billy fisher

Written by Victoria Grainger

A collaboration with Jaq Bessell and Jan Knightley 

Billy Fisher  has been inspired by an extant, crinkly sepia photograph of a woman called  Mary Fisher and her son Billy. 

The play is based on the story of her husband, real-life Midland soldier Billy Fisher Senior, sent to war, proclaimed 'missing presumed dead' whilst in fact detained in a Prisoner of War camp in Alten Grabow, Germany, with a band of men including a mysterious Russian painter who painted this photograph. 

The story of Billy Senior, Billy Junior, Mary and the mysterious Russian POW and six other characters are fictionalised and entwined and explored in an exciting five-cast concept.

 

 Like A Fountain Troubled ~                                

The Tale of a Piece of Mind

Written by Victoria Grainger

 

"Can I ask you, how many counsellors have you seen before me?"

"Seven"

"Can I ask what made you choose me?"

"Yes. You had the biggest ad in the Yellow Pages"

 

Set in a private counsellor's practice, the 'Fountain Therapy Centre', this is an intimate two-cast play for two females, and is about the art of paying a stranger to listen and the art of being that stranger.

 

HEREAFTER 

Written by Elinor D'Angelis and Victoria Grainger

 

 "What is your song darlin? You can't be chasing that boy forever ya know? What about your song darlin. Promise me darlin. Remember, never forget your own song."

 

A one woman show, first performed in 2007.

HereAfter was commissioned by Elinor D'Angelis, founder of Martell Arts and Publications and Renaissance Arts Retreats in 2007. D'Angelis, an actress had been previously directed by Victoria at Heart Productions, and had become familiar with some of Victoria's writing.

D'Angelis trained at East 15 Acting School and so was a natural enthusiast of the Joan Littlewood 'Theatre Workshop' style of theate, which broke new ground, re-interpreting the classics for a modern age, commissioning new plays from socially committed writers, and creating an ensemble capable of inventing new work including elements of improvisation. This approach produced a one-woman contemporary tale based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, featuring visual projection which premiered at the Edmonton Fringe Festival in Canada 2007. HereAfter is currently being re-developed.

It is the story of an obsessive mother on a repetitve nocturnal journey to find her missing son, five other characters are present via film projection. A beautiful, visually striking, delicately crafted piece featuring a tour de force of acting in Elinor D'Angelis.

 

"Well sweetheart, everybody needs to believe in something. If not what else is there that can possibly save us? Cos we all want to be saved. Don't we? Or at least, think that we can be saved."

 

 

MISANTHROPE ~

"To esteem everything is to esteem nothing"

Writtten in 1666, Moliere's original 'Misanthrope' is an unforgiving take on a society where stupiditiy and the aesthetic prevail over intelligence, integrity and honesty, followed closely by hypocrisy. A new take on a misanthropic 'Alceste' and the deeply felt malevolent despair at the state of society and its fawning inability to distinguish between  'man of worth and fop alike', in accordance with Untamed Shrew Policy will not be a direct presentation of the original, but dug into and presented on a Shrew shaped platter.  

In development.

 "I see you almost stifle a man with caresses show him the most ardent affection and overwhelm him with protestations, offers, and vows of friendship...when I ask you who that man is, you can scarcely tell me his name...