World Premier
Venue: Hampstead Theatre, London
Director: Philip Ridley
Dates: December 1997 - January 1998

Performed as part of the 'Arts 4 Everyone' season, the stage area was reconfigured to a thrust stage. Fairytaleheart is set in a disused community centre in the East End of London where Gideon is building a fairytale set to transform the grotty centre into a theatre, He meets Kirsty and together they discuss their problems and growing up, within the 'safe' metaphor of a fairytale. I tried to incorporate the elements of the community centre and the East End into Gideon's installation, to echo the theme of transformation of the ordinary to the magical.

Inside a boarded-up community centre on a run-down housing estate, Gideon is building a fantastical theatre set full of towering buildings, a wizard's lair, stars and flowers ... an atmosphere setting in which the imagination runs riot.
Lyn Gardner, Guardian

[Kirsty's] glittery party clothes contrast sharply with the road-protester fashions of Gideon.
Nick Curtis, Evening Standard

Now in the gloomy setting of an abandoned community hall, [Kirsty] explores a landscape of strange and colourful creations.
The Stage