Leo Kay, artistic director of performance group Unfinished Business, on the odyssey behind the show he’s bringing to the Old Fire Station

Mr Sole Abode started life as a one-man show in 2006. Sole lives in a fridge under a bridge, he sees wonder in the mundane and dreams his existence into reality. This year, thanks to a re-commissioning opportunity from House, the South-East theatre consortium, I’ve been able to do what every artist always wants … to have a go at making it better!

The show was a response to the work of the Anglo-Nigerian writer Ben Okri. I originally contacted him about adapting his novel The Famished Road. He advised me to consider one of his less ambitious works, but I was captivated by this story and so decided to focus on the first chapter and the central character — the spirit child, Azuro.

In the Yoruba tradition the spirit child is a mythical explanation of why children die young or at birth; they are said to have lived in the rainbow and made promises to return. Azuro sees his parents’ pain and decides not to return to the rainbow. He finds himself living between the physical and spirit world, where he has a very altered perspective on society in turmoil. I wanted to ask: “What would it be like for a spirit child to live and survive within our contemporary urban culture?”

Through collaboration with theatre practitioner Benji Reid, I developed the character Sole, a person who sees the magic and beauty in the world around him. Homeless, his experience of life is completely outside the mainstream. The show comments on mental health, well-being and the stories behind each person we ignore on the street.

In returning to Sole, I invited new collaborators on board: clown and storyteller Stuart Bowden as director and musician-storyteller Daniel Marcus Clark, who joins me on stage as a live musician. We were interested in developing a bespoke soundtrack that moved fluidly between darkly mysterious sounds and ethereal music, echoing Sole’s inner and outer worlds. Daniel arrived for rehearsals with a host of incredible bespoke junk metal instruments.

Since first creating Sole, my work has moved towards more participatory and autobiographical performance. I was keen to bring this into the redevelopment process.

In November 2014, whilst I was redeveloping the script, my mother died. I began to incorporate my experience of grieving in to the process and allowed the story to be affected by my thoughts surrounding mourning and our contemporary relationship, or lack of relationship, to death. It’s a theme I’ve explored in previous works including It’s Like He’s Knocking and The Spinning Wheel, so it felt integral to my current performance practice.

The result is a story that celebrates the perspective of Sole — a character not unlike myself, affected by the presence of death and on a journey to accepting grief as part of life. I hope we have made a piece of work that moves, entertains and leaves space for echoes to be heard long after it is experienced.

Mr Sole Abode is at the Old Fire Station, George Street, on Friday, February 13, at 7.30pm.
Tickets: 01865 305305 or oxfordplayhouse.com