I worked with Mufti Games in 2018-19 to develop and realise this playful take on the sheep dog trial. The show sees Mufti Games fusing their trade mark public gaming with simple storytelling. With the project director taken ill, I was brought in to help the company streamline and develop their ideas.
A prize winning sheep recruits members of the public to be a flock, working together in a rapidly bonded chorus. A dog begs others to play fetch with her favourite toy, with relentless enthusiasm. A shepherd teaches a bunch of recruits to guide the dog, shepherd the sheep around a series of obstacles course, with ridiculous consequences.
The process had a series of exciting challenges. Firstly the company is committed to being as accessible as possible. One of the performers is Deaf and the show was designed to be inclusive to people with hearing impairment. When we’d worked out how to describe the rules of the games with gestures and attitude, we then added audio description on top, to ensure that blind people can enjoy the show, with language specifically tailored to them. As you can imagine, with a majority of hearing and sighted artists, making this work was a tricky puzzle but really rewarding.
One Kid and Their Dog is now touring across the UK and is proving really popular with family audiences.
Paschale Straiton 