Zaskia Delgado previews a new show about war journalism.
‘He’s a shy man who showed me some sad photos and told me what it was like to work there. That’s how it all began.’
Inspired by the work of Jon Spaul, who reported on the Chechen War in the 1990s, Helen Chadwick has devised a new piece of ‘song theatre’ entitled War Correspondents, which plays for two nights at Stratford Circus from this Friday.
Chadwick started by interviewing a long list of 30 journalists who reported from a wide range of war zones – Iraq, Chechnya, Georgia, Liberia, Afghanistan and Bosnia. Next she wrote opera-style songs about their experiences, juxtaposed to extracts from the original interviews.
Now the songs and voice extracts have been woven together with stage design by Miriam Nabarro and choreography from Olivier award winner Steven Hoggett.
The curtain rises on their collaboration at 7.30pm on Friday 10th October.
According to Reporters Without Borders, 71 journalists were killed in 2013 and of these nearly 40 per cent died in a war zone. More recently, the plight of war reporters has been highlighted by the televised execution of American journalists James Foley and Stephen Sotloff.
War news itself is in the news, which means that Chadwick’s theatrical representation of war correspondents, is nothing if not timely.
Ticket prices start at £8 www.stratford-circus.com