Using spectacular back projection effects and photography this is a play about Mary Shelley and her Monster; Michael Faraday, the father of electricity; vibrating pubs that give you seasickness on land; a famous court case, and one woman, Octavia Hill, who fought for the right for the ordinary people of Southwark in London to have decent homes and clean air.
Mary Shelley’s prophesies in her book ‘Frankenstein’, the Modern Prometheus, came to fruition some hundred years after publication on the banks of the Thames at Blackfriars. Electricity, the source of her supernatural themes, became a true force of power in the world, a force as destructive as it was beneficial. ‘Ghosts on a Wire’ follows the development of the world’s largest coal powered electric plant, The Pioneer as it lit the houses and streets of the affluent North Bank of the Thames, whilst destroying the homes and working-class communities on the South. One woman, Octavia Hill, fought for the rights of the ordinary people of Southwark to have decent homes and clean air. Her story and that of our ghosts, recounts a tale of unworldly events, corruption, greed and resilience in the face of a Leviathan that was able to consume everything it encountered.‘Ghosts On A Wire’, which uses spectacular back projection effects and photography, was commissioned by Southwark Council, who had previously commissioned  Linda Wilkinson to write ‘Albion in Flames’. Wilkinson is thrilled that the same creative team behind ‘Albion in Flames’, are back together again for ‘Ghosts On A Wire’.
Cast:
Gerri Farrell as Octavia Hill
Andrew Fettes as William Shelfer
Timothy Harker as William Blake
Ali Kemp as Sarah Shelfer
Deborah Klayman as Harriot Yorke
Tom Neill as Michael Faraday
Creative team:
Writer and Producer Linda Wilkinson
Director PK Taylor
Sound Designer and Composer Jack Baxter
Photographer and Graphic Design Martin Butterworth
Artist Adrian Chappell
Projection Design (Stagefright Films) Chris Lince
Costumes Penn O’Gara
Linda Wilkinson (whose first play, ‘Dust at Midnight’, was a winner of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain’s Theatre Showcase) was born in Bethnal Green in the heart of London’s East End. For the first 24 years of her life she lived in a house on Columbia Road. These days it’s home to the internationally renowned Flower Market, in those days it was just for the locals who bought plants for their tiny back yards and gardens.Her family have lived in the area for many generations and she can trace her roots in East London back to the 1650’s. Her mother was a seamstress and her father worked for the Gas Board. Much of her writing has been about the realities and challenges she observed in the lives around her. Her own life is recounted in her memoir, ‘Columbia Road Of Blood and Belonging’. Having left the area in her twenties, in 1986 she returned to live just a stone’s throw from her original home. She has in turn been an accountant, scientist, playwright, author, radio producer and Chair of Amnesty International UK. As an avid proponent of Human Rights’, she was a founder member of Amnesty Internationals’ LGBT networks. She and her partner Carol were the first women to sign London’s GLA Partnership Register which kick-started the road to Same-Sex marriage in the UK.
Union Theatre, Old Union Arches, 229 Union Street, London, SE1 0LR from September 21 – October 8. Times: Monday-Saturday 19.30; Matinees Saturdays 14.30. Admission: (between £10-£25), Southwark Residents £15 (with proof)
Box Office: 020 7261 9876 –Â http://uniontheatre.biz/show/ghosts-on-a-wire/
