I’ve started the score for the next instalment of Slung Low‘s Flood this week. ‘To The Sea’ is part 3 of the year-long project for Hull City of Culture.
Flood: To The Sea will be broadcast on BBC2 on Saturday, 12th August at 9pm. It’s live theatre, and the action takes place on and in the water of Victoria Dock, with several floating sets, pyrotechnics, and a beautiful, brutal script by James Phillips.
The story follows some of the characters who survived from part 2, Abundance, a show that played to audiences in April. In that show, we told the tale of the end of the world. Next, in Part 3, To The Sea, tells the story of what happens after.
Alan Lane (director), Matt Angove (sound designer and engineer) and I met on Monday at the Twisted Burger Diner in Sheffield to talk about the details in the score’s tone, purpose and scale; the schedule and technical/technological stuff. We discussed strategy for meeting the challenges of a piece of theatre to be broadcast on television. We also ate copious amounts of fried and baked vegan brunch goods***.
Now* I’m sat in the studio looking at that Monday meeting scrawl on the script, reminding myself of the score for parts 1** and 2 of the show, seeing what to cannibalise and where we need brand new material. It’s clear from the worlds the script inhabits that we’ll need a substantial amount of new material. Hopefully (!) how we incorporate the original themes and motifs from Parts 1 and 2 of Flood should prove fertile ground for some very interesting experiments when we head, in Part 3, back To The Sea…
*aside from writing this blog post. Classic displacement activity, Fenoughty.
**Watch Flood part 1: From The Sea here
***Thank you Twisted Burger Company for opening your lovely new diner not 25 minutes walk from my door. This vegan is very happy.
Image by Malcolm Johnson Photography for Slung Low