A Gorey Discovery...

Posted by Shon Dale-Jones (Artistic Director, Hoipolloi.)

When Hoipolloi toured My Uncle Arly to the USA in March 2005 I was interested to find out how popular Edward Lear was over there. I went into a children’s bookstore to look for one of his titles, but couldn’t find one, so I asked the shop attendant whether or not they stocked any Edward Lear.

She said, “Is he the guy Edward Gorey did some illustrations for? I think he is”, and walked towards one of the bookshelves in the corner of the shop. She handed me a collection of Edward Gorey’s illustrations – which included one for Edward Lear’s, "The Jumblies."

Before I knew it I had looked through the whole book and was asking the shop attendant for more Edward Gorey. She found five or six of his titles and I spent the next hour immersed in his work.

By the time I left the USA later that month I’d bought every title I could find in every bookstore I walked into. On the plane journey home I kept returning to The Doubtful Guest and got hooked on the world of this illustrated story.

Edward Gorey’s fantastical imagination and creation of unusual and biologically questionable creatures are perfect inspiration for the theatrical world of Hoipolloi.

We are approaching the tone of the illustrations, the world of the family and their house and the magical nature of the doubtful guest itself. The more we work on it the more we find. We are continually surprised how much there is to discover through this story.

We very much look forward to our continued work on this project. We are excited by what is emerging and feel privileged to be working with such powerful and fantastic source material.