A Daring Debut: ‘Demon Squirrels’ by wrongmind

This week is a bittersweet one. While Bubble hosts the last production of our ‘MAKE SPACE!’ festival, we realize that all good things eventually must come to an end. And yet, we continue to celebrate all of the new work that’s graced our rehearsal space, every new idea that has been tested, and all the new connections that have been made. 

This week is also a week of new beginnings, as ‘wrongmind’ the cast and creators of “Demon Squirrels” move into the space! And they’re using it in an unconventional way to say the least…

Sypnosis: “By entering into the distorted reality and hallucinogenic world of his friend’s mind, one character takes an uneducated guess on how to help them heal. Together they face the incoming challenges whilst new challenges arise.”

A little bit more about ‘wrongmind’:

‘wrongmind’ are an emerging creative arts company founded by Ishmael Khan and Paolo Guidi. Still in their beginnings, they are interested in creating and telling stories. Their hope is to tell these stories through devised and collaborative theatre, dance and film.

Packed into our little kitchen corner of the vast rehearsal room, I’m starting to wonder what exactly ‘wrongmind’ have in store for audiences. The pair met during a production over ten years ago, but due to one living in London and the other Birmingham, they were scarcely able to get together, let alone create together. ‘Demon Squirrels’ is their first show they’ve created together:

I: “We’d been thinking about forming a company together in the past, and when this came up it was a nice opportunity to work out the logistics of it.”

P: “I wrote the application without Ish knowing. The process of applying for space had always felt very intimidating. Bubble’s was very approachable, and not too complex, a lot of young theatre maker ones don’t make sense. With this there may be no money but there were space, dates, and the chance to share.”

Bubble offers young theatre makers an increasingly rare opportunity to come and create an entirely new piece of work in the space of our rehearsal room.

P: “Its really important, and it’s often so seemingly complicated. It never feels an easy thing to obtain. We’re also 30, so an amazing thing about London Bubble is that the age range went up to 30 when it’s usually 25. It’s massive, I wish there were more opportunities like this especially for people like us, who feel very alienated from the arts because we come from working backgrounds, we often enter spaces and feel like we exist on the fringes.”

Speaking of space, the pair are using the rehearsal room in probably the most unusual way anyone has had so far. Get ready for a London Bubble first, because this week, we’re going to be doing some parkour. Well, not us personally, we’ll leave it to the professionals.

I: “I was, fourteen or fifteen, there was a documentary called ‘Jump Britain’ on channel four, and another one called ‘Jump London’, it’s kind of the same concept where the inventor of parkour Sébastien Foucan and his group come to London and parkour on all the tourist attractions. My friend managed to see it and started doing it in the playground, I saw them doing it, and I asked “what is this?” and they said “Oh! It’s parkour, do you want to try? I think you would be quite good at it!” I’ve been doing it ever since.”

I:“I think parkour has a place in the arts, especially surrounding elevation and obstacles. Most of the shows that I’ve done in the past are outdoor physical theatre or dance and often have set pieces that can be moved around, but you can’t move off it or on it or through it. Parkour deals with that kind of behavior, of how you can get on a wall or off a tree in a creative manner. We’ve got our little corner, and we’re trying some quite kooky stuff.”

In the corner of the upstairs London Bubble rehearsal space there’s an unsuspecting little kitchen corner with a deep sink, kettle and a fruit bowl. While to my knowledge she’s never been in a London Bubble play before, Ish and Paulo upon first sight knew she was born to be a star, and so the quaint little kitchen corner is making its theatrical debut this Friday in ‘Demon Squirrels’.

I: “We’re going to use the beams on top of the kitchen area, the windowsill and the radiator. We’re boxing ourselves into this corner to give this a little more character. It’s set in an apartment, so we like the fact that we can play with the opportunity for a silhouette in the window, or someone doing something on the sink. We want to climb up to give this a different perspective.”

P: “It evokes a different feeling when people are in different places.”

The use of parkour in the piece allows audiences to connect into the innermost world of one of the character’s hallucinations. While it’s not explicit in the piece, the play does explore mental health in an unconventional way, and in one that perhaps society is not yet ready to address.

I:“ You see someone doing something weird, and you immediately go, oh, no no, they’re a crazy person, I can’t do nothing for them, whatever whatever. All it takes is a little bit of digging to find the gravity of the situation and how they feel about it. It’s easy to dismiss the individual. You’ll realize they’re just as sacred as you are, if not more.”

P:“ We haven’t really pinpointed a specific mental health problem. We don’t want to narrow it down. We just want it so this person just so happens to have this psychosis going on. Mental health is almost always seen as permanent instead of as an opportunity for growth.”

A very interesting theme that has been present across many of the ‘MAKE SPACE!’ projects is the idea of having a ‘big’ topic present in a play, but not making it the centrepiece of the show. It makes us very excited about the storytelling styles of the theatre makers of the future, who we are so lucky to host at London Bubble. While it’s been a joy to have Ish and Paolo in the space (even with quite a few slightly worrying thuds and creeks), we wanted to know if they felt the same about us. Bubble + Parkour + new theatre = match made in heaven?

P: “The people have been so amazing.”

I: “There’s a scene idea we had, and we had one particular location in mind for the idea. And we were quite nervous that Bubble would say no. But then we showed it to them and they said ‘oh, okay! They’ve been as involved as they possibly can be with the production.”

P: “And also providing the support of professionals like Michael (set design) and Sammy (tech) has really allowed us to flourish. Bubble have made this a community project, and we feel like a part of something for the first time in a long time.”

Community and creativity will forever be a mainstay of what we do at Bubble, and I would really like to thank Ish and Paolo for talking to me about what they’re developing, and about how they feel Bubble has welcomed them and accepted their art with open arms. That being said, we’ll definitely leave the parkour to them…

Come and watch the incredible Ish and Paolo in ‘Demon Squirrels’ TONIGHT at 7:30pm at the London Bubble building. Our space is fully accessible, and doors open at 7:00pm. We can’t wait to dive into a hallucinogenic world alongside you!

Thanks for reading!

London Bubble.

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