Space Captain Smith
Back in 2016 Ross Housham at Gemco told me he was adapting a science fiction book into a play for this year’s show.
“It’s called Space Captain Smith, by Toby Frost. Check it out. Could you do some CGI for me?”
So I jumped on Amazon and downloaded the book. It was hilarious and I looked forward very much to when it would be on.
Here’s the blurb from Amazon:
In the 25th Century the British Space Empire faces the gathering menace of the evil ant-soldiers of the Ghast Empire hive, hell-bent on galactic domination and the extermination of all humanoid life. Isambard Smith is the square-jawed, courageous, and somewhat asinine new commander of the battle damaged light freighter John Pym, destined to take on the alien threat because nobody else is available. Together with his bold crew—a skull-collecting alien lunatic, an android pilot who is actually a fugitive sex toy, and a hamster called Gerald—he must collect new-age herbalist Rhianna Mitchell from the laid back New Francisco orbiter and bring her back to safety in the Empire. Straightforward enough—except the Ghasts want her too. If he is to get back to Blighty alive, Smith must defeat void sharks, a universe-weary android assassin, and John Gilead, psychopathic naval officer from the fanatically religious Republic of New Eden before facing his greatest enemy: a ruthless alien warlord with a very large behind.
Now it’s a play, written by Ross, authorised by Toby and loved by everyone who has anything to do with it.
Again, (umm, I say again, but I didn’t put up the post about War of the Worlds. OK, so I have spent the last six months madly creating Martian War Machines and blowing up a great deal of England for our school production of War of the Worlds – there will be a post) I have been immersed in the world of Space Captain Smith, bringing to digital life a number of space ships and three very vicious Void Sharks.
Before coming to see the show, you could take a look at some of the CGI test runs. I’ll upload a lot more once we’re in full swing, but I don’t want to give it all away.
We go on tonight and run until the end of June. Friday, Saturday Sunday matinee. Friday, Saturday, Sunday matinee. Friday, Saturday. And then I fly off to Sydney. It’s a busy life for me.
Come along!
Finding Damo 