Theatre / green ginger
Preview: Intronauts, Tobacco Factory Theatres
The new show from Bristol’s brilliant Green Ginger propels audiences on a microscopic journey deep within the human body for a madcap story about advancing technology, big syringes and a tiny submarine.
In a not-too-distant future, people can buy personal cleaners called intronauts: miniaturized human workers injected into their bodies in order to carry out essential maintenance. But what happens if your cleaner discovers your dirty laundry? And how much do you actually want to know about what goes on inside you?
We caught up with Green Ginger’s Chris Pirie (and Intronauts set and costume designer, and co-deviser and performer) to find out more.
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So, Chris, tell us about some of the influences that fed into the show… “The full list of influences is varied, but three key sources go back some way – the oldest being a comic strip I loved as a kid. Every week I’d wait for the new issue of the Beezer comic and flip the pages, heading straight for The Numskulls and whatever crazy adventure was instore for this tight-knit group of white-coated scientists inside the head of a man called Ed. Each tiny Numskull was responsible for a different sensory department – eyes, nose, ears…
“The other two influences are two cult American sci-fi movies. Fantastic Voyage was a cold war thriller from 1966 and Innerspace was a comedy called made in the late 80s. Both won Oscars for special effects and both became cult movies, so when we started creating a show about journeying through the human body, we already had some interesting material to shape our thoughts.”
And how far-fetched – or feasible – is the future that you depict? “It is, to some extent, already happening. Nano-surgery and electronic implants are a reality; large tech corporations are offering their employees options to have microchips embedded under fingernails as an alternative to swipe cards.
“Of course, whilst ever mind-boggling technological ‘advancements’ are developed by private corporations and militaries, the complementary moral and ethical arguments necessary for safeguarding ordinary citizens are way behind the curve, and that’s a worry.”
The technology Green Ginger portray is central to the story. “But this tech is not all slick and shiny,” Chris explains. “It suggests a pre-internet world and the naïve video gaming era of the late 1980s. The pod in which our miniaturised cleaner travels through the body is basically a hacked VW microbus from the early 60s and its driving controls are from gaming consoles from the early 2000s. The soundtrack, created by Bristol composer Simon Preston, features everything from the theremin (an instrumental sound well-known to anyone familiar with early Dr Who series and classic sci-fi movies) to thumping 80s funk tracks.
Does the show carry any kind of warning, or is it merely a darkly funny, off-kilter vision of a (possible) future? “As storytellers we try to avoid being didactic or forcing any particular messages. But without doubt, post-show discussions have elicited some really interesting responses that we hadn’t fully envisaged.
“The theme that seems to resonate strongly with audiences is the isolation engendered by technology, and how, the more connected we are through mobile devices, the more separated we actually become from our fellow humans. But we don’t need to layer in any cautionary messages: theatre audiences are way too smart for that!”
Intronauts runs at Tobacco Factory Theatres from March 20-31. For more info, visit www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/intronauts
Read more: Review: Blue Door, Ustinov Studio, Bath
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