A new show touring the Black Country this autumn is asking audiences this question: what does the idea of ‘wild’ mean to you?

To create the work, innovative theatre company Black Country Touring posed the question to people from all walks of life across the Black Country. And, says writer Rochi Rampal, they received a myriad of responses.

“When the artistic directors, Stephen Johnstone and Frances Land, talked to me about the concept of what this show could be, I thought, what a big question: What is wild?

“It kind of instantly conjures up a million things in my head. So I was excited at the challenge of capturing what wild could mean to all of our audiences, but also the prospect of how that could be really meaningful for everyone who comes to see the show - especially if everyone’s understanding of what wild means is so diverse.”

And that proved to be the case. The team spoke to people in a host of different groups and settings, from community gardens to the police force, and from mountain rescue teams to city dwellers who experience their concept of wild on the streets or in the local clubs.

“It’s important to us as an organisation that the diversity of experience, and lives and journeys of people within the Black Country, are absolutely reflected in the shows we make,” says Rochi. “So we talk to as many people as we can possibly fit into any research phase. We treat it a bit like an oral-history-collection project, so we did interviews with people from all reaches of life within the Black Country.”

Rochi, who has worked with Black Country Touring on shows for more than a decade, says the responses were wide-reaching. 

“People talked about going on holidays, to the mountains, to the beach. We’ve talked to so many people about their experience of the sea. People have talked about how important the sea is in terms of not just when you go on holiday but the need to escape and to face yourself at the shore’s edge. People have talked about standing at the sea in raging storms and jumping into the sea to swim in that.

“And wild doesn’t have to mean standing on top of a mountain. Wild, for many, particularly in a landlocked area, means letting loose on a dancefloor, the adrenaline of being chased on city streets, or earthquakes in Dudley.”

The challenge for Rochi and the team was then to condense all of those stories into a 75-minute show. 

“My involvement as writer in the room of actors and musicians and directors is to offer somewhere where everybody’s ideas can come together and be shaped into a script,” she says. “Black Country Touring is entirely collaborative, so I’m not the writer of the play; I’m just a writer in the room, and we are all the creators. That’s my favourite way of working; it speaks to the interests of the company and how important it is to reflect as many voices as possible.

“Everybody has got a story to tell, so there are lots of stories that people have wanted to share with us - but within that, there are so many commonalities. That’s the magic of working in this way - that within all of our different experiences as humans, there is so much that connects us and holds us together.

“We’ve looked at ways to allow these stories to speak to each other. So, for instance, you might find that one person’s experience of getting stuck on a mountain chimes with another person’s experience of being lost in city streets at night.”

Those responses have been based in different people’s lives and experiences.

 “When we spoke to our mountain-rescue volunteer, his frame of reference was very much his experience of living and working near the mountains. But then, when we spoke to someone from one of the community gardens in Smethwick, his frame of reference was racist behaviour in the 1980s. Whilst we were sat in an allotment community garden, he didn’t talk about wild meadows, he talked about the feeling of being chased through city streets at night and how that made him feel wild.”

The show, which tours to libraries, arts centres and community spaces this month, combines the stories with recorded and sung soundscapes.

“We’re having digitally produced soundscapes, and we also have a community choir, which is led by an amazing singer-songwriter: Katy Rose Bennett. The idea is that the choir will also provide the soundscape, so there will be live sound textures as well as songs surrounding the audience. 

“The show will be in traverse, so that the audience will be either side of the action and the choir will be around that. That is to allow the audience to be as transported as possible into the worlds of the show.  We can’t take the audience to the sea, but we hope to create a sense of being in a raging storm, or lying down and looking up at the stars at night.”

Rochi hopes Wild will light a spark in audience members and inspire them to consider their own ideas and responses.

“The show features such a wide range of stories, and we’re interested in inviting people to think about where they sit amongst those experiences. What does wild mean to us, and what is it that we need from wild behaviour or the wild world?

“The story within the show is, what are the wider things that connect us? So the stars which go back and back and back further than we can imagine. The sea that reaches beyond us. Nature finds a way, nature carries on - and experiencing that will help the audience feel connected to other people with different stories.”

The company hope to encourage people from all backgrounds to come and experience Wild.

“This show is for you if the word wild says something to you and you wonder what it means to you. When we did our research, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t have an answer to that question, and that’s what’s so exciting about it. Everybody brought their own experience to that word because it does mean something to everybody. Whether we want more wild in our lives and feel we’re not getting it, or if we live a wholly wild existence, it is completely personal. 

“The show will be celebratory about human nature, and how much we rely on our world to keep us going; how we, as humans, confront the wild; how we battle with it; how we live alongside it; how we need it. There are no answers, but maybe when the audience leave our show, they might be thinking about that in a different way - what is wild to them?”

Feature by Diane Parkes

Wild shows at the following venues across the West Midlands:

Brierley Hill Civic
Date: Wednesday 16th October 2024
Times: 19:30
Venue: Brierley Hill Civic, Bank Street, Brierley Hill, DY5 3DH

Wednesbury Library
Date: Thursday 17th October 2024
Times: 15:30
Venue: Wednesbury Library, Walsall Street, Wednesbury, WS10 9EH

Wednesbury Library
Date: Thursday 17th October 2024
Times: 19:00
Venue: Wednesbury Library, Walsall Street, Wednesbury, WS10 9EH

Glasshouse Arts Centre
Date: Friday 18th October 2024
Times: 19:00
Venue: Glasshouse Arts Centre, Wollaston Road, Amblecote, Stourbridge, DY8 4HF

Gatis Community Space
Date: Saturday 19th October 2024
Times: 19:00
Venue: Gatis Community Space, Gatis Street, Wolverhampton, WV6 0ET

Dorothy Parkes Centre
Date: Sunday 20th October 2024
Times: 19:30
Venue: Dorothy Parkes Centre, Church Road, Smethwick, B67 6EH

Bromwich Hall
Date: Wednesday 23rd October 2024
Times: 19:00
Venue: Bromwich Hall, Hall Green Road, West Bromwich, B71 2EA

Central Library West Bromwich
Date: Thursday 24th October 2024
Times: 19:30
Venue: Central Library, 316 High Street, West Bromwich, B70 8DZ

Aaina Community Hub
Date: Saturday 26th October 2024
Times: 16:30
Venue: Aaina Community Hub, Bath Road, Walsall, WS1 3BS