New Children’s opera on tour

A new opera for children by St Anne’s Music Fellow, Dr Martyn Harry, is now on national tour, with 43 performances planned in both theatre venues and schools.

Commissioned by Theatre Hullabaloo and Action Transport Theatre and setting a text by award-winning Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer, My Mother Told Me Not To Stare is a dark morality tale in the tradition of Shockheaded Peter and Tim Burton's film Nightmare Before Christmas. Despite presenting an extremely bold fusion of children's theatre and contemporary classical music, the opera is proving to be a great success with audiences of children, as shown by its first fortnight of performances in Darlington, Middlesborough, Keswick, Washington and Poole.

A notable feature of the work is how every member of the cast both sings roles at different times in the work and plays the instrumental accompaniment at other times, making the work a fascinating kaleidoscope comprising of the breadth of the cast's unique talents:

• Andrew Sparling (baritone/clarinet)
• Eleanor Meynell (mezzo soprano/piano)
• Eva Karell (soprano/violin)
• Gary Hughes (tenor/flute/piano)
• Tom Bates (narrator/counter-tenor/musical saw)

If you are interested in seeing the show, please note the run of performances at the Unicorn Theatre in London (17th to 21st March) and particularly the show at the Half Moon Theatre on 25th March, for which tickets are still relatively easy to obtain. My Mother Told Me Not To Stare will also be performed in Reading on 9th April and in Southampton on 10th April.

A brief synopsis of My Mother

In the town of Upper Crumble, children meet every week to recite a list of rules that they are not meant to break. Nobody knows for sure what happens to a child who breaks one of the rules, but eventually children start to disappear. Two children, Bobby and Emily, set out to rescue the disappeared children. Emily breaks a rule by letting her hair down on a Sunday, and disappears. It is now up to Bobby to rescue her from the Fixing Kitchen.

My Mother Told Me Not To Stare tour schedule (theatres only)

12th & 13th March: Whitby Hall, Action Transport Theatre, Ellesmere Port
Box Office: 0151 357 2120

17th - 21st March: The Unicorn Theatre, London
Box Office: 020 7645 0560

25th March: Half Moon Young People's Theatre, London
Box Office: 020 7709 8900

27th March: University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield
Box Office: 01707 281 127

30th March: Rose Theatre, Ormskirk
Box Office: 01695 584 480

3rd April: Ammanford Theatre, Carmarthenshire
Box Office: 0845 226 3510

7th April: Mercury Theatre, Colchester
Box Office: 01206 573 948

9th April: South Street Arts Centre, Reading
Box Office: 0118 960 6060

10th April: Nuffield Theatre, Southampton
Box Office: 023 8067 1771