A COVID-19 RESPONSE PROJECT
SKY BLUES - by Helen Brandom
This is Karen’s favourite line: ‘He came home from the wars today and pleasured me twice in his top boots.’ Plagued by Nato air exercises over the Dales, she’s depressed after Joshua’s birth. Husband Ian is a workaholic aircraft buff. Famous author Flora Marchbanks, researching travellers, drops by, is taken ill, loses her memory, then thinks she’s Karen’s mother. The couple lead her on. Karen, motherless, feels better. During a storm, when Ian is out, a Danish pilot, Christian Anderson, parachutist, seeks shelter. In a power-cut, in his boots, he pleasures Karen and baby Christian is conceived.
Make a Donation
Help us create new theatre with a coffee or donation
CREATIVES
Helen has written Radio 4 Afternoon Plays and a Morning Serial. Work for Carlton and Granada TV includes audio cassettes – Rita Sullivan and Ken Barlow – for Coronation Street’s ‘In Their Own Words’. Her stage play, a black comedy ‘A Bit of Royal Albert’, won Best Production in a North Yorkshire drama festival and was selected as one of the best six one-act amateur plays of the year at the Buxton Opera House. Her YA novel, ‘Writing in the Sand’ is published by Usborne. Helen, an ex-primary school teacher (loves cats and dogs) lives in Harrogate.
Kitty is a Northern born, bred and trained theatre director wanting to champion regional creatives and audiences in socio-political, non-traditional theatre. In 2019 Kitty was commissioned by BBC Arts/ACE to write an audio piece for BBC Sounds called ‘Another Joan’. Director credits: One Good Tree by Robert Barnett (Up ‘Ere Productions) & Eat The Rich by Kitty Ball (Burning Brick TC). Assistant Director credits include: The Last Quiz Night on Earth (Box of Tricks Theatre 2020 Tour), Treasure Island (ALRA North 2019) and Lancastrians (Junction 8 Theatre, Dir. Liz Stevenson, 2019 Tour).
Flora Sowerby has been working as a professional actor for 6 years now since her graduating from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. With a whopping height of 6ft she absorbs herself in mad characters, comedy and strong women using her height and stature to push the boundaries of what is seen as ‘female’ on stage. Performing as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra at The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival was her biggest challenge. She has recently been performing in many different New Writing scratch nights at The Chiswick Playhouse, Waterloo East Theatre and is a regular at The Museum of Comedy. Recently cast in Shitfaced Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing! playing Beatrice (postponed).
.jpg)
Recent credits include BBC Doctors and an award winning short film, Uman. Trained at Mountview and The Actors Temple with many workshops and short courses along the way. Corona willing, a UK and EU tour of Henry V with The Festival Players awaits next summer, having been postponed this year. Lives on a boat and spends his spare time in the great outdoors as a runner, hiker, cyclist, climber and general nature enthusiast. Ironic that corporate/professional roles seem to be his most prolific casting!