Black Country Touring bringing WILD to a venue near you this month.

Express & Star

Black Country Touring asked people of the Black Country what the word Wild meant to them. The answers have inspired the play that they are touring this month.

Transcript

00:00Hi guys, we're just joining you on rehearsals for

00:03Wild so just fill us in who you are and what is wild

00:09So I'm Frances Land. I'm one of the co-directors and I'm Steve Johnston and we are from Black Country touring

00:17fantastic and wild is

00:20Latest production that we've made by interviewing or having conversations with more than 70 people across the black country

00:27About what the word wild means to them. Yeah

00:32And what's what sort of answers have you come back with then?

00:34I suppose it can be all-encompassing can't it really? A real mix so like with the snippet

00:39that you filmed we had a story about an encounter with a wolf but conversations about

00:46Wild weather people talking about tornadoes

00:50People talking about that connection with with nature with the sea the seas really important thing that sort of come through

00:57So we've taken all that material, but also of the city wild being chased through the streets late at night

01:04encounters with

01:06People being wild and also one woman who talked about free birthing her children

01:11Which means giving birth without any medical intervention at all at home. That's pretty wild. That's pretty well

01:19It meant I was able to stop

01:23Turn around

01:27I

01:57I

02:14To small moves

02:18Motionless

02:20Catching the light

02:23And right ahead of me

02:27If I squint I can make out some shapes around

02:37But I can't see what I belong to

02:43All I can see are the dark tangles of some thicket

02:53If I

02:56See the moons are amber colored which reminds me of things I

03:05Used to love building wildfires at night with me grandfather

03:11choose a safe spot

03:13Then start with some kindling you tell me

03:25Act

03:27In the middle of the wilderness

03:29Where you can hunt the wild fruits and mushrooms

03:34But you can store your crown on the river and through the trees. I

03:40Spend these winter nights

03:42Watching over my grandfather's flock of sheep in the pitch black

03:49I'd stay close by the fire

03:51Keeping myself

03:54Completely alone

04:00Well

04:03Not completely alone

04:06Stay far away from the forest at night my grandfather would say as he head back to the farmhouse

04:13You must be mindful of what you cannot see in the dark

04:18Over near the trees I can tell it's still there. There's someone or something

04:25close by

04:26It's the idea of both that wild of the world and the nature around us

04:30But the wild of us as well the wildest us as animals humans as animals

04:34So how have you managed to incorporate that into a play?

04:36What what can people expect then if they come and watch wilderness?

04:40Well, I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question

04:44What can people expect then if they come and watch wild what kind of roughly how does the storyline kind of floating

04:49So there's a lot to get in there, isn't there? There isn't one storyline. It's multiple storylines that overlap and get linked

04:56So you'll move from scene to scene so you literally move from a scene about the wolf

05:02Into a scene about the sea. Oh, well, you'll this scene about giving birth to a scene about

05:11Being chased through the streets by the National Front in the 1980s

05:14Yeah, yeah, so almost like a set of mini stories within a bigger bigger story sort of yeah

05:20Sort of and layers and with that there'll be we have with what we have a wild choir

05:25So we'll have live singing and sound and and rich soundscape

05:28So we're trying to layer those stories with the sort of different sound

05:32so so it's kind of quite immersive in that sense of the audience and

05:37Being kind of in the center of the sort of stories themselves

05:41So black country touring how long's black country touring been going?

05:46since 97 so

05:51And I mean you put on quite a number of productions though

05:54Yes, so we create new productions that are based on the stories of the communities that live in the black country and always

06:02Talking and taking those stories to to create the work that we produce and we're also a touring scheme

06:08So we bring work into the black country as well

06:15So where can when does this kind of go live and how can people catch a show then where's it gonna be performed at?

06:21so we start on the 16th of October and

06:26The best thing is to actually go to the website, which is

06:30Probably I should get you the flyer

06:34Yeah, go on

06:38So if people look at this this will give you all the information you need

06:44We've got it royally else we've got royally else of it Wensbury library

06:50glass house arts scottish community and wolves dorothy parks Bromwich Hall Central Library a

06:56Nick

06:57Community hub called more. It's quite a few venues then

07:00Yeah, yeah, and you definitely definitely gonna bring it to the people of the black country for sure

07:05That was a very important part of it because a lot of the venues were going to were

07:10Connected to the people who went and spoke to it the stories project. Yeah

07:14Well fantastic and the little snippet we saw today was intriguing. So good luck with the production folks. Thank you very much

07:27So instinct sharpened senses and remains hidden

07:36There's a flicker of movement

07:40And the soft thing emerges from the trees

07:56And

08:01Then it moves closer

08:07And then it stops

08:14The eyes are still locked

08:18As I'm here into the dog I make out a great shadow

08:22I

08:29Can't move

08:31The shadow is poised my grandfather has taught me never to run

08:36You must not make yourself into pray

08:40So I yell

08:42Go

08:53I'm just

08:56Staring the shadow with a sleek great

09:05There's teeth why hungry and intent

09:17So there's the wall

09:20And there was me

09:24Just me

09:27Face to face

09:31It's black

09:34And then suddenly there was my grandfather with his gun

09:40The wolf looks at me

09:43my grandfather

09:46And I

09:48Look at the gun

09:53Yeah

10:04My grandfather would never shoot

10:07But he gripped the gun in his white knuckles as he called to his dogs who were trained to snap into action

10:13They came straight away

10:15You see the wolf is afraid of the dogs

10:19the dogs have

10:22They bark and bark, but they stay beside my grandfather the gun in his hand with the finger on the trigger

10:30The wolf watches me

10:33But I do not move

10:36Now let us move

10:38The

10:42Wolf drops back onto its high neck legs and steals away deep into the forest

11:08You

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