Jane Feaver

Magical mystery tour

Jane Feaver goes behind the scenes with Kneehigh, a theatre company with an international reach that remains resolutely close to its Cornish roots

issue 23 July 2011

Jane Feaver goes behind the scenes with Kneehigh, a theatre company with an international reach that remains resolutely close to its Cornish roots

These days, when Mike Shepherd appears on stage in Cornwall he is greeted as a local hero, the boy in the playground everyone most wants to play with. Some 30 years ago he founded the theatre company Kneehigh, where he remains associate artistic director.

Kneehigh began by touring small-scale village-hall productions but has since become international in scope and ambition, collaborating with, among others, the RSC and the National Theatre, retelling mythic tales — Tristan and Yseult (2003), Cymbeline (2006), Don John (2009); reimagining iconic films — A Matter of Life and Death (2007) and Brief Encounter (which, in 2010, steamed on to Broadway). The stakes are high and occasionally — perhaps inevitably — a project over-reaches itself: earlier this year, for instance, a stage realisation of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was pulled prematurely from its West End run.

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