The accident did not take place, listed here as being by Sam Ward, but really a collaborative devised work incorporating performers Emma Clark, Jon Hawkins and Tilda O’Grady, was performed at the Pleasance at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe.
This text for the production is unlike any play text I have ever read – indeed it is in large part as much images as it is text – and it is clear that it contains very little of the text of the play which was ultimately performed last summer.
In his introduction, Ward writes ‘The show was made to be experienced, and constructed from the people in the room on the day, I think, more than it was to be recalled in print, or replicated. Or even published. But the spirit of the show exists independent of all those things and maybe, if you want to do something with that spirit, the important parts of that are in here.’
In practice, this book really serves as a collection of powerful devising stimuli in the form of photographs, diagrams, quotes from great thinkers, topics and even explicitly described devising exercises. The theme of everything is human interaction with truth: with events, reporting and reality, in an age which delivers all information through screens, and often even our most intimate interactions are experienced through the lens of a camera. Ideas touched upon are as varied as plane-crashes, war-reporting, human ageing and memory as documented through photography, and the value and philosophical meaning of art and sculpture.
I can't recommend this book highly enough as a starting point for devising work. It can't be called a play as it stands, but it would give birth to an infinite variety of scenes or plays in the hands of any creators from KS4 up, and touches on subjects absolutely universal, and central to modern life.