We are making The Not So Ugly Duckling, a play of transformation for a time of change. Taking Inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen’s much loved The Ugly Duckling , our play will be written and performed by Jo and Maria with creative input from all our brilliant team. We will be creating a theatrical poem about Life, in all its joyous chaotic glory. After all, it’s well known that every life is a search for the Inner Duck, or Swan.

who we are

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photo: Ian Cameron

Ian Cameron

(director)

Ian is a visual artist & a mime artist & a clown & a clown doctor & a pupeteer & an actor & a director. He has done everything & worked with everybody. Almost. There is always room for more…

www.iancameron.weebly.com
www.plutotlavie.org.uk
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photo: Hannah Houston

Jo Clifford

(co-writer & performer)

As a writer she found her voice in the mid eighties when she was living as a man. Now she is living as a woman, she has also discovered the joy of being a performer. “The Not So Ugly Duckling” is script no. 102 in an ever expanding list of work in every dramatic medium which has been performed all over the world. She has also been a yoga teacher, nurse, bus conductor and university professor. She is a proud father and grandmother.

www.teatrodomundo.com
www.queenjesusproductions.com
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photo: Alan Finlayson

Maria MacDonell

(co-writer & performer)

Writer and performer who has paddled many creative adventures in all waters as an actor, journalist, TV researcher and presenter, screenwriter, museum curator, educator and mother of her own five ducklings.

www.mariamacdonell.com
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photo: Alan Finlayson

Georgina MacDonell Finlayson

(musician & composer & sustainability director)

Georgina's work meanders between and smooshes together everything from traditional, contemporary and classical, to sound design, spoken word, electroacoustic composition, screetchy gates, shruti boxes and drippy taps. When she's not making noise on her violin or joining noises together, she's keen to make sure we keep this beautiful world beautiful, and maybe not so hot.

www.georginamacdonellfinlayson.com
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photo: Colin Cavers

Ali Maclaurin

(designer)

Since the 1980s, she has been designing beautiful spaces for stages and beautiful clothes for actors to wear while they perform on them. For the past twenty years, she has been teaching students to do the same. She has just retired from that and lives by the sea shore. Her mind is an attic full of beautiful things.

www.alimaclaurin.net
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photo: Fiona Knowles

Roddy Simpson

(technical director)

Roddy makes films, takes photographs, designs web pages, manages stages and  looks after
touring shows.

www.roddysimpson.com
MariaJo

JO

Hans Christian Andersen said when he was a boy he was tall and ugly with big feet, a big nose and clothes that were always too small. But even though he was ridiculed, deep down he knew he was special.

MARIA

He said The Ugly Duckling was a reflection of his own life.

JO

I recognise feeling like that. When I was a boy I didn’t feel like a boy and this was terrifying. I had very few friends. But I knew I was a writer and this secret knowledge helped me keep going.

MARIA

He rejected his mother. I’m glad we’ve given Mother Duck a chance to say how she feels.

JO

My Mother would have liked me to be a girl. I loved wearing girls’ clothes in plays and felt more like myself. Hans Christian Andersen wrote about his femininity when such feelings could not be openly expressed.

MARIA

This is a story of transformation, of becoming oneself.

JO

Yes, it’s like my own life.

MARIA

And we are all transforming all the time.

JO

Or we hope to.

MARIA

And there’s the Old Woman. Oh dear. She is really bitter. Stuck. Older women generally come out badly in folk tales.

JO

We did try to redeem her.

MARIA

Turned out she’s irredeemable. Some stories resist being changed. They are older than all of us.

JO

And we’re getting on a bit.

MARIA

And so the world turns.

JO

The story takes place over a year and we have written it over a year while the world has gone to hell.

MARIA

And Nature has resolutely rolled out a whole cycle of seasons.

JO

And yet Nature is in crisis and the pandemic is a symptom of that.

MARIA

We have spent ages looking onto the Water of Leith.

JO

Watching the ducks and swans.

MARIA

Navigating the rubbish.

JO

We’re not sure the best thing in life is to turn into a swan.

MARIA

A swan is whatever you want I suppose.

JO

That’s not always easy to see.

MARIA

This is all a bit gloomy. Where are the funny bits?

JO

Oh, there are plenty of those.

MARIA

Like life.