More singing mice!

In the middle of the last decade composer Ben Glasstone and an exceptional group of theatre artists made a hit family puppet musical called The Mouse Queen.

"a wonderfully inventive work that genuinely has something to say – and has terrific fun saying it. A joy.” The Times
"The best piece of theatre for children I've ever seen. Perfect and witty in every way" Emma Thompson
"Wonderfully imaginative..." The Guardian .
"Don't bother about a child as a pretext: just go.” Evening Standard

etc etc

Ben has carried on working with many of these artists since and is now forming a company, Nonesuch Theatre, to make more of this very playful and intimate kind of music theatre.

Our first show will be The Adventures of Thunder and Coal. Co-directed by the much respected puppet maestro Steve Tiplady (who directed Mouse Queen) this returns to the subject of mice...but this time it's a bit darker. For these mice are the mice that live deep in the tunnels of the London Underground; and their somewhat bleak existences reflect those of the human commuters travelling above them.

So it's a grown-up musical this time, which explores (with pathos and humour) the immortal themes of fate, families, commitment and shopping. And, alongside a live band (who are continuously part of the action) we will make extensive use of shadow theatre (in keeping with the tunnel setting).

We will be staging the first full performances of the show on our home turf of Islington's charming Little Angel Theatre in early May 2012. We've alredy done a huge amount of work on the story, songs and visual language of the piece but we need to raise the money to finish the work and rehearse it with a full cast. We are applying to the Arts Council for some of the money we need, but we cannot rely purely on that income. Arts funding is very stretched in the current climate and everyone has to look around for support.

So, slightly embarrassing though it may be, we are asking for your help. Reaching our £3000 Wefund target will mean that we can be sure of having our five-strong cast (a luxury in the world of small-scale theatre) - which is what we need to have if this is to be a real musical with a live band.

It really doesn't matter if you can only put in a tenner. The whole idea of this is that every little helps. But as you can see, we've come up with a host of extremely special offers to "incentivize" the bigger spenders among you.

Thanks indeed

Ben and Nonesuch