On the day of the famous annual fair, the town of Faldum receives an unexpected visit. A wanderer offers to grant a wish to anyone who wants one. Before long, the city is transformed. Mansions stand where mud huts once squatted, and beggars ride around in horse drawn carriages. And one man wishes to be turned into a mountain. Written by former Glastonbury Poetry Slam Champion Toby Thompson, I Wish I Was A Mountain uses rhyme, rhythm, and just a smattering of metaphysical philosophy to boldly reimagine Hermann Hesse’s classic fairytale. Do we really need the things that we long for? What do mountains feel? How did time begin? Ideal for reading aloud and sharing with children and family, this soul-enhancing book is the perfect read, whose words will stay with you for a lifetime. Experience a little bit of magic on every page, straight from the stage at the egg Theatre. This is a fairytale that doesn’t so much end happily ever after as ask us how the “ever after” affects our daily lives…a short but profound show… which reveals Thompson as a star in the making. ★ ★ ★ ★ Chris Wiegland, The Guardian I Wish I Was A Mountain is a show that combines simplicity and profundity in so appealing a manner that it simply should not be missed. Christopher Hoile, Stage Door He shares this world so generously that it will be yours as soon as you hear it. Gill Kirk, B 24/7 Text © Toby Thompson 2018 Cover Art and Design by B. Mure Toby Thompson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. 5 FOREWORD FROM TOBY It was nearing the end of Autumn 2016, when I agreed to Kate Cross’s suggestion that I might have a stab at adapting some or other fairy tale into a piece of family theatre. As with all the things I’ve ever done that appear in retrospect to have been well worth doing, I didn’t have the faintest, foggiest, flimsiest notion of where to begin. For want of being struck down by a timely lightning-bolt of inspiration (I live forever in want of that), I busied myself with scattered perusals of the various usual suspects: Hans Christian Anderson and Brothers Grimm compendiums were duly skimmed. Oscar Wilde, Angela Carter and a number of other geniuses took their rightful place on my bookshelf. I read little to turn one’s nose up at, and lots that could only be revelled in as pitch perfect storytelling, but where was that feeling of deep affinity for which I pined? Time was passing, as time does, and I had the uncomfortable sensation that if a love at first sight type miracle didn’t prove expeditiously forthcoming, then I’d fast be entering pick-a-story-any-story-any-one-will-do territory. 5 Toby Thompson Scene change. It’s 2017. Winter has long been dispensed with by Spring. Nonetheless does my optimism remain a dwindled, leafless thing. Goldilocks seems as good a choice as any. But what’s this? Not a lightning bolt per se, little more than a twinkling star - a single shaft of sunlight on a grey day. As glimmers of hope go, it’s speculative to say the least. But a glimmer is a glimmer. Did Hermann Hesse ever take it into his head to write a fairy tale? That is the question. If he did then I feel quite certain, for no apparent reason, that I am saved. Seeing as you have in your hands a copy of this script, I probably don’t need to clear up the question of Hesse’s fairy tale writing propensities. But I will tell you exactly why I fell in love with the story Faldum, later renamed I Wish I Was A Mountain, partly for marketing purposes, partly for the fun of everyone involved in the show choosing their own unique way of pronouncing the abbreviated title: IWIWAM. Mine is the sort of nature that yearns for certainty’s company but somehow never quite manages to cross its path. Answers are to me as gods, far off and insubstantial. I’ve heard of them, yes, but their existence in my life is purely theoretical. The world I can see and touch, the world I live in, is peopled exclusively with questions. It is perhaps for this reason that Faldum made such an immediately favourable impression on me. I found it beautiful and moving, but I couldn’t for the life of me work out what it meant. Even now, countless scrunched-up-face-inducing metaphysical discussions with the director, Lee Lyford, down the line, 50 performances in, I couldn’t really tell you what it’s about. Music? Impermanence? Transcendence? Desire? OK, maybe I can tell you what it’s about but I can’t tell you what its angle is. There’s no prescribed takeaway, no axe being ground. Its meaning lives in the threads that join each individual listener to the story’s unfolding and is thusly an entirely unpindownable thing. Which I might add, 6 7 I Wish I Was A Mountain by way of wrapping this up, is precisely what life is. An entirely, ineffably, ex- quisitely, deceptively, delightfully, distressingly, empirically, perplexingly unpin- downable thing. And would that it wasn’t, I’d wish that it were. May 2019 6 7 Toby Thompson I Wish I Was A Mountain was conceived and created by the egg Theatre’s Incubator - Idea Development Programme Originally co-produced by the egg Theatre with Travelling Light Theatre Company Co-commissioned by Brighton Dome and Imaginate Written and Performed by Toby Thompson Direction and Dramaturgy by Lee Lyford Designed by Anisha Fields Writing was supported by The Leverhulme Trust and The Peggy Ramsay Foundation. The production was supported using public funding from Arts Council England and crowd funded by the many friends, family and admirers of Toby Thompson. I Wish I Was A Mountain is a product of the egg Theatre’s Incubator - Idea Development Programme. The aim of the Incubator is to deepen the quality of art that is available for young audiences, and to inspire theatre makers to think about children and their place in our society differently by giving artists space, time and support to think and conceive. Travelling Light create outstanding theatrical experiences which move, inspire and fire young people’s imaginations. The company have produced many award-winning, well-loved shows for young audiences including Boing!, Cinderella: A Fairytale and Into The West. 8 9 I Wish I Was A Mountain PROLOGUE - I Found This Story In A Book Hey, how is everyone? My name’s Toby, I’m a poet And there’s a story I wanna share with you I found this story in a book, on a bench, by a pond In a park in Bath where I’m from Alice Park, it’s my favourite park I got to the bench about three o’clock in the afternoon Saw the book, was kind of intrigued, but also really hungry So I had my sandwich Avocado, cucumber and humous, in a pita pocket It was a poet’s sandwich And then I was gonna go into town to see some friends But I wasn’t in a rush so I thought, why not… Why not have a quick flick through the pages of the book Just in case it’s any good It’s probably not, it’s probably rubbish But hey, you never know, I’ll just take a little look Fairy tales! It’s a book of fairy tales I love fairy tales. 8 9 Toby Thompson Most of these ones were pretty standard There was one about a load of goblins who kidnapped a princess One about some villagers who killed a dragon Because he kept eating their horses for breakfast It was all the usual stuff Damsels in distress, jealous stepmothers All of them ended happily ever after But then there was this one story, this one story I was literally just about to go home when I found it The sky was getting dark, I could hardly see the words on the page I had to use the torch on my phone I was cold. I was late for dinner. My legs were aching. I’d spent the whole day sat on this bench. But this story, I wouldn’t have stopped reading it if you’d payed me a hundred pounds And I couldn’t believe someone had just left it on the bench Who left it there? And why was I the one who found it? Anyway, the thing is… There were lots of lovely stories in this book that I found But none of the others were even slightly so profound So intriguing, so perplexing, so deliciously astounding As the one about the gentleman, who wished he was… A mountain So that’s the story I’m gonna tell you It’s called: I Wish I Was A Mountain 10 11 I Wish I Was A Mountain EVER SEEN A RECORD? Ever seen one of these before? It’s amazing. It’s got music inside This is what people had before iPods They’re beautiful things But they don’t make any sense Where does the music come from? Look, you put it on here And then it spins round and round And then this tiny little needle touches the surface of the record And then the music, which is just…vibrations Gets sent through the needle And then it goes through all these wires, and into the speakers And then it travels out, through the air And all the way into everyone’s different ears And everyone’s different brains And that all happens…instantly It’s magic! Okay, we’re actually gonna start now.