wilson+wilson was founded in 1997 by Louise Ann Wilson and Wils Wilson to create innovative site-specific theatre, installation and art in unexpected locations both indoors and out.
Over 10 years, their creative partnership established a national reputation for the company, and attracted an ever-growing following who would often travel long distances to see the company's work. For artistic purposes audience numbers were always limited, making each production an intimate and often highly personal experience.
'An important part of the new face of British theatre.' Susannah Clapp, The Observer
wilson+wilson's work was created in collaboration with other artists from a wide range of different disciplines and in collaboration with the people who lived, worked and loved the places which inspired each production- foresters, hoteliers, tea-dancers, 2nd World War veterans, knife-makers, shop assistants, boxers, academics, children, bus drivers, historians, property developers and many more. At every stage, their work transcended conventional boundaries (between artistic disciplines, between performers and audience, between individual artists and members of the public, between memory and imagination…), and produced an intense connection between audiences, artists, participants, site and performance.
In 2007 after 10 wonderful years they realised their interests were taking them taking them in different directions and Wils and Louise folded the company to pursue their own separate projects.
'the excellent experimental duo wilson+wilson' Independent on Sunday
Photography by Dominic Ibbotson
For more infomation about wilson+wilson, please visit www.wilsonandwilson.org.uk.
Created by Louise Ann Wilson + Wils Wilson
Written by Amanda Dalton, Bernardine Evaristo, Alison Fell
Composed by Kuljit Bhamra
Co-produced by wilson+wilson and Sheffield Theatres
Mapping the Edge took intimate audiences of 33 people out into the streets of Sheffield and led them on an epic journey through the city. Audiences travelled on foot, on a bus and on a tram, as three interlinked stories unfolded around them.
'The piece is alive with reverberations past, present and future, coexisting in a single thought… The script is a miracle of down-to-earth lyricism, the acting dazzling. Through the three gripping stories the evening maps inner and outer lives and all the poetry of the heart. ' Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
The audience traced the footsteps of three women – Mildred, Nadia and Maddy – to locations as diverse as a boxing ring, a ballroom, a registry office and a courtyard of dilapidated industrial workshops. The women’s stories were inspired by the Medea myth and the city itself, each set in a different time period – Nadia came to Sheffield from the Yemen in 1901, Mildred followed her Gerry to Sheffield in 1941 and Maddy’s story took place in contemporary Sheffield. An acting company of eight also formed a modern-day ‘Greek chorus’, talking to the audience, commenting on the action and building the atmosphere.
The creative team worked closely with many Sheffield residents during the making of the piece, in particular the Tea Dancers at Sheffield City Hall, ex-WAAF and WWII Barrage Balloon Operators, members of Sheffield’s Yemeni community, and boxers at Burton Street Gym.
'This piece seals a new generation’s perceptions of a multi-ethnic, post-industrial society in a theatrical vocabulary for the new century.' ReviewsGate.com
Mapping the Edge was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in November 2001.
Created by Louise Ann Wilson + Wils Wilson
Written by Bridget O’Connor + Peter Straughan
Composed by Olly Fox
Co-produced by wilson+wilson and Watford Palace Theatre
News from the Seventh Floor took audiences of 25 on a journey around Clements, one of the country's oldest department stores, after-hours. Journeying the length and breadth of the store, from hellish boiler room to dusty attic and eventually out onto the rooftop car park, they followed a gripping story of obsessive love, death and redemption.
Guided by Sidney Glock (Deka Walmsley), a stooped old gentleman, the audience seem to be on a kind of memorial lecture in remembrance of Sidney’s friend Jimmy and their happy times working together. However, assumptions are continually confounded as over the next hour and a half a very different story emerges, one of desperate love, betrayal, jealousy and revenge, played out over forty years, centred on the naïve and ‘slightly absurd’ figure of shop-girl Iris Gale (Debra Penny).
'Superb retail therapy for the imagination.' Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
Moving through a ‘real’ place, the audience became immersed in an absorbing, multi-sensory narrative. Members of the audience felt that they were ghosts, walking through layers of time and reality.
'We are guided down twisting passages and up steep flights of stairs, into stuffy stock rooms and a cold claustrophobic attic, across darkened shopfloors, and up onto the roof. And all the time the atmosphere becomes more ominous, emotionally violent and starkly dramatic.' Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph
Conceived by Louise Ann Wilson and Wils Wilson
Created with Amanda Dalton (writer) and Hugh Nankivell (composer)
Located on the rugged North Yorkshire coastline near the villages of Lythe and Sandsend, Mulgrave was a journey into the heart of Mulgrave Woods and an exploration of the tamed, untamed and untameable within the natural world and the human soul.
'Visually unforgettable, poignant and witty... Magic.' Independent on Sunday
Mulgrave was created for and inspired by Mulgrave Woods, their atmosphere, their topography, their past present and future. It was deeply rooted in its location at every level and involved 16 local performers alongside a professional acting company.
'The eye is ravished by natural beauty, even as the brain debates man's relationship with it. Spectacular coups de théâtre, sudden twists in the narrative and a sly sense of humour are evident throughout.' The Daily Telegraph
Travelling mostly on foot, and sometimes on 6-seater buggies, audiences of 40 were taken on a 4 mile journey, whilst music, live action, song and installation unfolded around them. Their journey - from the sea, into the woods, and back down to the sea - was like a great wave, and was fundamental to the structure, narrative and visual imagery of Mulgrave.
Mulgrave was in part inspired by the true stories connected with the woods: of Omai - "the noble savage" - brought back from his Tahitian Island on one of Cook's ships, and later returned there with a bizarre selection of "gifts" from the British; of Maharajah Duleep Singh, dressing as an English country gent even as Queen Victoria re-cut his koh-i-noor diamond and displayed it as her own, and Humphry Repton with a vision for Mulgrave that would cultivate the wild, untamed and uncontrolled aspects of nature. Drawing on folk and fairy stories and the mythology of forests, Mulgrave also told the dark tale of The Boy Who Ran From the Sea, who forever runs, like a river, between the dark heart of the woods and the open sea, and finds no rest in either. And his plight was echoed in the stories of all the characters, "all at sea" or "like fish out of water", caught between a desire for exploration and the breaking of boundaries, and a longing to find a way back to Eden, or at least a kind of home.
'There is a real sense of having entered into a private and magical world, and of having seen, heard, smelled and felt something of the dark, secret, mysterious heart of the woods.' Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
Created by Louise Ann Wilson + Wils Wilson
Written by Simon Armitage
Composed by Scanner
HOUSE transformed two nineteenth-century terraced houses in the centre of Huddersfield into an extraordinary performance event, combining theatre, installation, poetry, music and sound.
'The House company has made these collapsing walls breathe and speak, tell stories, weep tears, pulsate with anger, yield up its secrets.' Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
An audience of 15 journeyed from room to room, from stone cellar to airy attic, discovering characters, piecing together fragments of stories, examining objects, immersed in a world of stunning images, and captivating sounds and music. HOUSE evoked powerful memories and emotions, as well as exploring ideas of evolution, expedition, scientific investigation and religious belief.
‘Think of a time before writing, before science, before history – retrace your steps in reverse along the route, back to the caves and the animal skins, back to the magic men with the heads of birds and the thunderbolts of Gods stabbing the earth with long prongs of fire. Feel the curve of your back, feel the fur on your arms, the hair on your hands, hold the shell of a nut in the palm of your foot, move from tree to tree with the flick of the tail, cover acres of ground on all fours…’ ‘Extract from HOUSE
After months of searching, numbers 2 and 3 Goldthorpe’s Yard were made available to the company by property developers Kirklees-Henry Boot. Breaking down the door one April morning the team discovered two houses full of relics of former inhabitants. Many of these original objects became important inspirations for the piece, coupled with a process of meticulous research, which uncovered the site’s fascinating past. Unexpected links with nineteenth-century naturalist Seth Mosley, Charles Darwin and the former Methodist mission next door became central to the development of HOUSE.
'I cannot recommend House too highly...Remarkable and beautifully executed event...like a holiday from your workaday life, balm for the soul' Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph