ImMortal 2007

‘Circus is about spectacle, certainly,’ says NSC’s Firenza Guidi, writer, director and designer of their show at the Roundhouse, ‘but there’s also a darker element, possibly an emotional content. It’s not so much a case of “watch what I can do,” as of “through this skill I am talking to you.” It’s a piece of physical text.’

‘The central impulse of “Immortal” remains the same,’ says Guidi, ‘that people after death have an interim time to resolve unfinished business, which could be to find joy, get over a fear, or do something that they had always wanted to do but couldn’t. They’ve got a last chance and only then can they move on to immortality.’

This isn’t glossy, synchronised theatre, however. ‘Immortal’ is more like a beautifully unpredictable last-chance saloon, with 16 tumblers, tightrope walkers and trapeze artists moving above, below and about the audience. ‘We use the term “fucked-up” a lot,’ says Guidi. ‘We want to get away from the idea of circus performers always having to show their jolly side and being technically perfect, instead revealing vulnerability and the loss of control. That’s what makes you different. It’s more exciting to see a 40-year-old while she’s talking to the audience from five metres off the ground than a 12-year-old bending backwards. These are people who have really lived, and that shows in their performances.’ Time Out

This was the last year of ImMortal by this time the creative team were quite bored and really wanted to shake the show up and create something new. We knew that we were playing in The Roundhouse and the show would need to be transferable from the big top and luckily the internal dimensions between the pillars of the Roundhouse pretty much matched the size of the tent and thus the donut was created. A large 2.4m high circular stage that circled the circumference of the tent, meaning the audience were inside and totally surrounded by the action.

Peter Reynolds who had been working as the Music director for nofitstate for 10 years decided not to tour because of family commitments. He still wrote the music for the show and we employed a band leader Nikki Rose to tour in his place.

Building the donut was a massive project and the crew worked for weeks before rehearsals started in Barry Dock for the third year. The donut was later to be used in the company's outdoor shows and reused and recycled for numerous projects. The tour played twice in Wales, once in Ireland, twice in England including the Roundhouse, and twice in France. This was the year of exciting venue challenges for the company. These included putting the tent up on a platform in the middle of a dock in Dublin surround on all sides by water, putting the tent outside the Wales Millennium Centre in the oval basin where we had to build a scaffold frame to attach the tent to the ground and taking the show out the tent and into a venue for the first time. We also played at Auch circus festival which is attended by over 200 promoters and by the end of season we had many people wanting to book ImMortal and for the first year we actually made a profit on the tour.

Things were looking up for the company, we were touring Internationally, making some money and had a newly developed international profile. 2007 was a long year the tour started in April and finished in November. The first time we'd been able to keep a company employed for 8 months. The final show from Blagnac, Toulouse was streamed live through several web cams and watched by people all over the World. ( mostly the performers mums and dads and Ali from her front room in Cardiff)

Soundtrack