Dumbshow On Tour

Back in May I posted about Riding Lights Theatre Company and their new show for the 2012 Olympic Games (here). Now I bring news of another theatre company that I love, Dumbshow, who are back on tour from September 21st with their signature show, Clockheart Boy.

As with Riding Lights, I'm a little biased due to my personal ties to the company. Not only am I listed on their site as one of their supporters (here), I actually went to Warwick University with a lot of them. I was one of the lucky ones who got to see Clockheart Boy in its original incarnation in 2007 - back when it was called Clockheart Boy and the Beautiful Search. I remember walking out of it believing that it was one of the greatest shows I'd ever seen - an opinion that I hold to this day.

Clockheart Boy is a beautifully melancholic fairy tale written by Sam Gayton, whose fantastic debut novel The Snow Merchant has just come out in paperback. It revolves around a boy who has washed up on the shore of a distant land with a hole where his heart should be. He is taken in by the Professor who builds him a clockwork heart and brings him back to life. Clockheart Boy begins to explore the Professor's castle with a series of patchwork characters, all of whom were build by the Professor. But there is a veil of sadness amidst the central character's wonder, surrounding the disappearance of the Professor's daughter...

Dumbshow have been going strong now for nearly six years, and Clockheart Boy is being taken on tour from 21st September through to November 3rd. The complete list of tour dates can be found here. If you get the chance to catch them, do so - you won't regret it.

In case you need any further persuasion, read this review from the 2011 Edinburgh Festival check out this trailer of the group performing:

Daniel