Sarah Punshon on making STEM playful in engaging theatrical adventures
Get your scientific head fully engaged and prepare for what is billed as an unexpectedly ridiculous STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) adventure this spring. So Unfair, aimed at ages 7-10 (and we are sure a few adults too), is currently preparing to take off on tour across the UK. With the team from One Tenth Human in the final few days of rehearsal, we interrupt interactive science demos in development to talk with Artistic Director Sarah Punshon and find out more about their work.
Hello, and thanks for taking the time out to talk with us today. Before we hear about your latest piece, So Unfair, can we start with getting a bit of background about the company, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, and how it started?
Yes, that’s right, it is ten years since we started up as a company. It was at that time that I did the Clore Fellowship, which among other things meant I got to work at the Natural History Museum, bringing experts and artists together to engage kids with science – and it sparked a few ideas. I decided to make an interactive show for kids. The first devised show I had ever made – and I wanted it to be about maths! I must have been mad, to be honest, but I just got some brilliant people together in a room – Dan Bye, Balvinder Sopal, Seiriol Davies and Abbi Greenland – and started playing.
The show that emerged was We’re Stuck!, an interactive adventure about killer robots. It was so much fun, but I never thought it would be more than that one show. Except Paul Warwick from China Plate, who was producing the show at the time, persuaded me to register as a company so that we could claim Theatre Tax Relief – and I’m really glad he did. It meant that after making We’re Stuck we then had seed funding for the next… and that was it.
Since then, One Tenth Human has created four more touring shows including Arthur, a ‘solo-and-a-half show’ about epigenetics, which co-starred my five-month-old baby son. I can’t quite believe we’ve managed to survive and thrive for ten years. This year we’ll reach more than 6,000 kids with touring shows and our in-school learning adventures. It’s great.
Tell us about So Unfair, which is touring UK schools and venues shortly. It is billed as an interactive science demo, with the brilliant Daniel Bye performing, and sounds like a lot of fun. Can you give us a bit of background to the approach and creative ideas that kickstarted the journey of making the piece?
I’ve always loved the way Dan Bye’s storytelling style can make big ideas feel very human-sized: in this case, the way the world is just so unfair. Dan spent a lot of time in primary schools having amazing conversations with kids as part of a ‘philosophy in schools’ project – and the idea of So Unfair came out of that. Children care so much about things being fair – but the world really isn’t fair, and we all know that. But that doesn’t mean we have to give up, right? The show, like all Dan’s shows, explores that: not giving up, looking for hope. And like all One Tenth Human shows, it gives children hands-on lived experience of STEM.
The format of the show is partly a response to the sheer economic impossibility of small-scale touring in the current climate, honestly. There are only two people out on the road, which is just about affordable for venues. But featured in the show are three other people, zooming in via video calls: performer Toni-Dee Paul plus real-life engineers Zainab and Jenny, who help the kids solve our challenges. Plus, a host of other characters invented in Dan’s stories, who come to life via Matt Powell’s lovely simple video design. There’s a lot going on, as you can tell!
Making quality work for 7-11s is a bit of rare treat these days on tour, so what made you tackle that age focus?
Ah, that’s a nice thing to say! Yes, it’s more unusual. We did it partly because that age just felt right for the ideas we were exploring; but also, because we tour schools as well as venues, and we already have a popular show for Key Stage 1, Curious Investigators. So having something that works for Key Stage 2 felt good. As with all our work, the initial ideas were developed and workshopped in collaboration with experts (in this case, engineers from Lancaster University and the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers UK) – and with kids of the right age. We worked with over 200 children at four different Lancashire primary schools to explore ideas and try out material before our premiere at The Dukes Lancaster last year.
Actually, of course, with family shows, those age boundaries aren’t exactly rigid! Kids aged 7-10 often have younger siblings with them: according to audience surveys from our first tour, nearly half the children who caught it were under 7. And they had a great time too! The show is so visual and interactive that kids of all ages really engage – and Dan is so great at adapting his style to who’s in the room.
Of course, touring can often be a hard for artists on the road with get-ins and outs, being away from home and all that type of thing. What do you say to the team to keep the play fresh and energised?
With our shows, they’re so interactive that they’re always different, always fresh. Actors have to stay alert to what the children are saying and suggesting, so they can’t just go into auto-pilot. I always just say: “Remember to talk to the people who are really there, whoever they are.” I think that really works. Saying that, of course touring is immensely demanding, especially our kind of small-scale one-day touring. We have a brilliant support team, and we work really hard on the planning, but inevitably it involves a lot of early mornings, and quite long drives. Having a team who really get on and can share the driving helps a lot! Plus, it probably helps that So Unfair involves a lot of molten chocolate, which must be ‘tidied away’ at the end of each show!
I agree – a bit of chocolate at the end of a hard day is always a treat! So, finally, apart from chocolate that clearly features a lot in the show, if you were to sum up the play in three other words, what would they be?
I’ll leave that to the kids who watched our very first preview. They said “funny, inspiring, and messy”.
Thanks to Sarah for taking time out of her busy schedule to tell us about this exciting show.
So Unfair is aimed at ages 7-10 and is on a venue and schools tour from Friday 20 March until Saturday 18 April, including London stops at Redbridge Drama Centre (Thursday 9 April) and Greenwich Theatre (Friday 10 April). Full tour dates can be found below.
