"Platform 4 is an artist-led company that creates playful and unexpected worlds in which performers and participants can explore their creativity and the things that matter to them.
I was obsessed with the artist Kurt Schwitters and his collage technique – constructing elements and fragments from everyday life and 're packaging them so to speak' so this turned into our first piece in 1997: 'The Paper Forest'".
[6] Platform 4 thereafter continued using visual stimuli - painters or paintings - as the starting point for their shows, and for many years toured devised works that were the result of collaboration between writers, designers and performers.
Platform 4 have worked with Anna Maria Murphy, from Kneehigh Theatre, the writers Hattie Naylor and Matthew Wilkie and Nell Leyshon in a dramaturg role.
The company spent years coming to the realisation that the vision for all the pieces of work created was in making 'artistic' experiences' inspired by and for the people who immediately surrounded them.
Groups of people young and old that the company wanted to support, where the micro is presented on the macro scale - telling intimate stories or making manifest tiny moments in detailed pieces of work.
"The theatre – long corridors, foyers, dusty dead-ends, unexpected nooks, empty stages, dressing rooms and lighting boxes – becomes a metaphor for the mind.
The 'Memory Points' performance followed a 2-year collaboration with members of the Alzheimer's Society Southampton-Eastleigh Connections Club, and the Eastleigh Singing For The Brain.
Memory Points returned to South Bank Centre in 2015 running from September 24 to October 4, the opening coincided with World Alzheimer's Day.
The participant’s voices from Church's mum’s lip reading classes were metaphorically and literally at the heart of the piece - coming out of speakers in the centre of the space.
The piece embraced the universal themes of ageing / reflection on life and dealing with loss of sound - but crucially addresses what it means to communicate when there is a language barrier but loads of love and good will – so it works on the level of the musical journey but could be accessed on different levels depending on the types of audience – hearing impaired followed it through transcription and projection of text created by the Nottingham based digital artist Barret Hodgson.
2022 is now finally touring in Feb and March 2022..'''' The John Wyndham Estate gave permission in 2019 for the company to create eclectic music inspired by the TRIFFIDS novel with the same team producing on the piece throughout 2020.