Twisted Tales in Lockdown

‘Owdyado present original plays & classic drama recorded as part of a Twisted Tales in Lockdown! project.

Cornwall based theatre company, Owdyado have been busy at work. Sadly due to the Coronavirus outbreak, their Twisted Tales Vol.2 tour was cancelled so they decided they would use their time in lockdown to come up with an interesting way to connect with their audiences and share their work.

The Twisted Tales in Lockdown! project was devised and made possible by the Arts Council England emergency response fund and FEAST Cornwall’s Re-Ignition fund. The project supported the adaptation of ‘Owdyado’s ‘Twisted Tales’ stage shows into audio dramas as well as providing prize money for a UK-wide writing competition.

Charlotte Bister, Co-Artistic Director of Owdyado tells us more…

“We really liked the idea of running a writing competition, firstly, so that we could provide an opportunity to people who needed something fun and creative to do during the lockdown and secondly, it was a good opportunity to reach out to and work withother writers across the UK.

We decided that our challenge should be to write a 5-minute ‘twisted’ audio drama using the word “isolation” as a starting point. It’s harder than it sounds to tell a good story in such a short amount of time so the entrants had their work cut out for them…”

The competition was released in March 2020 at the beginning of lockdown and was picked up and shared by BBC Writers Room which discover, develop and champion new and experienced writing talent across the whole of the UK.

Charlotte adds “We had 335 submissions from across the UK in the end – from professional and emerging writers alike, so it took a while for us to whittle the list down to 5 winners and 5 runners up! We will now make these 10 scripts into audio dramas in our makeshift home studio (a closet kitted out with foam packaging) and the top 5 winners will receive £500 in prize money each. We are extremely pleased with our selection and can’t wait to share them on our new-and-improved website”

In addition to the writing competition, Owdyado will also be recording all six 30-minute plays from their Twisted Tales Vol.1 tour and Twisted Tales Vol.2 tour so if you didn’t get the chance to see these shows (or you just want to hear how they work as audio dramas), you can listen to them free of charge on www.owdyado.co.uk/audio – along with the 10 competition winners plus a little bonus 5-minute play Owdyado have written during lockdown!

 The audio recording will be released every week from 27^th June 2020 so make sure you tune in for a listen. Some of the plays contain adult themes and bad language so Owdyado recommend an age rating of 14+

 Both Twisted Tales Vol.1 and Vol. 2.are live theatre productions that have been touring the UK since 2018 produced and performed by Owdyado.There are 6 different storiesin the anthology series which features brand-new scripts from Jon Welch, Brett Harvey and Charlotte Bister& Daniel Richards.

The 6 original plays are a joyful mix of drama and dark comedy with anarchic, riotous themes that will have you laughing, crying and gasping for more and now Owdyado invite you to enjoy them in the comfort of your own home!