Flight (2017 - 22)
adapted by Oliver Emanuel
from the novel Hinterland by Caroline Brothers
Company: Vox Motus
Director: Candice Edmunds & Jamie Harrison
Designer: Jamie Harrison & Rebecca Hamilton
Composer: Mark Melville
Staging concept developed by Candice Edmunds, Jamie Harrison & Simon Wilkinson
Photos: Drew Farrell, Beth Chalmers, Mihaela Bodlovic
Flight was originally presented as part of the 2017 Edinburgh International Festival. It ran for a 12 week engagement at the McKittrick Hotel, New York at the beginning of 2018, was presented as part of the 2018 Galway International Arts Festival and finished the year with an appearance at the Melbourne International Arts Festival. In 2019, Flight was part of the Brighton Festival, and performed at New York University Abu Dhabi Arts Centre before starting 2020 with performances at Tempe Centre for the Arts in Arizona.
In December 2020 Flight began its first London run, as a co-presentation between the Barbican Centre and the Bridge Theatre. Following the lifting of COVID lockdown restrictions, this ran for a further 3 weeks in May 2021. In December 2021 Flight commenced a further North American run, at The Studio Theatre, Washington DC.
Flight won Best Design and Best Technical Presentation at the 2018 Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS), and a 2017 Herald Angel award. It was a Critics Choice in the New York Times, and one of their Unforgettable Theater Moments of 2018
Press Quotes
“This sumptuous installation fitted no easy category. It was like a live graphic novel or a visual radio play or the kind of optical experiment the Victorians would have delighted in, sitting at the interface of magic and mechanics. The audience sat at a one-person booth at the side of a giant rotating cylinder watching a series of miniature tableaux, each boxed in like a frame in a comic book: desert landscapes and dark oceans, tiny figures picking even tinier fruit, ominous expressionist tower blocks and bleak motorways at night. All of it was lit like a miniature theatre with the tiniest of light sources by Simon Wilkinson. It was as exquisite as it was genre defying.”
Mark Fisher, The Guardian, presenting the Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland for Best Design.
The richly colored, minutely detailed visuals — designed by Mr. Harrison and Rebecca Hamilton and beautifully lit by Simon Wilkinson — are the wonder of “Flight.”
Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times, Critics Pick
this production’s exquisite detail, which enables it to capture even the different textures of the light in Greece and Italy
Michael Billington, The Guardian
The technical feat of synchronizing the audio and images (as impeccably lit by Simon Wilkinson) for each of the 25 booths is so seamless
An endeavor that unfolds on the smallest of scales manages to leave quite the outsize impression.
Thomas Floyd, The Washington Post
Flight is a technical triumph, and I can only imagine the weeks of work that have gone into carefully crafting the lighting design, which must consist of hundreds of tiny lights and illuminates each miniature scene with the same precision as in a full-scale theatre piece.
Ashling Findlay-Carroll, Across the Arts
The dioramas are lit like movie sets by Simon Wilkinson
The tableaux, are imaginatively wrought, and Simon Wilkinson's lighting, using the tiniest of instruments, is pleasingly precise.
David Barbour, Lighting and Sound America
Flight is extraordinary ... gorgeously lit
Susannah Clap, The Observer
unforgettable in both content and form, a devastating concatenation of dreams and nightmares on the run.
A stunning work of art — and an essential story for our unequal and divided world.
Sam Marlowe, The Times
Simon Wilkinson's radiant lighting is totally gorgeous throughout
Holly Williams, Whatsonstage
delivered with remarkable attention to detail, with each constructed frame a work of art in itself, playing with perspective and close-ups as a film might do
Neil Cooper, The Herald
Any great graphic novel will make use of space, perspective, lighting and shadow. Flight does all these things and the style is majestic and fanciful.
Steven Fraser, The Wee Review
The visuals are striking ... Simon Wilkinson brings a thoughtful full-scale lighting design to many miniature sets.
Jacob Horn, Curtain Up
