The Origin of Species
By John Hinton
Tangram Theatre Company, Pleasance Edinburgh, UK and International Touring
Performed in English
Remarkably inventive, thoroughly entertaining… 19th century science can rarely have been so fascinating and never so much fun.
The Stage Must See
Witty, clever, absurd, the jokes spring out at you when you least expect. Grown-ups will love it. Kids will adore it. A gem.
Broadway Baby
John Hinton is an absolute joy… You can’t help thinking: this guy would get anyone interested in science.
Adelaide Theatre Guide
A great, great show…very funny…a romp with a sophisticated foundation.
Musical Talk
Gloriously fun and accessible…A charming load of monkey business that will make you oo-oo-oo out loud!
Three Weeks
You can’t fault Hinton’s energy, enthusiasm and blindingly shiny smile, nor the standing ovation he gets from audience members at the end of the show.
What’s on Stage
So damn brilliant… If only high school history had been so much fun.
Adelaide Entertainment Hive
John Hinton is simply wonderful to watch.
The New Current
Brings Darwin to life for 21st Century audiences.
Scotsman
Winner – Three Weeks Editors Edfringe Award
Winner – Adelaide Fringe Award
Charles Darwin is hard at work on his new book about barnacles. To boost sales, his publisher has invited you young and not so young naturalists to watch him at work. Easily distracted, Charles begins sharing his family history, songs he has written and some of his new discoveries about barnacles. However today is about to prove to be no ordinary day.
Charles receives a letter from a fellow naturalist claiming that he has come up with the idea of the origin of species, an idea Charles has been working on for 20 years. Suddenly, he must finish his book!
Cast
John Hinton
Creative Team
Daniel Goldman (Director), John Hinton (Music and lyrics)
John had had an idea to do a show to celebrate the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species and came to me to ask if I’d like to do it with him. We worked on it for a long time before eventually finding how we were going to tell the story. Mainly I feel like there were a lot of happy accidents throughout the process – my job ended up mainly being giving shape to what John’s fertile mind was bringing into the room, and adding the occasional terrible pun.
The other fun fact was the title of the play. Here we’ve called it The Origin of Species… but the full title of the show is: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION OR THE SURVIVAL OF (R)EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES IN THE FACE OF SCIENTIFIC ECCLESIASTICAL OBJECTIONS: BEING A MUSICAL COMEDY ABOUT CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882)
When we took the show to Edinburgh the first time, the amount of blurb space one had was 40 words including the title. Our title was 31 words long. It didn’t leave much space for a blurb, but it looked fantastic (and huge) in the programme.
All photos ©