This is David, writing this at the end of our two week season of Best Festival Ever at the Street Theatre in Canberra. We are all pretty stoked with the last fortnight, feeling exhausted but energised at the same time. It's been a pretty delightful way to bring the show home to Australia.Back in 2008, the Street Theatre presented the first Canberra season of Boho's first show, A Prisoner's Dilemma. It feels like we've travelled a fair distance since then, so it was great to bring our most recent work home after three and a half years in development in the UK and Sweden.It was a sell out season, so much so that we had to add an additional show, which feels pretty rockstar. (Though selling out your season when you only have a capacity of 30 may or may not be a particularly impressive achievement...)
The response from audiences was pretty lovely, and we had some really nice reviews, for example: 'Boho's approach is innovative, entertaining and illuminating ... their latest production is a revelation of the simple truths of complex principles.'The most exciting part from our perspective, though, were the post-show conversations with scientists. This is a really key feature of the show, where we get to unpack some of the ideas from climate and systems science that have informed the making of the work.We were honoured to be joined by scientists including Will Steffen (Climate Council), Bob Costanza (ANU), Brian Walker (CSIRO), Steve Cork (ANU), Nicky Grigg (CSIRO), Joanne Daly (CSIRO), Eleanor Malbon (RegNet) and John Finnigan (CSIRO).These discussions allowed us (and the audience) to understand more of how Systems Thinking helps scientists get to grips with the complex challenges facing us today. For us as artists, Best Festival Ever was always intended to provide the platform for these sorts of conversations, and it was an honour to bring on board scientists and thinkers of this calibre.
Myself, Nikki, Nathan, David and Rachel are all really delighted with the experience, and we're now looking for other opportunities to present the work in Australia.We're looking for any groups or organisations who might be interested in hosting a session of the work - festivals, museums, conferences, schools, universities, businesses and workplaces. If you have a room with a table and you think that Best Festival Ever might be a good fit for your event, please drop us a line and say hello.Peace!