Rogue Otherworld creates immersive theatre and spellbinding tales to excite imaginations of all ages. Their creations include Wild Awake, Winter Wood, Rogue Forest Days and Nights and Dead of Night Dance with their performances mixing of theatre, dance, live music, and storytelling.
This year they’re at Glastonbury Festival bringing their bespoke experience to the Circus Field. We caught up with writer Ollie Oakenshield, who co-founded the company with Artistic Director Angelina Boscarelli to find out about their plans for the festival.
Q&A with Ollie Oakenshield
What can you tell us about Rogue Otherworld?
Rogue Otherworld makes immersive theatre in woodlands and wild places (mainly in Cornwall where we are based). Our seasonal productions (Spring, Summer, Samhian and Winter) lead audiences into a tangling of nature, wild human nature, mythology, fairytale and folklore.
We are a multi disciplinary team with unconventional artistic backgrounds and we have developed a unique style of theatre that combines dance, storytelling, live music, wicked humour and a thrilling blend of fantastical reality.
How does it feel to be heading to this year’s Glastonbury Festival?
We are delighted to be performing at Glastonbury. We’ve been stage managing the Outdoor Circus Stage for a number of years and have been part of the Circus Field team for at least 15 years.
Glastonbury Festival to us, is a spectacular city that emerges (and then disappears) each year to celebrate humanity and culture, there is nothing else quite like it in the world. It’s a highly valued part of our seasonal calendar and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be bringing some of our favourite dark and wild tales for the late night families of Glastonbury!!!
What are your plans for the shows?
To bring as much woodland wilderness as we have in our bones and pack it into a mini big top under the bright lights of the festival.
We are bringing a collection of our enrapturing Samhain tales (From our Tehidy Woods production “Dead of Night Dance”). They are highly visual short stories with a wicked sense of humour, some thrilling atmospheres, some brilliant live music and enough wildness to bewitch adults and children alike!
Will playing to a crowd of festival-goers change how you approach the shows?
The stories were made for late nights and grabbing hold of imaginations that like to wander!
It’s a wild pagan cabaret under neon lights, with gripping stories hosted by the Wild King and the Moon Witch.
We’ll turn the wildness up and add some extra sparkle!
Are there any other acts you’re looking forward to seeing across the weekend?
We love watching all the acts in the Circus/Theatre/Cabaret fields.
We are big fans of late nights in Mavericks.
We always catch Black Sky White when they are at Glasto for some mind bending physical theatre, those guys are incredible.
I’m also looking forward to “The Churnups” on the Pyramid Stage…rumour is, that could be a special one!
