Simple8
Simple8 is a London-based theatre company formed in 2004 by professional actors, writers and directors. They aim to produce innovative ensemble theatre that is ecologically sustainable.
Productions and reception
In 2006, Simple8 staged an adaptation of Les Enfants du Paradis. The Times gave it five stars and said that it was "A superb production and a new company possessing the skills, intelligence and dedication to create such a wonder". It was adapted by company members Dudley Hinton and Sebastian Armesto.In 2008, Simple8 presented The Living Unknown Soldier about a soldier left an amnesiac at the end of the Great War. It was based on the book by historian Jean-Yves Le Naour.
In 2011 the company adapted William Hogarth's engravings The Four Stages of Cruelty in collaboration with the playwright Adam Brace.
In 2013 Simple8 staged productions of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Moby-Dick. In a review of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for The Evening Standard, critic Fiona Montford wrote that "What Simple8 are most decidedly not doing is slavishly recreating the work onstage but rather spinning an increasingly Kafka-esque yarn that has a low-fi yet chilled atmosphere...The eight-strong cast throw themselves into writer/director Sebastian Armesto and Dudley Hinton's surreally-tinged nightmare with gusto, doubling roles, playing instruments and at one cherishable moment forming themselves into the inner mechanisms of a large municipal clock."
In 2016 the company adapted Don't Sleep There Are Snakes by Dan Everett at the Park Theatre in London. Their 2018 production of E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India was well received by critics.