the Fringe to enable trans and non-binary performers to network and support each other - more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1837124529707033/1837202446365908/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity¬if_id=1532000125317119, twitter: @EdFringeQueer)

Say Holly and Teddy of POLARIS: 'The initial idea for this show came about when we were last at the Fringe in 2016 with our show Pond Wife. It was just a few weeks after the Brexit vote, and a few months before Trump was voted into power, and we noticed a shift in the way certain issues were being talked about. We wanted to explore the words we use to talk about these issues in a fresh and irreverent way. Since then, things seem to have gone from bad to worse, with a renewed attack on migrants and trans people, as well as the usual widespread misogyny. All this influences the way that we all interact with each other and POLARIS puts these words in the mouths of some unexpected, yet identifiable characters to make the audience think twice about how they talk to people.'

Holly&Ted is an associate artist of Playbox Theatre and a 'Spark Supported' Artist at Oxford Pegasus. POLARIS has been created with the support of Arts Council England and is produced by Turnpike Productions.

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