A Little Q&A with Designer Edwina Bridgeman

Little Red (& other winter tales) steps into The Weston Studio with a sprinkle of magic, thanks to the creative genius of designer Edwina Bridgeman.

From intricate paper cuts to a velvet cape fit for the Queen of Christmas, this year’s festive production promises to bring a little Christmas joy. 

We caught up with Edwina to learn more about the inspiration behind her designs, and how she’s weaving a little bit of Bristol into the magic of the holidays. 

Let’s take a closer look at how she’s bringing this wintery tale to life...

What’s the first thing you think about when approaching a project like this? 

When we first started thinking about the stories, I looked at Han Christian Andersen who wrote The Red Shoes and The Little Match Girl, and discovered that he was a really prolific paper cutter. So whilst he was telling his stories, he would often use paper cutting to describe the stories as well. Which just seemed a really wonderful theatrical language for us. 

We can tell stories in so many different ways and I thought incorporating paper cuttings into the set would make it fun to spot elements of the story within our paper-cut design. However, since paper cuts are usually very intricate and small, we had to scale them up for the stage and adopt a more contemporary approach in the pictures we are cutting. It really feels very Christmas-y.

So, what's your favourite part of the set and costumes? 

I am quite excited about Little Red's cape. I love the idea that she has earned the cape as a reward for being the Queen of Christmas. It's going to be a mid-length red velvet cape with a top-tier white fur trim and a big hood with stars. Yes, it's going to be the cape of your dreams! 

We’ve used a lot of white in the set, as the paper cuts make for a lovely Christmas decoration. Hopefully, that gives a true sense of the holiday spirit. We’re keeping the set fairly monochromatic and introducing a lot of colour through the costumes.

We also have a very large wooden chandelier that will tie everything together. Combined with the lighting through the paper-cutting designs, it will create an amazing sense of magic.

And can you talk a bit about designing a show that's in the round?

Designing shows in the round (where the audience is on all sides) is always a challenge because we don't have that more traditional focus of looking at the proscenium. Being in the round often creates really intimate theatre, which feels especially fitting for this piece, for us all coming together.

Sightlines are always a really big issue to consider in the round, because we don't want to block people's views. As you want the audience to all be able to see everything all at once it’s important to keep everything low to the ground.

I just think being in the round for this piece is absolutely perfect and I hope will sort of instil a feeling of us all being together in this.

What atmosphere do you hope will be created through your set design?

I'm really hopeful that we will get that sense of being in a space together. I hope that we'll get a sense of the celebration of our city of Bristol. Lots of the motifs that are in the paper cuts are taken from that so you will recognize a lot of places!