Jack, Jill and the Beanstalk
Project by Chad McCail. Co-written and directed by Christina Ford.
Create London/White House/Barking and Dagenham College
2016
Jack, Jill and the Beanstalk — Images courtesy of Zbigniew Kotkiewicz
A humorous, irreverent socialist pantomime co-written and directed with Chad McCail during his residency at The White House. We worked with a group of people from the local community to write, design, build and stage the pantomime at the Civic Centre in Dagenham.
We ran daily workshops at the White House to create the puppets and set for the piece, working with the group to develop and update the story, which touched on a number of social and economic issues affecting Barking and Dagenham.
Jack sells his dad’s old car to help his single mum who is in arrears, climbing the beanstalk with his girlfriend Jill, only to find a job centre, drunk and disenfranchised soldiers and a malevolent giant at the top. Jack, Jill and the puppets have to work together to rescue the people’s courage from the giant and change the world back down the beanstalk.
Technical theatre students from Barking and Dagenham College assisted local residents to make the puppets while the college’s Performing Arts students operated them and starred in the performance at the Civic Centre to an audience of 200 people over 4 performances. Music for the performance was provided by The Pad.
Jack, Jill and the Beanstalk was performed at Dagenham Civic Centre on 9th and 10th December 2016.
Supported by London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, Arts Council England, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Heritage Lottery Fund, Genesis Foundation and the Foyle Foundation.
Links
https://www.whitehouseart.org/chad-mccailhttps://createlondon.org/event/chad-mccail/