Preview: Animal Farm

As we always say it’s a challenge to find something engaging and interesting for the huge size of cast we always need! Luckily this year the decision to split into three means we had a bit more scope to explore. Coming across Tatty Hennessy’s adaptation felt like a real dream, as not only was it a story a lot of our actors knew and connected with, it also takes place on a farm where we can have loads of different animals all in one place. This lent itself to our huge cast size and age group perfectly!

The rehearsal process works a lot like a normal show, but each scene is rehearsed three times with different young actors playing the roles. We have loved this as we get to see a range of performance styles and choices. It also means you can really see the nuance of characters in the story as each time the scene is performed, something new comes up.

This version is quite stripped-back, with not all the characters who appear in the book appearing on the stage. The dialogue is very plot-driven which helps move the story on at quite a pace. From only a 70-page novella, Tatty Hennessy has created a real sense of drama and character for the stage, with fast-paced scenes and short, sharp dialogue. This has meant it’s been a great script for our young actors to get their teeth into! 

(Actor names quoted for each cast) The great part of this adaptation is how ensemble-led it is, meaning there’s not a main character and everyone gets their time to shine. That being said, all the well-known names are there, with Old Major (Seth Page, Darius Mourdi Toppani and Cillian Bain), Napoleon (Isaac Timms-Hardy, Florence Cosgrove Williams and Jamie Corcoran), Snowball (Misha Owen, Rosa Skinner and Otto Shippey), Squealer (Dan White, Huey Enkelmann), and Nutmeg (Tabitha Ellis-Jones, Nina Swaine-Detnon and Margot Oliver) heading up the pigs. Horses Boxer (Bonnie White, Sasha Malyon, Mia Tuohy) and Clover (Juliette Purvis, Maggie Stober and Ella Preusser) play a vital part in helping the animals run the show after farmer Jones is run off the farm. These are joined by a host of other animals, beautifully brought to life by our young actors.

We have found this to be an exceptionally current piece, grappling with themes of power, personal and political freedom and community. The feeling of wanting to belong and be proud of our community has never been more pertinent in all our lives than now, and this is one of the things that makes this story so current. Our actors know the story very well (many of them having already studied it at school), so it was exciting to go into a rehearsal process in which they knew so much of the context, historical and otherwise, of the story. It’s been a joy to watch them put this knowledge to practical use to flesh out characters and moments in the story that may have otherwise been missed.

Ambitious. Punchy. Bold.