Contact for all touring enquiries: Judy Owen

Tel. 07984 803175 or 0121 443 2867

judyowenltd@googlemail.com

1. The Honey Man Script Quotes
   

2. Production Themes link
   

3. Venue Comments
   

4. Reviews
   

5. Audience Reactions
   

6. Creative Team
   

THE HONEY MAN SCRIPT QUOTES: Misty and Honey Man meet, clash, and find friendship across age, experience, and culture.

Misty    This painting, by Grantley Adams, was commissioned to celebrate some stage in the completion of the building works. In the foreground is Rupert Merrifield, first Marquis of Concord, his son Joshua, and daughter Dulcina.

Honey Man    It seem to me the faster people solve one problem the faster they create two more! Is all leading to disorder! Things to me appear to be getting faster and faster and more worthless!

Misty    All this pressure to sort out your mess! Well you know what? I can’t be bothered? Your sort this shit out! Because my life is ahead of me! Yours is over!

Honey Man    You is a child Misty. Where is you hope?

Misty    Hope? For what? A better future? There is no future! Its been wrecked! By adults who only ever care about themselves! What gives you the right to think you understand my life? Wisdom! Is that it? If I hadn’t come here just now you’d be dead! Just like the bees you can’t take care of!

Misty    How can I remember things I never knew?

PRODUCTION LINK:   THE HONEY MAN themes  – a graphic online collage of themes in the play.

VENUE COMMENTS

The REP, Birmingham

The REP is delighted to be working in partnership with Judy Owen to create a new production of Tyrone Huggins’ excellent play THE HONEY MAN. The REP has had long and rewarding individual relationships with Judy and Tyrone, both of whom are locally-based but with international reputations, and we see THE HONEY MAN as a very important part of our 2015 programming mix. The key themes of THE HONEY MAN of cross-cultural and cross-generational relationships in contemporary society resonate very strongly with The REP’s own artistic aims and priorities, and the show will help us to deliver two particularly important aspects of our artistic strategy – the ethnic diversification of work on our stages, and the development of local talent, both established and emerging.

The REP has a long and proud history of producing work by and with BAME artists and THE HONEY MAN will allow us to continue and strengthen the impetus created by our recent commissions and productions of Soweto Kinch’s THE LEGEND OF MIKE SMITH, Kate Tempest’s HOPELESSLY DEVOTED, Rachel De-lahay’s CIRCLES and GurpreetKaur Bhatti’s KHANDAN, together with our strong programme of visiting work from companies/artists such as Talawa Theatre, Jonzi D, Menagerie, Benjamin Zephaniah and  Chuck Mike.  All four of the productions mentioned above have had an extended life beyond the performances at The REP as a direct result of our wishing to create and provide work by and for BAME artists that can be seen across as wide a cross-section of the UK as possible, and the proposed tour of THE HONEY MAN will, of course, help further that aim.

THE HONEY MAN offers The REP the opportunity to actively support and promote the work of not only established  local artists/producers such as Judy and Tyrone but also emerging practitioners through the project’s own young artist development scheme. This will form a very helpful link with our Foundry artist development programme as one of the current REP Foundry members XXXXXXXXX will be working as Assistant Director on the show, and a further opportunity for a young local digital artist to work on the show will, we hope, be linked to The REP’s own plans for a new digital project for The Space later in the year.

    Roxana Silbert Artistic Director

The Albany, London

We’d be really keen to present Honeyman at the Albany, both as a strong piece of theatre with a high production value for our broad audience and as a targeted piece for our Meet Me at the Albany project. Meet Me at the Albany is our pioneering creative project for the over 60s, most of whom have been identified as vulnerable and in need of care and support services. The project aims to deliver high quality arts activities within a supported social space to engender a creative alternative to day care. Thus far the solid membership of 60 older people regularly engage in activities such as painting, knitting and weaving alongside more daring work with circus skills, movement and performance poetry. To top up their experience and maintain a ‘connect’ through the Albany’s programme of events and the artistic ambitions of Meet Me at’ we have started to programme in Tuesday morning performances of productions we think will interest them and or expand on some of the conversations growing out of the project. With Honeyman, we could anticipate a few layers of relevance - the themes of intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange being the most accessible, but with a deeper interrogation of parallels between age and wisdom, and nature and modernity, for  xample; there is a growing need for critical debate and self-reflection amongst the MMatA members that we can prompt with careful programming of work that is accessible, enjoyable and has depth of meaning – Honeyman will help us respond to this need.

    Raidene Carter Head of Creative Programmes

Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds

Theatre Royal is committed to ensuring an artistic programme that reflects multi-cultural Britain and as such ‘Honey Man’ provides a story which does that but within a rural context.  We also have a commitment to engaging young adults and have a new partnership with West Suffolk College and we hope this production with form part of our joint programme.  Suffolk education has been struggling to engage with multi-culturalism and Theatre Royal aims to work with this project to support this need.

    Karen Simpson Director

Pegasus Oxford

The characters are so engaging and I loved the way their relationship developed. It’s a really human story that touches on much bigger themes.

    Jonathan Lloyd Artistic Director/CEO

The REP, Birmingham

The Honey Man will provide exciting opportunities for The REP. In terms of Learning and Participation it will

1. a.Enable us to engage new schools with Learning and Participation activity at  The REP
   

2. b.Support  and develop our  commitment to engaging older adults in residential care settings with The REP
   

3. c.Enable us to further engage with  education officers from venues that are taking the tour
   

4. d.Provide a piece of high quality theatre that addresses important issues relating to diversity and community
   

        Steve Ball
Associate Director

REVIEWS of THE HONEY MAN

...a simple but highly affecting tale of an alliance which crosses the boundaries of age, gender and culture...it is triumphant proof that small scale need not mean limited ambition. Huggins has crafted a piece that addresses the revolt of nature and colonial history without labouring either point too heavily. And there is a priceless moment when Honey Man soothes Misty’s distress by teaching her how to dance like a bee.

Alfred Hickling: Guardian   22 March 2012

...a beautifully crafted play that manages to weave aspects of the history of slavery, England's heritage and Black British identity into an absorbing relationship between a dysfunctional teenager and an elderly Afro-Caribbean beekeeper...It's an education, about the healing power of plants, about bees, about globalisation, and above all, about how the past illuminates the present and how people try to wipe history clean.

Pat Ashworth: The Stage   22 March 2012

...a grizzled country philosopher, happy to live without phone, television or even electricity, worried by the problems affecting his bees...Misty moves from aggressive to thoughtful, in tears at unexpected memories of her devoted grandmother, constantly arguing with her friends on her mobile and trying to sort out conflicting loyalties to her father...unassumingly expert portraits of two sharply contrasting characters.

Mike Wheeler: Theatreworld.   22 March 2012

"When the pair come together, there's an initial clash of personalities because of age, race and culture. Misty constantly communicates with those around her by mobile phone and Skype while Honey Man owns neither a television nor anything to play music. She's the model student but he has the wisdom that comes with age...the strength of The Honey Man is not only in the characterisation; the denouement leaves plenty to the imagination and will lead to intense discussion about interpretation."

Steve Orme: British Theatre Guide   26 March 2012

One night he finds, on his doorstep, a teenage girl, drinking cider and enjoying a crafty spliff. Misty is a straight A student from an aristocratic family. But she’s also the product of a broken home and is rebelling against her family’s heritage. The play is written by Tyrone Huggins, who also stars as the Honey Man, and the play’s strength is its characterisations. In particular, Huggins has expertly managed to get inside the mind of a teenage girl...The two characters set us up for a clash of opposites; tradition versus modernisation; old versus young; countryside versus urban and learning versus wisdom.

Nigel Powlson: Derby Telegraph   21 March 2012

AUDIENCE REACTION

Excellent performances, you never know what you are going to get and every so often there is a gem and that was one of them! Rural touring at its best!

Sheila Hogben, Brilley

Really enjoyed The Honey Man - Such a good performance from 2 super actors and the subject matter gives food for thought *****

Claire Glover, Old

Absorbing and intense. Very enjoyable - loved all the themes and relationship evolving

Fiona Forster Old

A fantastic performance by both actors - a very enjoyable evening - so professional - can’t praise the show too highly

Mrs S Roebuck, Leicestershire

Good set, lighting and sound. Excellent story and compelling performances by both actors - they obviously enjoy working together - perhaps it’s all that honey! ***** All star performance

Sheila (venue undisclosed)

Just to let you know that we thought the play was absolutely fantastic, the set, the acting, the script. I thought that this was the highest quality show I have seen for a long time

Alison, Arnside

CREATIVE TEAM

Producer: Judy Owen

Director: Emma Bernard is a theatre and opera director for stage, screen, site-specific locations and concert platform. I have a background in acting and devising and have developed a particular interest and experience in large-scale participatory projects, working with people with little or no performing experience alongside exceptional professional performers and practitioners. I have also gained a deep interest and experience in creating music-led performances, working with new writing and writers, visual story-telling and devised work.  I have worked extensively with singers, dancers and instrumentalists, as well as actors, and have recently begun working with circus performers.

‘THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING’ Streetwise Opera, 2013

“It is a hallmark British trait that the graver the issue, the more flippant its treatment, and the message here could hardly be more serious: there is no "solution" to homelessness without each individual being accorded their proper dignity and freedom. The show expresses this truth by using arias to break through the ironic surface to create and comment on the moral bonds between all of us. When life's invisible people stop to sing – be it a janitor (Elizabeth Watts) singing Handel, or a frail chorus singing Gavin Bryars' setting of Walt Whitman's Open Road – we see them as individuals with problems, rather than problematic statistics. Streetwise Opera helps its members to see themselves this way, too, in an encounter of undeniable beauty.”

The Guardian ****

‘FABLES- A FILM OPERA’ by Streetwise Opera 2010

“ ..superbly directed by Emma Bernard” The Times****

‘FINGERPRINT’ by Orlando Gough and Emma Bernard 2007

“Director Emma Bernard gives Fingerprint a light, free-flowing shape that complements Gough's compositional methods: the deeper, darker moments spring naturally from the movement and drama; the words are more about sound than meaning. Simple staging (blackboard, chairs) and back projections make it look stunning.” The Guardian ****

‘CAKE’, by Sarah Woods, Jade Theatre Co, 2003/ 2005.

“ Cake certainly takes the biscuit as one of the most original productions of the year, and might yet take a few awards too” The Guardian ****

“…Emma Bernard’s wonderful production……Let everyone eat this wonderful Cake”

The Evening Standard

“Visually it’s deliciously bizarre……..Nobody could help being enraptured by it.”

The Financial Times

Designer & Projection Designer: Timothy Bird is a designer and director combining the new worlds of moving image and digital technology with traditional theatrical story telling. Recent credits include: set and video design for MOON TIGER for Theatre Royal Bath; video design for NEIGE for Grand Théatre de Luxembourg; design for HIDDEN IN THE SAND at Trafalgar Studios; projection design for MANCHESTER SOUND: THE MASSACRE at the Library Theatre; projection design for PRAXIS MAKES PERFECT, a Neon Neon, National Theatre of Wales co-production; projection design for BACKBEAT at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, also Toronto and Los Angeles; design for PIPPEN at The Menier Chocolate Factory; projection design for a JOSH GROBAN's arena tour; projection design for 42ND STREET at Chichester Festival Theatre; projection design for BACKBEAT ON STAGE at the Citizen's Theatre Glasgow; projection design for SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, at The Menier Chocolate Factory, Wyndhams Theatre, The Roundabout Theatre Company's Studio 54, NYC, and at the 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle.

Sunday In The Park With George Menier Chocolate Factory

“The ultimate joke is that the show itself depends on hi-tech ingenuity. In Sam Buntrock's immaculate production, it gets it in spades both from David Farley's set and Timothy Bird's projection design. A blank white canvas is slowly filled with snaking images of Seine scullers and capering animals.” Michael Billington The Guardian

Pippin, Menier Chocolate Factory

“The bare walls of the theatre teem with restlessly inventive, mind-blowing graphics (designed by Timothy Bird) that simulate everything from dizzying Gothic naves to dazing Escher-like visual puzzles.” Paul Taylor The Independent

Actor/Playwright: Tyrone Huggins has performed in more than seventy theatre productions at many repertory theatres and arts centres in Britain over a career of more than thirty-five years. Beginning with co-founding Impact Theatre Cooperative whilst studying Metallurgy at Leeds University, he has been a set builder, chief technician, actor, playwright and director to deliver theatre he wishes to see by any means necessary or available. His acting career spans classic and main stage but particularly new work with many returns to youth theatre, devised, and small scale theatre. He has a longstanding interest in the digital world having learned basic programming in 1977 and finds ways of exploring this in his play writing. THE HONEY MAN is part of eight play collection he calls the Digital Inheritance Project. Tyrone has appeared in many dramas on radio, television and film.

Alongside his output as an artist Tyrone has been active in developing the reach of BAME, small-scale and dance theatre at organisational and board level.

Iced, Nottingham Playhouse

“Tyrone Huggins’s subdued Cornelius, not a sadistic rolling-eyed mess but an educated fearful victim of the most addictive drug on the streets.”  James Christopher The Times

Perpetua, Birmingham Repertory Theatre

“…the gentle innocence of Father D – a charming portrait of the bible bashing black preacher from Tyrone Huggins.”  Ann Fitzgerald The Stage

The Beatification of Area Boy, West Yorkshire Playhouse

“Presiding over this alternative economy, and cannily manipulating it, is the play’s most sympathetic character: Tyrone Huggins’s Sanda, a one time university student and full time maverick…”  Benedict Nightingale The Times

The Carver Chair by Tyrone Huggins, Contact Theatre (Best New Play nominee Manchester Evening News Awards 1993)

“The manner of his narrative is, however a long way from television saga. It  shares the genre’s historical sweep, from St. Kitts in 2935, to Birmingham in 1959, to the present day, but its three episodes approach their different subject in different styles an from quite unexpected angles.” The Observer

30 June 2014.