Black Country Touring asked people of the Black Country what the word Wild meant to them. The answers have inspired the play that they are touring this month.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hi guys, we're just joining you on rehearsals for
00:03Wild so just fill us in who you are and what is wild
00:09So I'm Frances Land. I'm one of the co-directors and I'm Steve Johnston and we are from Black Country touring
00:17fantastic and wild is
00:20Latest production that we've made by interviewing or having conversations with more than 70 people across the black country
00:27About what the word wild means to them. Yeah
00:32And what's what sort of answers have you come back with then?
00:34I suppose it can be all-encompassing can't it really? A real mix so like with the snippet
00:39that you filmed we had a story about an encounter with a wolf but conversations about
00:46Wild weather people talking about tornadoes
00:50People talking about that connection with with nature with the sea the seas really important thing that sort of come through
00:57So we've taken all that material, but also of the city wild being chased through the streets late at night
01:04encounters with
01:06People being wild and also one woman who talked about free birthing her children
01:11Which means giving birth without any medical intervention at all at home. That's pretty wild. That's pretty well
01:19It meant I was able to stop
01:23Turn around
01:27I
01:57I
02:14To small moves
02:18Motionless
02:20Catching the light
02:23And right ahead of me
02:27If I squint I can make out some shapes around
02:37But I can't see what I belong to
02:43All I can see are the dark tangles of some thicket
02:53If I
02:56See the moons are amber colored which reminds me of things I
03:05Used to love building wildfires at night with me grandfather
03:11choose a safe spot
03:13Then start with some kindling you tell me
03:25Act
03:27In the middle of the wilderness
03:29Where you can hunt the wild fruits and mushrooms
03:34But you can store your crown on the river and through the trees. I
03:40Spend these winter nights
03:42Watching over my grandfather's flock of sheep in the pitch black
03:49I'd stay close by the fire
03:51Keeping myself
03:54Completely alone
04:00Well
04:03Not completely alone
04:06Stay far away from the forest at night my grandfather would say as he head back to the farmhouse
04:13You must be mindful of what you cannot see in the dark
04:18Over near the trees I can tell it's still there. There's someone or something
04:25close by
04:26It's the idea of both that wild of the world and the nature around us
04:30But the wild of us as well the wildest us as animals humans as animals
04:34So how have you managed to incorporate that into a play?
04:36What what can people expect then if they come and watch wilderness?
04:40Well, I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question
04:44What can people expect then if they come and watch wild what kind of roughly how does the storyline kind of floating
04:49So there's a lot to get in there, isn't there? There isn't one storyline. It's multiple storylines that overlap and get linked
04:56So you'll move from scene to scene so you literally move from a scene about the wolf
05:02Into a scene about the sea. Oh, well, you'll this scene about giving birth to a scene about
05:11Being chased through the streets by the National Front in the 1980s
05:14Yeah, yeah, so almost like a set of mini stories within a bigger bigger story sort of yeah
05:20Sort of and layers and with that there'll be we have with what we have a wild choir
05:25So we'll have live singing and sound and and rich soundscape
05:28So we're trying to layer those stories with the sort of different sound
05:32so so it's kind of quite immersive in that sense of the audience and
05:37Being kind of in the center of the sort of stories themselves
05:41So black country touring how long's black country touring been going?
05:46since 97 so
05:51And I mean you put on quite a number of productions though
05:54Yes, so we create new productions that are based on the stories of the communities that live in the black country and always
06:02Talking and taking those stories to to create the work that we produce and we're also a touring scheme
06:08So we bring work into the black country as well
06:15So where can when does this kind of go live and how can people catch a show then where's it gonna be performed at?
06:21so we start on the 16th of October and
06:26The best thing is to actually go to the website, which is
06:30Probably I should get you the flyer
06:34Yeah, go on
06:38So if people look at this this will give you all the information you need
06:44We've got it royally else we've got royally else of it Wensbury library
06:50glass house arts scottish community and wolves dorothy parks Bromwich Hall Central Library a
06:56Nick
06:57Community hub called more. It's quite a few venues then
07:00Yeah, yeah, and you definitely definitely gonna bring it to the people of the black country for sure
07:05That was a very important part of it because a lot of the venues were going to were
07:10Connected to the people who went and spoke to it the stories project. Yeah
07:14Well fantastic and the little snippet we saw today was intriguing. So good luck with the production folks. Thank you very much
07:27So instinct sharpened senses and remains hidden
07:36There's a flicker of movement
07:40And the soft thing emerges from the trees
07:56And
08:01Then it moves closer
08:07And then it stops
08:14The eyes are still locked
08:18As I'm here into the dog I make out a great shadow
08:22I
08:29Can't move
08:31The shadow is poised my grandfather has taught me never to run
08:36You must not make yourself into pray
08:40So I yell
08:42Go
08:53I'm just
08:56Staring the shadow with a sleek great
09:05There's teeth why hungry and intent
09:17So there's the wall
09:20And there was me
09:24Just me
09:27Face to face
09:31It's black
09:34And then suddenly there was my grandfather with his gun
09:40The wolf looks at me
09:43my grandfather
09:46And I
09:48Look at the gun
09:53Yeah
10:04My grandfather would never shoot
10:07But he gripped the gun in his white knuckles as he called to his dogs who were trained to snap into action
10:13They came straight away
10:15You see the wolf is afraid of the dogs
10:19the dogs have
10:22They bark and bark, but they stay beside my grandfather the gun in his hand with the finger on the trigger
10:30The wolf watches me
10:33But I do not move
10:36Now let us move
10:38The
10:42Wolf drops back onto its high neck legs and steals away deep into the forest
11:08You