The Finns Are Coming - Paddock Productions

Over the next two months, leading up to the opening night performance of The Finnish Prisoner in July, Viva Lewes is posting diary entries from some of the many people who will help create what you see on the stage. The Finnish Prisoner is a new opera by Orlando Gough and Stephen Plaice about the Finnish prisoners who were incarcerated in Lewes during the Crimean War, and who became much loved by the Lewes people. The first diary is from the set and costume designer, Num Stibbe. Num lives in Lewes and was also responsible for the design of our production of The Young Visiters, as well as Something to Dance About.

Designer Diary
The story of the Finnish Prisoner takes place in two centuries. It opens on a hot summer morning in 2007 - commuters are arriving in Lewes, looking for parking spaces before they hurry off to work. A love story begins to unfold and we are carried away into the imagined past of the characters involved, bringing us back to the 1850’s when on the same site of today’s car park, a Naval prison once stood, holding Finnish prisoners of the Crimean war. Designing this opera was never going to be easy, because at first none of the regular elements that make up an opera: the music, the story, the venue, or the projected budget, were in place. As this was an opera in the making, I had to begin thinking about the design before I knew what I was supposed to be designing. But this precariousness made it much more exciting for me. I was privy to the thinking and writing that went into the creation of the story. This made me realize what a complicated and interesting process it is, and occasionally it enabled me to make suggestions and input ideas.