Wickanory – Archive

Wickanory – how was it?!

Suse Crosby reported:

“We were delighted to offer Wickanory: a weekly short story on film, free to all our members and general audience members through various internet platforms.  This was following our hugely successful Ghost Story films December 2020, and as we could not yet be back in the Theatre, it was a weekly gift to keep us all entertained.  Our aim was to “keep the stage light burning bright” with weekly stories from around the world – and that’s what we did.

There were 15 films altogether, starting on 2 April and finally finishing 1 August, with 13 people taking part in all. It started with Rumpelstiltskin and ended with a collaboration of 7 of the readers producing the timeless classic Desiderata.

These were very different stories to the Ghost stories and at a different time for us all: climbing slowly out of lockdown, with a national road map showing what we could expect and when we could perhaps return to outside activities including seeing people in person.  The result was that less people were seeking entertainment on-line as so many of us were starved for human contact, and things on-line had been by that point done so much. -Yet amidst this time of increasing appetite for live events rather than on-line, we reached 445 people on Facebook with our launch film, and through April and May this grew to astonishing numbers.  Film maker Phil Nair-Brown – who co-produced with Suse Crosby – made a partially animated film which reached 329 people but with that and Dan Dryer’s performance of 8 O’Clock in the Morning, it helped raise the number of people checking out the Wick Facebook page in May to 972, and then even higher, reaching 3289 people.

As June came along and people were increasingly looking outward our reach became less, but there was still some amazing feedback on all of the films, for all the individual styles, performances, and choice of material.  Joel Fishbane had given Sue Goble permission to read his story and was so pleased with the result he retweeted it with a recommendation on Twitter.  We continue to do well on YouTube as well, gaining more followers, with the highest number of views being for Suse Crosby reading her own story: The Picture.

Some people took the time to give feedback as well which in the absence of audience applause, we are very appreciative of.  It means so very much when you get such wonderful feedback with hearts and kisses!

Rumpelstiltskin

• “Another great project starts. Brilliant.”
• “Fantastic well done”
• “Lovely reading Guy”
• “Really excellent reading, gripped to the end, well done Guy. A great start to another great project. Thanks guys for all your hard work x”
• “Excellent Guy – my bedtime story! Really well done x”

The Aged Mother

• “Love this Julian, such an allegory for the time we live in now”
• “Loved your story telling Julian”
• “Loved it!”

Goblin Market

• “Love this”
• “Beautifully read”
• “Great story telling Sophie! A real treat to be read to so well and to have all those wonderful images conjured up. Thank you xx”

There’s Something In The Closet

• “Loved it, waiting for the next instalment”

The Obliterated Man

• “Love the way you tell this story: you can feel the confusion and increasing desperation”
• “Well done Mike … excellently told”
• “really well told Mike”

The Picture

• “Lovely story Suse”
• “Loved this … talented writing and performance!”

Eight O’Clock in the Morning

• “Top work!”
• “Love this story and the way you tell it”
• “Amazing as always!”
• “Thank you Dan and all at Wick Productions really good x”

Taliesin

• “Wonderful!”
• “the animation and cinematography is just beautiful, a very emotive, uplifting story; think we all need a little bit more magic in the world right now”
• “Loved every minute of that story, great story teller too.”
• “Most excellent!”
• “Lovely tale”
• “Fantastic”
• “Love it! … captivating and magical!”
• “I love this sooooo much”
• “Wow, I loved that story telling, the story itself, the way you told it and the great editing”

The Highwayman

• “Love your telling of this, a lovely and clever interpretation.”
• The Jabberwocky and Narcissus and Echo
• “Really love both of these”

Nyarlathotep

• “I love this so much. Scared me witless.”
• “Great work … filming and performance.”

Desiderata

• “Thank you all lovely words x”

People continue to find and watch all of the films we have produced – and as long as Facebook and YouTube exist, they will carry on doing so.  Wick Theatre will look forward to continuing to entertain with our ghost stories and short stories from around the world.  We’ll take a look back in a year, and see how we’re doing!