An imitating the dog production
War of the Worlds
Based on The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Retold by imitating the dog
Supported by Lancaster Arts and Cast, Doncaster
imitating the dog to premiere audacious and timely retelling of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds
Next year imitating the dog, one of the UK’s most original and innovative theatre companies is set to push their inventive storytelling to new heights when they stage a contemporary retelling of H.G Wells’s iconic science fiction tale The War of the Worlds.
Created by imitating the dog’s co-artistic directors Andrew Quick, Simon Wainwright and Pete Brooks, imitating the dog’s retelling of War of the Worlds will open at Cast Doncaster from 5-7 February ahead of a UK & Switzerland tour which will finish in early May.
Four performers enter the stage and construct an epic road movie before our eyes.
It’s a story we know, or think we know – an apocalyptic tale of alien invasion and the unfolding destruction of everything we hold dear. Extraterrestrial lifeforms land from the skies. Lines of Brits scrabble to flee across the channel while their cities and towns lie in smouldering ruins. It’s all of our worst nightmares.
What would you do if order broke down? What would you do to survive? How far would you go to protect your own?
Using miniature environments, model worlds, camera tricks and projection, imitating the dog mix the live and the recorded, the animate and the inanimate to create a thrilling, audacious and timely retelling of H. G. Wells’s classic novel.
Following their acclaimed adaptations of literary classics Heart of Darkness (2018), Dracula (2021), Macbeth (2023) and Frankenstein (2024), imitating the dog are set to push their creative storytelling to new heights.
Andrew Quick, Co-Director and Artistic Director of imitating the dog said:
“I am so excited to be working on our adaptation of War of the Worlds. It’s a great story, and its themes of paranoia, moral panic, technological and ecological catastrophe, and the ways in which society implodes when faced with crisis, seem so relevant to today.
It’s a story of immense intensity and adapting the novel produces some difficult challenges. We are testing our technological and storytelling skills to the limit but producing some amazing sequences that do justice to the novel, but which also connect to contemporary concerns.
We have been exploring how to combine live green screen acting with miniature model worlds to create a live movie that is created in front of the audience. Imagine a detailed model of a destroyed city: you see a performer operate a camera that moves through its devastated buildings. At the same time, in another part of the stage, you see a live performer being filmed and the image of their performance is then projected into the city landscape, so you see them looking out of one of the windows in one of its burnt out buildings. This interlacing of the live and the miniature, the real and the model, is a new direction for us, but it creates some stunning effects.
And we need these effects to create the extraordinary, compelling and epic story that we are telling – all with just four performers. Of all productions across 27 years of theatre making, this is the most ambitious and technologically challenging work that we have made. I really can’t wait to see how audiences react.”
The production’s creative team will feature set and costume design by Abby Clarke (Unfortunate – The Untold Story, national tour), projection and video design by Simon Wainwright (The Kid Stays in the Picture, Royal Court), lighting by Andrew Crofts (Trash Cuisine, Belarus Free Theatre and The Young Vic) and original music composed by James Hamilton (Night of The Living Dead ™ – Remix, imitating the dog). Casting will be announced in the coming months.
imitating the dog have been making ground-breaking work for theatres and other spaces for 27 years. Their work, which fuses live performance with digital technology, has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people in venues, outdoor festivals, and events across the world. Past productions have included Hotel Methuselah, A Farewell to Arms, Heart of Darkness, Night of The Living Dead ™- Remix, the award-winning Dracula: The Untold Story, Frankenstein, and most recently, All Blood Runs Red. In 2022 the company staged Cinema Inferno, a ground-breaking new show for the Parisian haute couture house Maison Margiela, based on an original concept by creative director John Galliano, for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal 2022 collection, presented on the official Paris Haute Couture Calendar.
imitating the dog’s retelling of War of the Worlds premieres at Cast, Doncaster from 5-7 February before touring to The Dukes Theatre Lancaster (18-21 February); Lowry, Salford (25-28 February); Liverpool Playhouse (4-7 March); New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich (11-14 March); Belgrade Theatre, Coventry (18-21 March); Theatr Clwyd, Mold (15-18 April) and Blackpool Grand Theatre (22-25 April) with further dates to be confirmed. The production will also tour to Switzerland in April.
War of the Worlds is supported by Lancaster Arts and Cast, Doncaster
For more information on War of the Worlds visit imitatingthedog.co.uk