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Emma Rice: 'I waited 7 years to stage Angela Carter's Wise Children'

Worth the wait: Emma Rice's adaptation of Wise Children opened at the Old Vic this week: Dave Benett
Worth the wait: Emma Rice's adaptation of Wise Children opened at the Old Vic this week: Dave Benett

Emma Rice said her production of Wise Children has benefitted from the seven-year wait to finally put it on stage.

The former artistic director at Shakespeare’s Globe launched her new theatre company with the production of Angela Carter’s novel about a theatrical family.

She said she was first commissioned to adapt it by the National Theatre but it “fell between the cracks” when its boss Nicholas Hytner left.

She added: “At which point the Globe came along and I felt this would be fantastic there because it mentions 34 of the 37 Shakespeares ... then the Globe fell through and there it was like a ripe peach to be my first show.”

Rice, who left the Globe in a row over her use of electronic music and lighting, said the show was “a love letter to theatre”. She said: “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m delighted I didn’t make it before now. I’ve directed some heavy- weight Shakespeares which has really helped me understand the structure of a big show like this, and also the politics of Angela Carter and feminism lands very excitingly at this point in history.

“I think it speaks very stridently about the wildness of women and the joyful endurance of femininity.”

The show includes song and dance routines and slapstick comedy as well as Shakespeare lines, and Rice said it “needed heart and soul — so there is everything I love in this show. Angela Carter was not a minimalist writer and I’m not a minimalist director. It’s the structure of a modern Shakespeare, it’s a five-act complex family drama and it warrants a lot of layers.”