The art of Fevered Sleep

Here is an article written by Ellen Carr from A Younger Theatre:Fevered Sleep is not a theatre company. They are not performance makers. They are artists and they also keep bees – a fact which demonstrates their connection to, and concern for, the world around them. They approach their work in a way more akin to a visual artist than a theatre maker, but they do make work for theatre buildings and for theatre audiences. Contradictory? Perhaps, but it’s these contradictions that have helped Fevered Sleep to chisel out their creative niche. As their new work Above Me the Wide Blue Sky approaches performance at the Young Vic. Laura Turner chats to Artistic Director David Harradine about the show, the role of the artist and Fevered Sleep’s interdisciplinary aesthetic.The company was established in 1996 by Harradine and fellow Artistic Director Sam Butler. The two met studying at Middlesex University and realised that “there wasn’t really anybody making work that we were that interested in… so it seemed like the obvious thing to do to start our own company”. Upon hearing their plans a tutor frustratingly offered this advice: “don’t expect anything good to happen for ten years”. Harradine tells me he was right, almost to the year. That time, however, has been extremely useful for the company to experiment doing “weird stuff” and figure out “what our process was”.Read more on A Younger Theatre website