Author: Daniel Nettle

 

I am very excited about our imminent production of Matthew Warburton’s Hitting the Wall at Northern Stage on November 30th.

In 2012, Wayne Soutter, a middle-aged father of two, attempted to swim the as-yet unconquered sea-channel between the Mull of Kintyre and Ireland. Hitting The Wall is a theatrical recreation of that extraordinary endeavour. Cold seas. Strong winds. Treacherous tides and 50 foot jellyfish. What could possibly go right?

Based on blogs and interviews with Wayne and Paul (the boat captain on the attempt), Hitting The Wall asks why we choose to do things that might better be left undone.

It’s going to be fun evening, with a chance to discuss the mad endeavour (actually, both mad endeavours, the swim and play about the swim) with the creative team afterwards.

You can buy tickets from here.

I am also equally ecstatic to announce that Straw Bear’s next production after that will be Joe Penhall’s extraordinary Blue/Orange, on March 24th and 25th 2017. Blue/Orange is about many things, most especially schizophrenia, race and Welsh rarebit, and was described (when it originally appeared in 2000) as the finest new play in the English language for a generation. We are presenting it in association with Brain Awareness Week. The cast has been finalised. More updates soon.

The Scottish Graduate School of Social Science has made some interesting short films about the different methods available to social scientists, and in particular, whether they can fruitfully be brought together. In one of the films, the ethnographer Sam Hillyard and I discussed classic ethnography and experiments; can they be brought together, how are they different, and in what ways are they alike?

You can access the film and an associated worksheet here.