Darwin’s Barnacle

Darwin’s Barnacle is an intimate piece of music theatre. It portrays Darwin’s

eight year obsession with these bizarre sea creatures while struggling with a

chronic yet undiagnosed illness. Surrounded by his rapidly increasing family

and participating in Dr Gully’s strange water cure, Darwin endeavours to

unlock the riddle of this aberrant species. How can these tiny curiosities

move him towards one of the most spectacular scientific breakthroughs ever

known?

Illness 1: The Douche

Illness 1: The Douche

Illness 2: The wet sheet treatment

Illness 3: cold water cure

Artist Keith McIntyre and composer Karen Wimhurst collaborate with

writer Rebecca Stott in a work inspired by Stott’s wonderful novel ‘Darwin

and the Barnacle’.

Directed by Rhian

Hutchings with lighting design by

Ace McCarron, this is a feast of

visual art, music and scientific

speculation.

Darwin’s Barnacle

Wimhurst + McIntyre

Karen Wimhurst and Keith McIntyre are an established creative

partnership exploring new performance synergies between visual art and music. Previous projects include:

‘Anna Campbell’ Traverse Theatre Edinburgh

‘Jock Tamsons Bairns’ Tramway Glasgow, both with Director Gerry Mulgrew

‘Songs for the Falling Angel’ Requiem for Lockerbie, Edinburgh International Festival with writer Douglas Lipton

‘New Constellations for Wind, Sole and Drawing Instruments’Sage Gateshead and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, with Karen Tweed and Kerry Fletcher

‘Fragility of Flight’ Taigh Chearsabhagh Arts, North Uist + An Tober, Mull + An Lanntair, Stornoway

The Creative Team

Singer Dean Robinson

Cellist Sophie Harris

Composer Karen Wimhurst

Visual Artist Keith McIntyre

Director Rhian Hutchins

Lighting Design Ace McCarron

Inspired by Rebecca Stott’s book ‘Darwin and the Barnacle’

The Scientific Team

Marine Biologist Professor John Spicer

Biologist Professor Peter Smithers

Medical Consultant Dr. Steve Johnson

The Composer

Karen Wimhurst’s work first came to prominence as the composer in association with the award winning theatre company Communicado with several Edinburgh Festival Fringe First productions and runner up for the Prudential Award. Since then she has been commissioned by festivals, ensembles and theatre companies throughout the UK with performances by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Welsh National Opera, the Allegri Quartet, Grimethorpe Brass Band, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish flute trio, Vocem Electric Voice Theatre, Solid Strings, Onyx Brass, Sarum Orchestra, Ten Tors Orchestra among others.

She is currently composer in residence at Plymouth University.

The Visual Artist

Keith McIntyre’s work is recognised for crossing many disciplines in

the visual arts. He has exhibited his paintings drawings and prints in

many solo and group exhibitions throughout the world and his work

is represented in leading public and private collections ( venues inc

Scottish Gallery of Modern Art; Tramway Glasgow; RAAB Berlin;

Christian Dam, Copenhagen; Artspace, San Francisco; Galerie

Habana, Cuba; BCA London; Waddington Shiel, Toronto)

He has collaborated on a number of performance, film and tv

projects most recently with Stellar Quines (The Unconquered, UK

Tour + Off Broadway Festival, New York) Parapanda Arts Lab,

Tanzania; Communicado Theatre Co + Sounds of Progress

Scotland.

Keith Mcintyre is a Reader in Visual Arts at Northumbria University

The Medical Consultant

Dr Steve Johnson, Consultant Haematologist, Taunton and

Somerset NHS Trust.MB BS (London) FRCP, FRCPath.

He was a Consultant Haematologist in Somerset for 27 years The

department undertook a substantial amount of clinical research into

new treatments for lymphoproliferative disorders supported by a

small laboratory research unit funded mainly by local charity

support.

As a member of the Haemato-Oncology Task Force of the British

Committee for Standards in Haematology, he was responsible for

writing or contributing to several guidelines and assisting the BSH in

presenting evidence to NICE.

He also developed a training programme to improve communication

skills in haematology. This initiative continues to run with his

participation throughout the Cancer Networks in the UK and also in

Europe under the auspices of the European School of Haematology.

The Marine Biologist

• Dr. John Spicer lectures in Marine Biology at Plymouth

University, specialising in the field of biodiversity.

Publications include:

Spicer JI: Biodiversity: A beginner's guide. Oneworld

Books, Oxford (2006)

Gaston KJ, Spicer JI: Biodiversity: An introduction.

Blackwells (2nd ed) (2003)

Barnes RSK, Calow P, Olive PJW, Golding DW, Spicer JI:

The invertebrates: a new synthesis (3rd ed). Blackwell

Scientific, Oxford (2001)

Spicer JI, Gaston KJ: Physiological diversity and its

ecological implications. Blackwells Science, Oxford

(1999)

The Biologist

Peter Smithers lectures at Plymouth University and is a Fellow of the

Royal Entomological Society He has always been fascinated by the

ecology of invertebrates, but it is the arachnids that have been the

main focus of his recent work. His main areas of interest are the

ecology of cave invertebrates, interactions between humans and

invertebrates in their homes, the ecology of Andean paramos and the

effects of invasive species on our native fauna.

He has been involved in numerous science/art projects such as the

theatre production Tenderealm. He was a scientific advisor and

performer in this production which was part of the Theatre Royal’s

Theatre of Science program. The performances explored the nature of

human emotions, with each act being presented as a scientific

experiment. The performances were directed by Gecko Theatre

company and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

The Director

Rhian Hutchings was born in Newport, South Wales.

She trained at Reading University and the Royal Welsh

College of Music and Drama. She was a staff director at

ENO from 2000 to 2003, assisting many directors

including Richard Jones, Keith Warner, Neil Armfield and

Francesca Zambello. She has directed work for

Raymond Gubbay, Music in the Round, Royal Welsh

College of Music and Drama, WNO MAX, and

Shrewsbury Youth Theatre. Rhian is now Director of the

MAX Department at Welsh National Opera.

The Author

Rebecca Stott is Professor Literature and creative Writing at the Unviersity of East Anglia and is the author of several academic books on Victorian literature and culture, two books of non-fiction, including a partial biography of Charles Darwin, and a cultural history of the oyster. Her first novel, Ghostwalk, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in the UK, is the launch novel of the new fiction list of Spiegel and Grau in the US (a new division of Random House) and is being translated into 12 different languages including Russian and Chinese. Her second novel, The Coral Thief, is published in the UK in August 2009 and in the US in September 2009.

The Author

The Lighting Designer

Ace McCarron started working in contemporary opera in 1978 with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies group 'The Fires of London'. He has been designing lighting for Music Theatre Wales in Cardiff for the past fifteen years, and also for many other opera producers including Scottish Opera, The Royal Opera House Garden Venture, Opera Vest of Bergen, The State Opera of Tatarstan, Opera Trionfo, Opera de la Monnaie/de Munt, the Scottish Early Music Consort, Psappha, Almeida Opera, Rottedamse Schouwburg, the Innsbrucker Festspiele and Opera du Rhin.He is an associate of Howard Barker's company, 'The Wrestling School', is a Specialist Advisor to the Scottish Arts Council, and is strongly committed to education work, through organizations such as the Royal Welsh College of music and Drama, Music in the Round, Sheffield, the Royal Opera House Education Department, WNO Youth Opera, and OperaMax project, The Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal College of Music, and the Birmingham Conservatoire. .

The Bass Singer

Dean Robinson has a appeared as principal guest artist with The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North and The Netherlands Opera in repertoire ranging from Monteverdi and Mozart to Verdi and Wagner. Festival appearances include Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and Garsington Festival Opera.

The Cellist

Sophie Harris spent five years with the award-winning Smith Quartet, and left to concentrate on a solo career, working with eminent composers including Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and Steve Reich, and diverse talents such as Kevin Volans, Django Bates and Egberto Gismonte.

She has had several works commissioned for her, and plays a wide repertoire in her extensive performances, CD recordings and frequent radio broadcasts with many of Britain's leading chamber ensembles- including the Brodsky Quartet, the Balanescue Quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble and the Gavin Bryars Ensemble.Currently Sophie is the cellist in the Duke Quartet

Darwin’s Barnacle

For project information + contacts

Karen Wimhurst

email: karenwimhurst@ukonline.co.uk

telephone: 07717 223180