The Creative Hub, The Storey Meeting House Lane Lancaster, LA1 1TH

Airlock, a live action graphic novel in three episodes, is one of the first new works to be released from the series of BBC Arts and Arts Council England commissions responding to the COVID19 lockdown as part of the Culture in Quarantine programme.

The programme was created as part of a mission to bring the arts into UK homes despite venue closures, social distancing and countrywide lockdowns. The selection process for these commissions was led by The Space, a digital agency and production company helping to promote wider engagement across the arts and cultural sector.

Made throughout June, with each member of the ITD company working from their own home – performers, director, technologists – Airlock explores themes of isolation, despair and hope, creating an exciting new piece of work which ITD hopes will really resonate with audiences.

Episode One – The Cosmonaut

200 miles above the Earth, hurtling through the vastness of space, Cosmonaut Roza is trapped in her tiny, airless vessel. As time ticks away, the oxygen inside her spacecraft is perilously low. She knows that help is not coming. She has never been so alone.

Searching desperately to make a human connection, she hits on a 100-year old solution, but will it work? Can she send out a final message from space, and will anyone hear her?

Episode Two – Writer’s Block

Hard-boiled gumshoe Charlie sets out on a ripping adventure told across the pages of a graphic novel. With instructions to track and kill the villainous Eurydice, Charlie hurtles across the animation, punching his way through the pages and leaping across frames, but the mysterious woman is always out of reach.

As he finally closes in on his prey, Charlie is forced to question his mission. If he follows orders, will he be next? And who’s in charge round here, anyway?

Episode Three – The Only Ones

An apartment in the sky overlooks a destroyed city. All is lost. A woman with a silver gun, silhouetted in the doorway thinks she is alone, the last woman on earth. As she stalks her prey, she is drawn irresistibly into the shadows.

A shot in the dark, a stolen kiss.

As the world turns to darkness, swallowed by deadly greed, will you be the hunter or the hunted, and will you have the wisdom to know the difference?

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Credits

  • Written, Devised and Directed by Andrew Quick, Simon Wainwright and Pete Brooks
  • Assistant Directors: Laura Atherton & Morven Macbeth
  • Programmer and System Designer: Andrew Crofts
  • Composer: James Hamilton
  • Costume & Props Supervisor: Reggie Doherty
  • Subtitles: Steve Wade
  • Mastering: David Callanan
  • Watercolours by Laura Hopkins
  • With thanks to: The New Adelphi Theatre at the University of Salford
  • Producer for imitating the dog – Julie Brown
  • Executive Producer for The Space – Fiona Morris

Cast

  • Newsreader – Morgan Bailey (Episode 1)
  • Cosmonaut – Morven Macbeth (Episode 1)
  • Power Station Worker – Matt Prendergast (Episode 1)
  • Charlie – Morgan Bailey (Episode 2)
  • The Writer – Matt Prendergast (Episode 2)
  • The Bouncer/The Jogger/The Gangster/The Actor – Adela Rajnović (Episode 2)
  • Eurydice – Morven Macbeth (Episode 2)
  • Woman – Laura Atherton (Episode 3)
  • Man – Graeme Rose (Episode 3)
  • New Man – Morgan Bailey (Episode 3)