Transport Theatre Company to Launch UK Tour of THE EDGE

From 8 October to 14 November, Transport, the critically acclaimed Folkstone-based theatre company behind Invisible, 1001 Nights and Elegy will present a brand new devised production, The Edge, with original music composed by award-winning Raymond Yiu. Inspired by real life narratives taken from the south coast of England and the Sundabans in India and developed in collaboration with leading lecturer in coastal oceanography Dr Ivan Haigh, The Edge is an extensive exploration of climate change and migration. Based on an encounter between two people from different cultures that encompasses myths from the sea, the history of human migration, the formation of rivers and seas, the piece will be devised and directed by Douglas Rintoul and the creative team behind Elegy.

A woman steps into the English Channel. A man is swept up by a great storm in West Bengal. Two decades later their children meet on a beach by an English town that's been abandoned to the sea. She's training to swim the Channel. He's a climate change refugee.

Powerful and poetic, The Edge is a love story between two people from different continents and cultures, connected by weather patterns and the shared experience of a radically changing world. Douglas Rintoul, Artistic Director of Transport Theatre was awarded the British Council Connections through Culture Award to visit the Sundarbans in West Bengal India where he worked with the Kolkata based theatre company Ranan, drawing real life narratives from an area directly on the frontline of climate change. The company also worked with young adults in Folkestone, developing an audio and visual work exploring narratives from the Kent Coast. Combining this quantative research from two different continents, Rintoul's production questions what it really means to live on the geographical edge and explores the universal issue of climate change.

Developed in collaboration with leading lecturer in coastal oceanography Dr Ivan Haigh, with music by award-winning composer Raymond Yiu, The Edge will fuse text, movement, music and projection to transport its audience between continents, exploring the place where the sea meets the land.

In partnership with Kent Libraries, the tour will include a three day site specific run at Folkestone Library, Grace Hill. The production will be filmed in this creative venue and then released digitally to the public for National Library Day 2016.

Douglas Rintoul is Artistic Director of Transport and the Queens Theatre in Hornchurch. He has directed for the Barbican, Hampstead Theatre, Unicorn Theatre, Watermill Theatre, Trafalgar Studios, Dundee Rep Theatre, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, National Theatre Studio, Salisbury Playhouse, New Wolsey Theatre, Ice&Fire and Creation and is a long-standing associate director to Complicite and was an assistant and associate director to Deborah Warner. He recently received the Royal National Theatre Foundation Playwright Award for his production Elegy.

Raymond Yiu is the winner of a BASCA British Composer Award, and three times previous nominee. His early work received the advocacy of American composer-pianist-conductor Lukas Foss and he has worked with ensembles and artists including BBC Singers, BBCSO, Chroma, Concorde Ensemble (Ireland), Ensemble 10/10, London Sinfonietta, Lontano, LSO and Andrew Watts. The Original Chinese Conjuror, with libretto by Lee Warren, was commissioned by Aldeburgh Production for the 2006 Aldeburgh Almeida Opera Season. Maomao Yü, a quintet for piano and traditional Chinese instruments was commissioned by LSO for Lang Lang and the Silk String Quartet. The Earth and Every Common Sight, for soprano and piano, won the Tracey Chadwell Memorial Prize 2010. In April 2013, Teatro Barroco of Vienna mounted a new production of The Original Chinese Conjuror, directed by Bernd Bienert.

TRANSPORT is an internationally minded arts company based in Folkestone. Positioned on a geographical border, the company's focus is rooted in the near and far looking towards the channel and beyond.