Digital Programmes

How did it all begin for you both, in theatre?

Daniel Naddafy (DN): As a child I always enjoyed school plays and drama clubs. From a very young age I knew I wanted to be an actor, so going to drama school was inevitable. Before going to drama schools for three years I worked front of house at my local theatre, the Oxford Playhouse. While working for them for a year I had a chance to see a huge amount of work. This was really the start of my theatre education; I still look back at that time and can’t believe the breadth of work I experienced. For over ten years I worked exclusively as an actor, then around five years ago I started to become more of a theatre-maker. This new chapter in my career feels like a natural progression in my profession. Though I do sometimes miss performing I’m really excited by the work I am making and the phenomenal artists I’m working with, like Marty. 

Marty Langthorne (ML): I remember being taken to a puppet show by my mum when I was very young: the memory of this show and the magic it created stuck in my mind. It sparked my interest and, as I grew, I wanted to know more about this magical world. Then at school I performed, which I loved; but when I discovered the roles behind the scenes I realised I’d found my home. Being part of a collaborative team who all pitch in to create a world or an atmosphere, a story or a dream, often being unseen, was thrilling and exciting to me.

How and why did you start making work specifically for young audiences?

DN: Earlier in my acting career I performed in an adaptation of Oliver Jeffers’ How to Catch a Star. The production was for 3-7-year-olds, but we also made another shorter version for 0-3-year-olds which we performed a few times a week. I’d never made anything for such young audiences before and I was blown away by how receptive they were to the work. This started my interest in work for babies. I love making work for children as they are such honest audiences but what makes work for babies even more enjoyable is how experimental you can be. There aren’t many people in the UK making work for this age group, so it feels really fresh.

ML: There’s something really wonderful about a young audience that’s uncompromising: if they like something they’ll scream or squeal with delight; if they don’t they’ll fall asleep or become preoccupied; or if they don’t understand they’ll say so, and often quite loudly! It’s this immediacy that as a theatre maker gives you such satisfaction because you instantly know how your audience feel. I think that’s what attracts me to making work for a younger audience.
 

Who has inspired your work and style?

DN: I find inspiration all over the place and it really depends on the project. It might be a painting, a song or even an architectural movement. For First Light the inspiration came from the research Sussex Baby Lab is doing into the development of babies’ senses. 

ML: Often painters like Turner, who really understood how to capture some sense of light and weather in the paintings he made. Also installation artists who work with light, like James Turrell, Spencer Finch, Dan Flavin and Olafur Eliasson.

Can you describe the process and the way you have worked together to create First Light?

DN: For a while I knew I wanted to make a piece of work for babies using just sound and light. I’d been collecting sounds from all over the world for the past few years, hoping I could use them in some way. When the pandemic hit, I had the time to think more about the project and it seemed like the perfect chance to make a piece where the audience enter a space alone, or in a small group, and have a personal experience without any performers. 

I’d worked with Marty a few years previously, and knew he was a great lighting designer as well as a light artist, so I asked him to join the project. During our first research and development phase we experimented with lights and sounds, exploring how they might work together and what we could create with them. By the second development phase we had started to think about how babies’ vision and hearing develops and how we can recreate this development for the audiences to experience as an installation. I created more soundscapes and simple tracks layered with beats and rhythms, and Marty responded to them visually. Slowly we started to build up a vocabulary of lights and sounds which worked together. Over a two-week making phase we continued to develop this idea: I would bring sounds and Marty would animate them with lights and colour. We hand dip-dyed light bulbs to create the perfect tones and shades of colours. We also had a stunning piece of neon light commissioned to hang as the centrepiece. It was an incredibly collaborative process.

ML: In our first stages of research and development we did a lot of chatting about young audiences and how they receive work. We did some practical exercises exploring how to animate sounds with light, and found a common language to work from. We discovered the Guardian’s VR film First Impressions which documents how a baby’s vision develops. We decided to explore this further, and contacted the Sussex Baby Lab whose research is primarily around babies’ vision and how colour reveals itself within their first few months. We decided to base the structure of the piece around this. With the research under our belts, we spent two weeks at the Half Moon Theatre trying sounds and light together. Through a rather organic process we found that we had a shared creative vision, which has become the piece you can see.

Creative team

Co-creator Daniel Naddafy
Co-creator and Lighting designer Marty Langthorne
Technical Manager Alastair Armstrong 
Photographer Holly Revell 
Set Construction Michalos Kokkoliadis at Basement 94 

With special thanks to Anna Franklin and Alice Skelton for their advice.

Thanks to Chris Elwell and everyone at Half Moon Theatre; Jamie Harper; Laura McDermott; Laura Gordon; Sally Rose; Rae Waldon Rose; Greg Syrett; Lutz Schönecker; Frederika Teverbring; David Thomas; Liv Billie Thomas; Fani Parali; Zephyr Austen Parali and Tara Lopez.

Developed with support from Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, De Montfort University, and Half Moon Theatre

Barbican Theatre Department

Toni Racklin Head of Theatre and Dance 
Simon Bourne Senior Production Manager 
Leanne Cosby, Jill Shelley, Angie Smith Producers 
Anna Dominian, Bridget Thornborrow Assistant Producers 
Kyle Bradshaw Marketing Manager
Kaya Birch-Skerritt Marketing Assistant
Angela Dias Senior Communications Manager
Freddie Todd Fordham Communications Officer
Lauren Brown Creative Learning Producer (Theatre, Dance, Poetry)
Jamie Maisey, Lee Tasker Production Managers  
Tony Brand, Steve Daly, Jane Dickerson, Martin Morgan, Stevie Porter Technical Managers  
Lucinda Hamlin, Charlotte Oliver Stage Managers 
John Gilroy, Nik Kennedy, Jamie Massey, Adam Parrott, Tom Salmon, John Seston, Chris Wilby Technical Supervisors 
David Green PA to Head of Theatre 
Caroline Hall Production Administrator 
Andrew Pellett Production Assistant 
Kendell Foster, Burcham Johnson, Christian Lyons, Charlie Mann, Josh Massey, Matt Nelson, Lawrence Sills, Neil Sowerby Technicians 
Heather Readdy Systems and Maintenance Technician 
Fiona Badgery, Gary Hunt, Nicola Lake Venue Managers 
Rebecca Oliver Access and Licensing Manager 
Harriet Davis, Rob Norris, Elizabeth Wilks Centre Managers (Delivery) 
Pheona Kidd Centre Manager (Planning) 
Mo Reideman Centre Manager (Health & Safety) 
Julian Fox, Albi Gravener Stage Door