The Magical Adventure of Spud and Plum was developed as part of the Exchange for Change programme and was presented on the Festival Day, 16 July 2009. It subsequently was developed further and was performed at the Half Moon Theatre in 2011 as Plum and Pickle.

A note from the Director:

The Exchange For Change programme began with a research and development day at Half Moon, followed by two encounters in the nursery at Stewart Headlam Primary School, interacting with the children and participating in two drama workshops following our particular line of enquiry. But how does a team that had never created work with under 5s, and who had never worked together, find a fresh approach? Hanging on to a sentiment from a poem by Robert Frost that the road less
travelled is the more interesting, we went for a starting point of quantum theory. The journey that this sparked was intense and exhilarating! I worked to create a bond between the ensemble before we even started creating the material, particularly finding a physical language for the performers. Everyone was ‘in-the-mix’, contributing to each other’s disciplines. It became a veritable whirlpool, so many ideas! Whole mornings spent developing sequences (including design ideas) that in the end we decided would do very well in another show, but not this one! Music and design also evolved through experimentation and ‘simplicity’ became our mantra. But for every discarded idea, layers were stripped away that eventually revealed what was at the core of our creative collective. Eureka moments often arriving like mischievous children 5 minutes before the end of rehearsal! All this and a good supply of ‘jammie dodgers’, an orange ball and laughter led us to that point. We look forward to sharing our journey.