OW Commended for Outstanding Set Design

Olivier award winner and OW Tom Piper, who co-created the renowned poppy art installation ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’ at the Tower of London in 2014, has recently been commended for his superior set design in two acclaimed productions.

At the National Theatre, Dorfman, Tom fashioned a revolving set of tatami mats and sliding shodi screens as the backdrop to a string of all-female cast performances of Francis Turnley’s compelling work,The Great Wave.

The play examines the traumatic aftermath of a teenage girl’s disappearance, traversing both her family’s grief and her own suffering as a young woman forced into a new life in an alien country. A story of loss and of loyalty, this production of The Great Wave has been celebrated for the ‘powerful performances’ of its cast. You can read a full review of the production here.

Tom is also working with the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, which has recently put on Zinnie Harris’s adaptation of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. In a play that is as shockingly relevant as it is funny and profound, we are introduced to the protagonist, Berenger, as he meets with his friend Jean in a café. This meeting, however, is promptly interrupted by a rampaging Rhinoceros, which charges down the nearby street, setting off a chain of events that leads the pair from arguing about whether the rhinoceros was Middle Eastern or European, to the startling realisation that everyone is in fact turning into a rhinoceros.

An exploration of modern issues such as fake news and women’s rights, Rhinoceros at the Royal Lyceum has been produced in association with the DOT Theatre Istanbul. A review by Edinburgh Guide can be found here.

The Great Wave runs until 14 April 2018, while the Rhinoceros run ends on 7 April.