“There is an elusive, eliding quality about the whole performance which skillfully collides nostalgic tourism, contemporary rural like and personal history. It is an atmospheric, touching and thought provoking piece, a quiet moment of reflection and intimacy.

The audience is left with fragments of lives and landscapes; past holidays and future fears. Blind Ditch have a light touch and something to say. A rare and valuable combination."

Barbara Bridger, Bloodaxe Writer of the Year, May 2003

Collaborators: Paula Crutchlow – director writer, John Levack Drever - composer, Henning Hegland – devisor performer, Volkhardt Müller – set and videographer, Cat Radford – devisor performer

Somewhere in the corridors of a faceless, nameless office – two people are waiting and hoping. Based on video research with locals and tourists in Devon, Wishes for a Better Future speaks about nostalgic tourism, contemporary rural life and the private moments and secret interiors of the people who live and dream of them.

 

The weaving of text, sound and imagery transforms the set into a suburban living room, green hillsides or a windswept Dartmoor crag. The environments are populated with tourists, second home owners, interviewees, old and young couples, a corporate healer, a salesman and a beloved dog. Within this landscape we witness the unfolding relationship of two people who fear where old age will find them.

Made with support from South Hams District Council, South West Arts and the HEFCE/DTI Business Fellow.

 

“Wishes for a Better Future is a meticulously researched and performed piece of work. Utilising the company’s urban and European connections the work uses material gathered through research with people living in rural communities in South Devon to create an intensely focused but free-flowing work that explores and illuminates the common aspirations, hopes and dreams of people where ever they live.

Crisp and delicate live video feed to two monitors and a series of dialogues explore the many layers and subtleties of everyday experience. The ebb and flow of the interactions across the performance space are complemented and layered by the changing positions and sight lines of the live feeds. A further layer is added to the work with the beautifully worked and understated text. Both performers add a confident and at times moving evocation of the words collected in a piece of work that could so easily have become social documentation, but instead is performance of a high order. “

 

Paul Goddard – (former) Programmer Dartington Arts, May 2003