Outdoor theatre at venues across Southern England 7th June - 25th August, 2008

It's 1922 and Noah Babel is busy carving the last few animals for his carousel which he has been commissioned to build for Darke & Sanger's Traveling Fair. His little workshop in Paradise Street, Bermondsey, is wedged between the towering walls of Sir Sidney Greenleaf's leather works - and Sir Sidney wants him out so he can build a magnificent glass entrance hall to his factory.

Courteous Crump, the helpful manager of The Industrial & Marine Friendly Loan & Life Assurance Company (Bermondsey Branch), assures Noah that the carousel will pay for the last installment of his mortgage. But then the troubles start.

The loan is suddenly called in. Noah's youngest son, Akiva, is insulted and thrown out of Mizzi's nightclub. There are rattlings in the night, malicious slogans daubed on his door and the majestic Goliath, one of a pair of bespoke giraffes, mysteriously has his neck broken. Finally Inspector Slope of the Yard arrives to say Noah has been mentioned in connection with the death of a certain Pile, clerk to the above Courteous Crump, whose body has been found in the Thames.

While London dances at Mizzi's to the latest jazz craze Noah is forced to pawn his precious gold watch to the sinister watch and clock dealer, horologist, and marine body collector, Fosca, whose shadowy premises overlook the river. Meanwhile it begins to rain. Black clouds gather. The river rises and swells - and the noses of Noah's carousel horses, giraffes, lions, hippos, tigers and the rest, gathered two by two in his workshop, begin to twitch.

The loan is suddenly called in. Noah's youngest son, Akiva, is insulted and thrown out of Mizzi's nightclub. There are rattlings in the night, malicious slogans daubed on his door and the majestic Goliath, one of a pair of bespoke giraffes, mysteriously has his neck broken. Finally Inspector Slope of the Yard arrives to say Noah has been mentioned in connection with the death of a certain Pile, clerk to the above Courteous Crump, whose body has been found in the Thames. While London dances at Mizzi's to the latest jazz craze Noah is forced to pawn his precious gold watch to the sinister watch and clock dealer, horologist, and marine body collector, Fosca, whose shadowy premises overlook the river. Meanwhile it begins to rain. Black clouds gather. The river rises and swells - and the noses of Noah's carousel horses, giraffes, lions, hippos, tigers and the rest, gathered two by two in his workshop, begin to twitch.

Noah's Ark in Bermondsey?

People do like to be reassured by a title and this one is less immediately clear than our last play, 'Five Get Famous'. So, what's it about? Well, basically it's a comedy thriller, dark and menacing, with a surrealist twist. We don't want to give too much away (especially with a thriller), but here are a few clues. It's a re-working of the Noah's Ark legend, but set in Bermondsey in November, 1922 (a momentous period of European 20th C history for various reasons).

It tells the story of Noah Babel, a Jewish émigré carousel animal carver from Poland (loosely based on Marcus Charles Illions) and his family trying to survive in the harsh world of jazz crazed London with its mixture of cold industrial expansion and false optimism and frivolity.

Many of the beautiful and haunting carousel animals being produced for fairs and entertainment parks in America and some in England between 1875 and 1925 were carved by Jewish carvers, using ancient motifs from, for example, East European wooden synagogues, who had been driven to England and America by the pogroms and had to adapt their skills to survive - and the final clue?

A favourite subject for them was the Noah's Ark carousel or merry-go-round with Noah's animals, in pairs of course, with flaring nostrils and proud heads rising and falling triumphantly. They symbolised art, tradition, survival, hope, beauty, innocence and above all joy pitted against the dark satanic mills of a cruel world imploding on itself. The play is very funny, but comedy is someone else's tragedy .