Ovid Reworked: The Brixton Project


The Brixton Goddess beckons you…

For two weeks only Write By Numbers transformed an empty shop in Brixton Village Market into a free performance venue. As well as staging adaptations of stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses we ran free workshops, invited people to come and contribute to our wall of change as well as having a rather large supply of tea and cake…

Over the two weeks Shop 82 held the premieres of 12 new plays, hosted workshops, staged music jams and housed artwork by Christopher Boyd. The accompanying blog was highlighted on Londonist.com, the production was given its own podcast on Empty Shops Radio and (along with Punchdrunk and The Royal Court) The Brixton Project was profiled in The Sunday Times.

The Brixton Project Curated By: Corinne Furness & Charlie Whitworth  The Brixton Project Designed By: Emily Harwood

Time of the Wolf
by Susan Hodgetts
Adapted from ‘The Ages of Mankind’

Directed by Charlie Whitworth
Starring: Sophie Carmichael, Toby Morell, Ruth Morris, Lucy-Grace Norris, Lukas Weichert.

“Once upon a time there was a wolf
He roved the silent fields with lust for flesh
To satisfy his pleasure unreserve’d
A wild and hungry wolf
A wild and hungry wolf.”

Skipping Games
by Corinne Furness
Adapted from ‘Phaeton’

Directed By Olly Hawes
Starring: Samantha Baines, Fiona Pearce, Leah Peregrine-Lewis.

“Girl 3: One day Phaeton was –

Girl 1: Fed up of everyone laughing.

Girl 2: So he set out

Girl 3: With just a backpack and an old flask

Girl 1: To find his father.”

No Victim
by Melissa Bubnic
Adapted from ‘The Rape of Proserpina’

Directed by: Estelle Buckridge
Starring: Ilana Winterstein.

“I am Ceres and I don’t run.
I am the granddaughter of Terra
Mother Earth
I am the daughter of Ops
Queen of all gods
The force of the hurricane
The brutality of the desert
The power to make life where before there was only dust.”

she is beautiful, she is barefoot
by Christopher Bailey
Adapted from Phoebus and Daphne

Directed by: Charlie Whitworth
Starring: Sophie Carmichael, Toby Morell, Ruth Morris, Lucy-Grace Norris, Lukas Weichert.

“It was 1949. It’s 75°. I was still a boy.

I’d been away and come back and the second I returned forgotten all that my travels had taught me.

Smell that? Sweat, tea and…something new, something American – a stink you smell with your ears.”

Mercury and Battus
by Suzanne Jackson

Directed by Olly Hawes

Starring: Joseph Strouzer, Raph Verrion.

“If there’s one thing I’ve got it’s a sense of humour but right now I can only laugh at the vision I have of me waving at your dead body floating down the Thames.

It’s allowed you know.

That sort of thing”.

The Fall of Troy
by Patrick Dunlea

Directed by Estelle Buckridge

Starring: Michelle Crane, James Powell, Steve Rodgers, Sarah Winter, Ilana Winterstein.

“Hello, this is the O2 voicemail service. You have … eight … teen … new messages. Your mailbox is now full. “

“Troy? Um … where are you? I’m waiting here, I’ve been waiting here. Did you forget or something? Are you going to show up? I’m kind of embarrassed to be here alone. The waitresses are looking at me funny. “