PAGE TO STAGE, Zeraffa Giraffa – Dianne Hofmeyr

André Refig helps Zeraffa onto a felucca in Khartoum – photo Ellie Kurttz

It’s been a long journey… that frisson of excitement when a theatre contacts you and says – there’s a story in this picture book perfect for adaptation… that smile that can’t be knocked off your face for days to come!

Then the first discussion in the lovely front of house bar café that is part of Omnibus Theatre that smells of good coffee with plush old sofas and a cat that twines its way between your legs and then falls asleep between some props. It seems perfect that my story has found a home in this beautiful old building that still has the letters Clapham Library in stone across its portals.

There’s much excitement as Artistic Director, Marie McCarthy, and Senior Producer, Felicity Paterson, explain how they see it… how shadow and puppets will evoke Africa, how they will introduce humour but at the same time plumb what the story has essentially to offer – strangers finding a home in a strange land.

It all sounds great. My head swims with visuals. But there’s a tiny loophole. For the green light, finance is needed. Actors, scriptwriters, directors, puppet designers, composers of soundtracks, lighting experts, set and costume designers and sound engineers all need to be paid. Nothing can proceed until there are funds.

Omnibus Theatre is an independent London theatre, with no source of guaranteed funding. Their audience spreads out from Clapham to include Balham, Battersea, Brixton, Putney, Streatham, Wandsworth and way beyond... but funds are dependent on box office sales and hires.

I wait for news. A year passes. Then a phone-call. An anonymous donor concerned by the plight of refugees has given support for the underlying message of the play. The reach is extended by the Little Angel Theatre in Islington coming on board and stepping up to co-produce. Doors open. The Arts Council England gives some funding. The play Zeraffa Giraffa becomes a reality – the giraffe starts another journey, a true North South crossing of London. Hooray!!!

Sabrina Mahfouz is asked to write the script ­– a perfect choice, born in Egypt and living in London, with an understanding of issues relating to the immigrant experience, she taps into the authentic voice and brings Arabic and French into the story. And Elgiva Field with her huge energy levels and vast knowledge of planning theatrical events in abandoned mansions and festivals like Latitude, comes in as Director. Then maestro designer and director of puppets in the shape of Matthew Hutchinson is called in. So meticulous is he that he studies the giraffe's anatomy and the affect different tendons have on its walking pattern. Then the talented set designer Ingrid Hu works her magic into the story and Candida Caldicott creates a soundtrack. And so the play is born.

My first view is in a rehearsal room. There’s so much to take in – the dynamics, the movement, the strong voices, the device of scale to portray such a vast journey. Rehearsals go on then a break for summer. A change of cast. Will this play ever happen? Then a date is ringed. It's my first proper viewing at the Little Angel. I step into the dark theatre to the sharp sound of cicadas. I’m totally submerged in Africa. I even smell the dust. Suddenly I’m very emotional. In a bright circle of light in the centre of a dark empty stage stands a small gathering of three giraffes. The baby one is there too.

There’s nothing more to say. Except that I'm totally transported. It's no longer my story but one that's brought to life by three people – Ashton Owen, Nadia Shash and André Refig, who for just under an hour hold an audience of children and parents in the cups of their hands. There is a fourth actor too that steps onto the stage with all the hesitancy and curiosity that I've seen in any baby giraffe on the wild plains of the African savannah. Totally and utterly convincing.

It’s easy to understand why the people of France fell in love with this creature.

Ashton Owen with the little giraffe

Nadia Shash & Ashton Owen with adult Zeraffa in Paris – photo Ellie Kurttz 

Zeraffa Giraffa based on the book by Dianne Hofmeyr and Jane Ray, published by Frances Lincoln, is presently on at the Little Angel Theatre in Islington for until 5th Nov and then moves to the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham on 25th Nov until 17th December. It’s suitable for 4 -10 year olds and perfect for school visits.

https://littleangeltheatre.com/whats-on/september-whats-on/zeraffa-giraffa/
http://omnibus-clapham.org/event/zeraffa-giraffa/2017-11-25/

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Jane Ray backstage with Matthew Hutchinson 

Dianne Hofmeyr's latest picture book The Glassmaker's Daughter, illustrated by Jane Ray and published by Frances Lincoln, is out now.  Jane Ray has recently been nominated for the IBBY Hans Christian Andersen Award. 

Twitter: @dihofmeyr

www.diannehofmeyr.com 

NOT THE VELVETEEN RABBIT – those macabre and sinister bunnies – Dianne Hofmeyr

Shaun Tan's Rules of Summer

Odd how the things of childhood are sometimes the stuff of nightmares. I found clowns exceedingly disturbing… still do... and Bugs Bunny with his huge front teeth was threatening rather than funny. My first visit to a Spanish food market with its lines of skinned rabbits with their opaque eyes wide open and staring was enough to leave me quivering.

So it’s not hard for me to imagine Shaun Tan’s two boys playing through a hot Australian summer in Rules of Summer, when a red sock on a wash-line morphs into something far more sinister.

Even vintage cards celebrating Easter with their threatening even macabre bunnies in a Paula Rego way… seem hardly loving or joyous Easter messages for a child to receive from a doting grandmother or parent.

a harnessed rabbit with a determined ringmaster? 

frogs flinging stones at rabbits?

angelic boy stuffing rabbits into a box?

demonic looking rabbits stuffed into eggs?

 cross-dressed rooster brandishing weapon at rabbit?

Rabbits play an odd role in children's books... take the White rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland... look at that eye!

And the manic March Hare... again the eye!

And I recall frissons of fear at seeing the rabbits of Pookie in Search of a Home scaring off the woodcutters with the drumming sounds of their hind legs, as a child.

But there can't be more superbly vengeful rabbits than these in the wordless picture book La Revanche des lapins by Korean illustrator Suzy Lee where a group of rabbits harass a reckless ice-cream van driver on a dark night.

Lastly...  can't let the day go by without a cheer for Zeraffa Giraffa’s first book birthday on this exact day...  with plenty of giraffes and balloons and my favourite girl in giraffe glasses!

www.diannehofmeyr.com

Twitter @dihofmeyr

Zeraffa Giraffa, illustrated by Jane Ray and published by Frances Lincoln, is on The Sunday Times List of children's classics for the last 10 years.

Giraffes Galore… the journey of a book – Dianne Hofmeyr.

Excuse the light-heartedness. It's Spring after all. So pop the champagne corks, blow the party hooters… today a picture book story I wrote 15 years ago is being launched at The Illustration Cupboard in London. The timing seems right. Everywhere I look there are giraffes galore – in the windows of Kath Kidson, in the Louis Vuitton ads ...

... but best of all on the cover of my new book, Zeraffa Giraffa.

In my notebook I found the date when my story started taking shape – August 1999. 

I’d just read the historical account in Michael Allin’s book Zarafa of the giraffe that was sent to Paris by the Pasha Muhammed Ali in 1827 – the second giraffe ever to be seen in Europe. But my fascination with giraffes began as a teenager when I’d come up really close to them in the wild on horseback in Zimbabwe – that graceful walk, their necks stretching out above the tree-line like exotic flowers, their lolloping gallop, their bizarre stance when drinking and their stares of curiosity.  

So why did my manuscript take 15 years to be published? 

Take heart those of you who have texts in your bottom drawer. Some stories are often just not right in a certain market – the perfect illustrator can’t be found… the economics don’t work. Then in 2004 I saw the magnificent life-size puppet performance of The Tall Horse based on the same story I'd written, produced by the Handspring puppet company in South Africa (it went on to tour in the US and Europe as well). The Handspring is the same company who much later produced the horse in War Horse. Their 5 metre tall giraffe of my story was made of carbon fibre rods, with two puppeteers on stilts inside the body frame, operating the turn of the head, the twitch of a tail or ear and the swaying, graceful gait. I was so mesmerized by the poetic performance that I still have the program and ticket. I can tell you that on Thursday 9th Sept 2004, I sat in seat N1 at the Baxter Theatre, Cape Town.

the giraffe puppet from the production The Tall Horse

Zeraffa Giraffa is essentially a story of a journey of a giraffe who travels from Khartoum with her keeper Atir, down the Nile to Alexandria and across the sea to Marseilles, and finally walks to Paris… not as easy assignment for an illustrator. Who better than Jane Ray? She has captured brilliantly a sense of Africa as well as France in her wide double-paged vistas. We sense both the heat and shimmer of the desert and the contrasting softness of the French countryside without the book losing its fluidity. 

Her palette is strong, her colours intense, the detail sublime – tiny dots of gold highlight the texture on the giraffe’s horn, a sinuous, long, black tongue entwines the curls of the equally black French railing, an inquisitive monkey on the dhow, strange boxes with Arabic font and measurement ... what do they contain?... scraps of maps embedded in the sea suggesting the journey – wonderful, tiny, visual codes that will be picked up by an astute child. (perhaps even by an adult?) 

While I was writing Zeraffa Giraffa, I went to the Jardin des Plantes alongside the Seine in Paris to see the building of La Rotonde where the giraffe was housed together with her keeper, Atir. He slept up on a platform close to her face and remained with her for the rest of the 18 years she lived. I tried to imagine the bond that must have existed between them … two exiles from Africa… a boy who had never been further than Khartoum and a giraffe who had lost her savannah ... both alone in this strange, foreign city. What memories did they hold on to? 

Then a few days ago I saw an article in a newspaper about Mario, a zookeeper who has a brain tumour and can no longer walk, whose last wish was to see his beloved giraffes he’d looked after at the Rotterdam zoo. He was taken there by the Ambulance Wish Foundation. The newspaper shows a photograph of a tall giraffe bending low over a fence and nuzzling the face of the zookeeper as he lies strapped to his ambulance stretcher. What greater bond than that?

If you visit La Rotonde on a quiet day, close your eyes and perhaps you’ll feel the hot wind of Africa and imagine yourself standing there with Zeraffa and her keeper Atir, while he whispers stories to her of a land far away.

My giraffe and I have been on a long, long journey together. The giraffe’s journey took two years, mine took fifteen. Thank you Jane you’ve made the story come alive. Let’s pop those corks and blow the party hooters. Perhaps like the bakers of Paris, we might even celebrate with giraffe biscuits!

Zeraffa Giraffa, by Dianne Hofmeyr, illustrated by Jane Ray, published by Frances Lincoln, April 2014, translated so far as well, into Danish, Swedish, Korean and Afrikaans.
www.diannehofmeyr.com