"Dragon" wins Best Play for Children and Young People award

Dragon, by Oliver Emanuel, a lecturer in Creative Writing at the School of English, was named Best Play for Children and Young People in the UK Theatre Awards. The play was up against productions of Around the World in Eighty Days and Nivelli’s War in the awards ceremony at London's Guildhall on 19 October 2014.

 

Oliver had been approached by directors Jamie Harrison and Candice Edmunds to write a visual play with very little text about grief and dragons. The result, Dragon, has no spoken text, instead utilising puppetry, magic and orchestral music to tell the story of 12-year-old Tommy who has recently lost his mother. His father is in despair, his big sister ignores him and he has become the target of the school bully. And then, one night, a dragon appears at his window…
Dragon, which was commissioned by the National Theatre of Scotland, opened at the Citizen’s Theatre in October 2013. A co-production with Scottish touring company Vox Motus and the Tianjin People Arts Theatre, China, the play subsequently toured Scotland and opened in Tianjin, China in 2014.

The UK Theatre Awards are the only nationwide awards to honour creative excellence and the outstanding achievement seen on and off stage throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Oliver, whose new play for children, The Lost Things, will open next May, said, “Dragon is a dark tale of loss, family and the beasts that haunt our dreams. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re in the process of developing another tour at the moment. It seems to be a show that both young and old respond to.”

 

Dragon trailer from the National Theatre of Scotland

[Press release]