RUFUS LONGBOTTOM AND THE SPACE RABBIT Comes to Greenwich Theatre

A theatre company that created a show from ideas generated by 600 primary school children in a series of workshops will perform the show at Greenwich Theatre on Friday, June 1, as part of a national tour funded by Arts Council England.

"I think unique is an over-used word but I certainly think it applies to Filament Theatre, one of our associate companies," said James Haddrell, the theatre's artistic and executive director. "Their approach in making theatre is to combine exquisite multi-part harmony singing with dynamic physical theatre, but for their new show they have added another element to the mix. For Rufus Longbottom and the Space Rabbit they have worked with hundreds of children to create the characters and the adventures they go on."

Filament are Sabina Netherclift, a director who specialises in physical theatre, and composer/lyricist Osnat Schmool. "We worked in eight schools, three in East London, two in Oxfordshire and three in Derbyshire," said Sabina. "We also met children and families who took part in workshops we ran for Newham Libraries as part of Imagine Festival's half term programme.

"The first thing to say about the whole process is remembering the absolute delight of the children in the workshops, or during our development 'sharings', when they are inspired by or respond to what they see, when we are directly relating to them. Children have huge imaginations and sometimes they take you by complete surprise.

"During our initial workshops we used a very physical way into character, so we had everything from babies to characters thousands of years old being embodied before our eyes. Children don't look at age in the same way as we do, so even old people who might not be able to get up out of a chair still want to make journeys and do things.

"The very first story of Rufus Longbottom had him travelling to Canada in his chair because he wanted to find some Maple Ice cream! There were some very moving stories that we received from children after our visit and not all the stories we read or were told ended well. But there were also funny stories and wild stories. Lots of children, it seems, would really like to live somewhere made from sweets and chocolate!"

Sabina spoke of how it was "a huge joy" to see children recognise their character, storyline or idea from the sharings and to see how it had been brought to life.

"They are so proud of what they have done," she said. "Rufus Longbottom is from Derbyshire, Space Rabbit from Oxfordshire and Picklepine - a pirate who is one of Space Rabbit's enemies - is from East London. Every character has been dreamed up by the children and so was the foundation story of Space Rabbit having to leave her planet and escape to Earth.

"We have stitched other storylines together and worked with the children to make an adventure that has enough danger - there wasn't enough earlier on!"

Sabina and Osnat met as actors in a show called The Suppliants at The Gate Theatre, Notting Hill. "We didn't immediately start working creatively together but we did start finding temp jobs together," said Sabina. "We both worked on the same reception desks, which gave us time to talk in between checking people in and out, and then we worked as producers and administrators for an early version of what is now The House of Fairytales.

"It was during this period that Osnat revealed she had written a short piece that was a cappella and inspired by Savage Love, a series of Sam Shepherd poems. Osnat wanted to workshop them and had recently met Carole Metcalfe, who then ran the Bridewell Theatre.

"On the strength of hearing an extract of Osnat's music, Carole gave her a week of development time in the theatre and Osnat asked me if I wanted to direct. That was the start of our creative partnership, 16 years ago!"

Filament will be pioneering the use of loop station gloves during the show. The actress playing the Space Rabbit will wear the gloves to manipulate the sounds the audience hears, recording what other members of the cast are singing and playing it over what is happening.

"We are very lucky to work with an artist called Lula Mebrahtu, who is one of the few people to own a pair of Mi-Mu gloves. With one of our main characters from space we knew that Lula would be perfect to play the part and bring her work as a sound artist to the out-of-this-world of the Space Rabbit.

"When we did our development showings in schools, Lula was able to show the children how the gloves manipulated sound, how they could slow down speech and speed it up, echo and change pitch and volume. The children were completely captivated by them.

"The commitment of the children and their teachers has been amazing. After our initial workshops, where we gathered material in the classrooms, we asked children to send us character drawings and stories, then went back to the schools a second and third time."

Filament first worked at Greenwich Theatre in 2009. "The theatre has been incredibly important in supporting us and our work. It programmed early stages of Drive Ride Walk as part of a festival of new music theatre and then supported a tour we did of a 30-minute version to all sorts of local community venues.

"Since then the theatre has enabled us to rehearse work in progress, research and develop a series of choral workshops with the local community, and it co-produced our last family show, Momo, which featured a choir made up of children from several local schools.

"We're looking forward to creating more work that starts at Greenwich in the future, particularly now they have their new studio space. The theatre believes in our work and, for a company as small as us, that is priceless."

Stages of the development of Rufus Longbottom and the Space Rabbit can be found at www.onceupona.filament-theatre.com.

FIND out more at www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk. For tickets call the box office on 020 8858 7755.

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