Simon Corble

According to Tony Craze and Katie Brannigan, Corble writes "in obeyance of the unities of time and space – applying realistic and parallel scales between worlds of performance and real environment (short promenades for short distances traveled in a fictional world, careful allotment of time at each stationary point).

Temporal and spatial settings for his work were seen to be of paramount importance. For The Woodlanders, this writer's research included a close study of the North of England countryside, focusing on a site with the largest, most remote wooded area, accessible only by a mile and a half trek."Tony Craze and Katie Brannigan, [http://www.writernet.co.uk/images/441.pdf Writing for Moving Theatre] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219091512/http://www.writernet.co.uk/images/441.pdf |date=19 December 2007 }}, 1998. Retrieved 7 July 2009.

Simon Corble has always preferred to work alongside actors in creating scripts, using improvisations on given events and themes and working in the physical aspects of performance at the same time.  This was how he and Nobby Dimon created the original script and concept for The 39 Steps.

Poetry has always been a part of Simon Corble's creative output; many of his plays, in particular, SWARD!, The Hound of the Baskervilles and the alliterative script of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, are written partly or wholly in verse.  It was his move into the rural Peak District of England, followed by the loss of two close friends who took their own lives within six months of each other which expanded his poetic output.

Much of Simon Corble's poetry is lyrical in form and inspired by the natural world.

Corble was the founder and artistic director of the Midsommer Actors' Company (1990–1999) which created open-air site-specific theatre with an emphasis on the actor's performance and the influence of working in a natural environment has had on this.See Midsommer Actors' Company archive photos on [https://www.flickr.com/photos/9470542@N07/ flickr.com]

Productions were both site-specific and promenade, (for which Corble also used the term 'Walkabout') with the audience moving some distance across a given landscape.  For the company's first production, The Tempest, the actors and audience were stranded by the tide on Hilbre Island in the Dee estuary for six hours at a stretch.

The company moved indoors in 1997 to stage The 39 Steps, a play Corble co-wrote with Nobby Dimon[http://archive.northwichguardian.co.uk/1997/11/23/244037.html "Midsommer move indoors but don't lower their sights"], Northwich Guardian, 23 November 1997. Retrieved 26 April 2009. which, proved to have a long life in theatres all over the world, with runs in London's West End and in Broadway. The adaptation, written for a cast of four actors and funded by a £1,000 Yorkshire Arts Grant, premiered in 1995 before an audience of 90 people at the Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond, North Yorkshire, before embarking on a tour of village halls across the north of England.{{cite news|last=Johnson|first=Andrew|title=Thirty-nine steps to an unlikely theatrical triumph|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/thirtynine-steps-to-an-unlikely-theatrical-triumph-847465.html|accessdate=1 May 2013|newspaper=The Independent|location=London|date=15 June 2008}}

• The Tempest, 1990, Hilbre Island
• The Woodlanders, 1991, Hardcastle Crags, W. Yorks and Royden Park, Wirral
• Treasure Island, 1991, Hilbre Island
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 1992, tour of Northern England
• Macbeth, 1993, toured to diverse locations, including inner-city Manchester
• The Wonderland Adventures of Alice, 1994, Heaton Park and national tour
• As You Like It, 1995, tour of Northern England and the Arundel Festival
• The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1995/6, Brimham Rocks, N. Yorks and on tour
• A Midsommer Night's Dreame, 1997, tour of Northern England
• The 39 Steps, 1997/8, Manchester and the London fringe
• Of Mice and Men, 1997/8, national tour
• Dracula the Undead, 1998, national tour
• Much Ado About Nothing, 1999

Simon Corble created Found Theatre in 2005, with the aim of telling powerful stories through simple means.Archive photos on [https://www.flickr.com/photos/67458740@N00/ flickr.com]

The company's first production was The Fisherman and his Soul, in 2005, which began with improvisational workshops and then early rehearsals with the four actors in the environment of the mountainous Greek island of Ikaria.  Here, Simon Corble had previously taken time out from the theatre-world, leading walking-tour groups.  His aim was to experiment with an 'environment to black box' approach, almost the reverse to the process that had been his method with Midsommer.  This approach was inspired by obsersvations on the power of actors' performances after they had been performing in natural locations, often on a lengthy tour with Midsommer and had then given a final performance in a neutral, indoor setting.

Found Theatre's second major production (2007) was a revival of Simon Corble's 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' funded by the Isle of Man Arts Council and performed around the town and castle of Peel.

This was followed by an adaptation of The Signalman, from the Charles Dickens ghost story, in 2008-10, paired with Dicken's disturbing early monologue, The Madman. which appears in The Pickwick Papers.

Found Theatre's final production, created in 2019 was Simon Corble's one-man, multimedia performance, with the stage performnce directed by Alice Bartlett, of White Light White Peak, combining his poetry with his black-and-white photography and sound recordings from the field.

• The Woodlanders, 1991
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 1992 (a dramatisation of the 14th-century Arthurian romance); it was originally written for The Midsommer Actors' Company in 1992 and played in eight outdoor venues.;{{cite news|last=Turner|first=Francesca|title=Gawayne and the Green Knight|newspaper=The Guardian|date=7 July 1992}} Corble later substantially revised the play, which was produced indoors by Cardboard Menagerie at the O'Reilly Theatre, Oxford in February 2014.{{cite news|last=Nirula|first=Srishti|title=Sir Gawain pulls our strings|url=http://oxfordstudent.com/2014/02/16/sir-gawain-pulls-our-strings/|accessdate=17 February 2014|newspaper=The Oxford Student|date=16 February 2014}}
  - {{cite news|last=Hopkins|first=Andrea|title=Sir Gawain and the Green Knight|url=http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/reviews/feature/9002/Sir_Gawain_And_The_Green_Knight|accessdate=18 February 2014|newspaper=Daily Info, Oxford|date=15 February 2014}}
• The Wonderland Adventures of Alice
• The Fisherman and his Soul, 1995-2007Staged after rehearsals on the Greek island of Ikaria; see [http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/10021/the-fisherman-and-his-soul "The Fisherman and his Soul"], The Stage, 13 October 2005. Retrieved 6 July 2009.
• The 39 Steps, 1996
• Dracula, 1998
• The Hound of the Baskervilles
• The Signalman, 2008"A Dickensian tale", on tour in small-scale venues in autumn 2009, according to [http://www.corble.co.uk/page_1234529884500.html Simon Corble's website].
• Operation Mincemeat, 2008 (based on the successful British deception plan of the same name in the Second World War)Premiered at the 2010 Adelaide Fringe Festival, performed by the Adelaide University Fringe Club to critical acclaim. See: Adelaide Theatre Guide [http://www.theatreguide.com.au/current_site/reviews/reviews_detail.php?ShowID=mincemeat&ShowYear=2010 Operation Mincemeat]. Retrieved 27 February 2010.
• Sward! – The Story of a Meadow, 2010[http://www.blaize.uk.net/pages/forthcoming.html Blaize website description] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100509002732/http://www.blaize.uk.net/pages/forthcoming.html |date=9 May 2010 }}

• The Hound of the Baskervilles{{cite book|last=Corble|first=Simon|title=The Hound of The Baskervilles: A Sherlock Holmes Play|year=2012|publisher=MX Publishing|isbn=978-1780922768}}
• White Light White Peakhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Light-Peak-Simon-Corble/dp/1913211002/ {{Bare URL inline|date=June 2025}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.corble.co.uk/ Simon Corble's website]
• [https://www.flyonthewallpress.co.uk/post/2019/02/25/poets-of-the-future-simon-corble Poets of the future: Simon Corble]

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Category:English dramatists and playwrights

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Category:English male dramatists and playwrights