This programme ran in 2010 at the Pervasive Media Studio. For more projects like these please visit the Studio website.

Projects 2010

Company Profile

Melanie Wilson is an award-winning theatre and sound artist. Her solo performance work includes Iris Brunette, she collaborated filmmaker Tom Geens on the award-winning short film, Shame and is also one half of experimental folk duo Lindsey Woolsey.

Ed is a theatre consultant and photographer and co-directs China Plate, a theatre company that specialises in identifying and supporting the needs of theatre makers.

The Unicorn was hosted and co-produced by Lyric Hammersmith, an award-winning theatre and entertainment venue based in London, which stages original and groundbreaking productions.

Journal Authors

Ed Collier

Bailey

The Unicorn

by Ed Collier & Melanie Wilson

The British high-street is not the sort of place you would normally expect to encounter a unicorn, but that changed in 2010 when Ed Collier & Melanie Wilson transformed London’s King Street into a mysterious magical world. The Unicorn was an audio-based fairytale adventure designed for children between the ages of 7 and 10, and was commissioned by Theatre Sandbox in 2010.

Staged in both a theatrical playspace and the high street, The Unicorn used pervasive media to create a magical parallel world within the everyday surroundings of the city. Groups of children (and their adults) were given headphones, and were taken on an adventure where they followed an elusive unicorn. Adventurers were able to catch small glimpses of the ghostly phantasm through keyholes and cracks in the pavement, and the creature could only be heard by those that wanted to hear it.

View the Project Film

Journal Entries

Journal Entries

Sounding the last post…

Thu 25 Nov, 2010

Blimey, this has been something of a roller coaster! Many apologies for the hiatus since our last blog. So – since our last entry we have made some giant leaps as well as some tentative tiptoes forward. Lets start with the leaps: The Name After much deliberation, The Observatory is now The Unicorn. Clean, memorable and intriguing.

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Smoke, mirrors, software and FM

Thu 26 Aug, 2010

Good morning Sandboxers, Things are moving on apace here at what was The Observatory and is now awaiting a new name. We started this week by experimenting with the best methods of making a unicorn appear and disappear in thin air, utilizing projection and various airborne media.

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2nd community day at Ished

Tue 3 Aug, 2010

Another extremely useful day at Theatre Sandbox. I’m on the train on the way up to Edinburgh so I’ll be brief. BTW – if any readers are coming up do come and see Caroline Horton’s You’re Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy that I’m producing which is at The Pleasance from the 4th – 30th and of course Melanie’s show Every Minute Always, part of Forest Fringe’s programme but in a nearby cinema. Anyway. Good to see everyone. I had 4 particularly useful conversations today, Tom thank you for making the introductions…

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Technical Reckoning

Wed 28 Jul, 2010

Ed and I have just spent a revelatory day with our expert, Tom Melamed from Calvium. The morning began with us champing at the bit to get practical about the actual equipment we need to grapple with to make our idea work and has just finished, leaving us utterly spent and replete with many, if not possibly all the answers we craved. Thank you Tom.

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Video link for our first potential route

Thu 22 Jul, 2010

Afternoon All, We had a look at exploring how our route around the Lyric and shopping Centre could work… Here it is… We also had an excellent meeting with the manager of Kings Mall shopping Centre who explained what we could and couldn’t do… after we’d made the film… so it is likely to change… However – he has said we can definitely use the service corridors which is excellent news. Cheers Ed

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