Orcadian Sci-Fi Comes to Life with Deep Wheel Orcadia
Based on the award-winning verse novel by Harry Josephine Giles,Deep Wheel Orcadiapresents a spellbinding fusion of performance and music that brings the captivating story to stage. Produced by acclaimed Scottish theatre company Scissor Kick, this moving show is told entirely in Orkney Scots with English surtitles. With direction by Susan Worsfold and an incredible original score by BAFTA-winning composer Atzi Muramatsu, this groundbreaking sci-fi story celebrates a living minority language and places it at the heart of the cosmos.
When Astrid returns home from art school on Mars, she’s lost to find inspiration on a distant, dilapidated space station spinning slowly through the stars – Deep Wheel Orcadia. As the station and its people struggle for survival, Astrid meets Darling, a mysterious Martian seeking refuge in an already troubled haven. The fragile connection between two outsiders becomes a lifeline as Deep Wheel Orcadiadelves into queer identities and a struggle for survival.
Crafted from Giles’ original acclaimed verse novel (winner of the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award) this stimulating production boldly resists the notion that Orkney language and culture belong only to the past. Opening for its world premiere at Orkney Theatre as part of St Magnus International Festival,Deep Wheel Orcadiacelebrates the vibrant dialect in a heartwarming exploration of belonging, soul searching, and how we can find ourselves whilst feeling afloat in space.
Writer and performer Harry Josephine Giles comments,minority languages, and rural languages in particular, are often cast as things of the past. As things that are fading, dying out, and things that your granny spoke of and isn’t the same any more. So I wanted to send this language into space – and into the future – to show it is as much about now and what comes next as much as it is about the past.Deep Wheel Orcadiais very much a needed celebration of linguistic resilience,queer connection and the human (and post-human) desire to belong. It collapses time, place and genre into one unforgettable theatrical experience.
Previous praise for Harry Josephine Giles:
Powerful and strangely revelatory–★★★★The Stage,Drone
thematically complex, poetic, political, but it’s also electric theatre –★★★★★Edinburgh Festivals Magazine,Drone
Main Image: Courtesy of Morten Fog
Editor's Note: At StageLync, an international platform for the performing arts, we celebrate the diversity of our writers' backgrounds. We recognize and support their choice to use either American or British English in their articles, respecting their individual preferences and origins. This policy allows us to embrace a wide range of linguistic expressions, enriching our content and reflecting the global nature of our community.
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