Herald Angel Award Winner
New York Times Critic’s Pick
Photo: Mihaila Bodlovic
Flight
Hinterland on Stage
Hinterland, adapted for the stage as Flight by the Glasgow-based theatre company Vox Motus, is currently on international tour, having transferred from the Edinburgh International Festival to Galway, Ireland; Melbourne, Australia; Brighton, UK; Abu Dhabi, UAE; Phoenix, Arizona; London, UK, and Washington DC, after an extended, sold-out run in New York.
What they said
New York
Profoundly imaginative... Unforgettable in both content and form, a devastating concatenation of dreams and nightmares on the run.
– The New Yorker
Pulse-pounding, immersive storytelling, strange and exquisite and intensely affecting.... Adapted by Oliver Emanuel from Caroline Brothers’s novel Hinterland, ... the directors have created a world in miniature inches from our own eyes that allows us, somehow, a straight line into all of its fear and danger and battered resilience.
* New York Times Critic’s Pick *
– Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times
Based on Caroline Brothers's page-turner of a novel, Hinterland,... Scotland-based theater company Vox Motus puts us in [its protagonists'] shoes with Flight, a theatrical installation that is both ingeniously rendered and heartfelt.
– Zachary Stewart, Theatermania
At a time when immigrants – legal and otherwise – are being demonized in certain sectors, this is a valuable and often powerful reminder that we are all in this together, and that a more just world is ours for the making, if we only we can summon the will to do so.
– David Barbour, Lighting and Sound America
'Flight' is a rare night of brilliance.
– Regina Weinreich, Showbiz411
Flight is an emotional and powerful work of art that invites the audience into its poignant story of human courage. [A] unique and transporting experience.
– Broadway World
Instead of focusing on policy or politicians, it focuses on two boys whose journey is as much timeless as it is modern. Their Odyssean travels across Europe entail encounters both good and bad. They meet monsters as well as friends, move forward and experience setbacks. Behind the numbers, behind speeches and network news outrage, migration is depicted as a human issue.
– Jacob Horn, CurtainUp
Through unexpected and evocative storytelling, Flight manages to humanize the nameless hordes of refugees we read about in the media every day... A captivating, one-of-a-kind experience.
– Raven Snook, WhatWeShouldDo.com
[Flight] melds art, theater, and literature into something wholly new. The gripping story, which unfolds over about sixty tense minutes, was adapted by Oliver Emanuel from Australian journalist Caroline Brothers’s 2012 debut novel, Hinterland... Don’t hesitate to get on board.
– This Week In New York
Brighton Festival
‘A tale beautifully, economically told … profoundly moving.’
– Thomas H. Green. the artsdesk.com
A story of hope and survival that draws you into its fragile miniature world.
– Phil Hewitt, Brighton & Hove Independent
A FringeReview ‘Outstanding Show’: Stunningly beautiful and powerfully emotive. Not to mention technically extraordinary.
– Alice Booth, FringeReview
Spellbinding.
– SussexVisitor.com
Clever and inspiring… an unusual, groundbreaking and very relevant experience.
– Nicola Benge, Brighton & Hove News
London
‘Flight' at the Bridge Theatre is a soaring dramatic feat… It leaves you dizzy with its painstaking loveliness, and devastated by its simple power.
– Sam Marlow, London Theatre (5 Stars)
Every aspect of Flight works in tandem to elevate the plot and emotional experience for the audience… It is a resounding success, testament to the power of theatre to uplift voices – truly a unique experience.
– Emma-Jane Betts, The Upcoming (5 Stars)
This wonderful theatrical experience will re-emerge as a continuing testament to why we need theatre in our lives.
– Tim Hochstrasser, Plays to See (5 Stars)
A thing of wonder. Flight is harrowing as much as it is beautiful.
– Richard Maguire, The Reviews Hub (5 Stars)
…Unlike anything else in its stagecraft and power, bringing Oliver Emanuel’s powerful adaptation of Caroline Brothers’ extraordinary novel to life.
– Toni Racklin, Head of Theatre and Dance, Barbican
A story that moved us profoundly in the most impacting way we could imagine.
– Tim Levy, Co-Director, The Bridge
Abu Dhabi
A heart-wrenching road story of terror, hope, and survival.
– The Arts Centre, NYU Abu Dhabi
Flight creates its own storytelling form.
– Abu Dhabi Education Guide
Melbourne International Arts Festival
It was difficult to emerge from the performance with dry eyes.
– Brigid Delaney, The Guardian
Like no 'theatre' show you’ve seen before.
– Hannah Francis, The Age
Sweet, confronting and heartbreaking.
– SM Monteith, Overland
A pressing, urgent tale that needs sharing.
– Jo Litson, Limelight Magazine
'Flight’, a celebration that deserves to be celebrated, soars to dizzy heights.
– Gully Thompson, Witness Performance
Go and be entranced by the storytelling of Flight.
– Jason Whyte, The Australian Arts Review
Galway International Arts Festival
Utterly gripping and immersive... the festival's unmissable show to date... beautiful, imaginative and visceral storytelling.
– Rosita Boland, The Irish Times
Flight draws you into its exquisite, fragile, miniature world and allows you to contemplate its gripping story of two children lost in dangerous lands.
– Galway International Arts Festival
Washington
‘Heart-wrenching and all-too-relevant.’
– Celia Wren, The Washington Post
Flight … converts its magical realism into lyrical allegory.
– Thomas Floyd, The Washington Post
Edinburgh International Festival
Flight is extraordinary. Paradoxical. An epic in miniature. A story that compels its audience towards strong feeling but keeps spectators at a distance. A peepshow that expands your eyes.
– Susannah Clapp, The Observer
The poignant beauty of the tiny puppets, and the sheer imaginative vividness of the world they inhabit, engraves this exquisite show on the memory, shaming the very idea of a “refugee threat” with its profound sense of the vulnerability of those small travellers. Theatre, installation art, or something else entirely, Flight tells its tale with a passion reflected in every detail of its tiny artworks; and with all the care and tenderness for which Aryan and Kabir long, but which they are so brutally denied, almost to the last.
– Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
I was impressed by this production’s exquisite detail, which enables it to capture even the different textures of the light in Greece and Italy, and its experimental daring.
– Michael Billington, The Guardian
I only realised how involved I’d been when an assistant tapped me on the shoulder and led me blinking into the light.
– Griselda Murray Brown, Financial Times
Tableaux of hardship and loss.
– Anna Aslanyan, The Times Literary Supplement
Phoenix, Arizona
It was just brilliantly realized, how it communicates the story of two boys running for their lives.
– Michael Reed, ASU Gammage
’Flight’ brings the audience along for the journey of two Afghan boys’ quest for refuge through a groundbreaking new way of storytelling.
– Ellie Borst, ASU News
A story of hope and suffering and the loss of innocence… I would like to go on. Contemplate the themes, and explore their relevance to the here and now. And normally, I would. But for this show, I am compelled to keep as much secret as possible. Because I went in knowing very little. Having no expectations. No biases. Just a clean slate and an open mind ready to experience the unknown. And I did so. And it was pretty darn incredible.
– Rebecca Rudynk, YabYum music and arts