BIG TELLY HAS BIG PLANS!

BIG TELLY Theatre Company announces phenomenal plans for an explosive forthcoming year, as it continues to expand its spectacular portfolio of contemporary theatre, venturing into new waters and unlocking the potential for performances to be achieved anywhere... including swimming pools!

Big Telly's plans are opening new doors for the world of theatre, embarking on new concepts and new tours, encouraging accessibility for everyone. This year's schedule introduces the extraordinary challenge of 'aqua-theatre', as well as a unique selection of popular interactive summer workshops, Classic Irish theatre, and short film projects for primary education.

The company's latest theatre project is taking it to new heights and is set to really make a splash with younger communities in Northern Ireland. This incredibly unique initiative will produce an extraordinary adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. For the first time in the region's history, a theatre performance will be set entirely in swimming pools. Big Telly hopes to involve as many locations as possible across the Province, and is confident the spectacle of the carnival on water could bring a whole new dimension to the accessibility of theatre to young people.

Big Telly's Artistic Director, Zoë Seaton, is delighted the vision for the Little Mermaid project is becoming a reality. "We are extremely excited about the prospects for The Little Mermaid project and hope that children, big and small, from every walk of life, will enjoy this unique adaptation of the famous story. Developing the performances in swimming pools is a challenge, but with the valuable help and support of swimming experts, we are able to create a production with a completely new approach," she says.

The company's exceptional ability to create theatre through fusion with other art forms such as dance, music, circus, magic and film to surprise, stimulate and ignite the imagination has taken the company to new levels in the Arts sector.

Following the success of the enormously popular workshops this summer, which offer children the opportunity to discover their creative talents during the school holidays, Big Telly is also busy preparing for the revival of the famous Irish Classic The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge across the water in London's Haymarket Theatre in September, after its phenomenal touring success here in Ireland in 2002.
So its all hands on deck this year for the Portstewart, North Coast based theatre company, as it prepares to venture into a new world of opportunities, encouraging everyone to enjoy the variety that The Arts has to offer to every community.

Watch this space for the BIG SPLASH coming to a swimming pool near you next spring!

Big Telly Theatre Company is a professional theatre company formed in 1987 and based in Portstewart, Northern Ireland. The company designs and delivers theatre productions, interactive workshop programmes and community creativity projects, which it mainly tours throughout Northern and Southern Ireland. It concentrates on the visual potential of theatre through fusion with other art forms such as dance, music, circus, magic and film to create a unique sense of spectacle. Big Telly's work is driven by a determination to offer audiences entertainment that surprises, stimulates and ignites the imagination.

For further press information, please contact:

Hannah McKenzie 028 7083 6473
Development Manager info@big-telly.com
Big Telly Theatre Company