2017

The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca

Dir: Sarah Frankcom & Imogen Knight

Venue: The Guildhall, Hull

Sound Design

Written by Maxine Peake, and with live music from The Unthanks, this piece took place in the Guildhall in Hull as part of the City of Culture 2017. The Triple Trawler disaster, where 3 fishing boats were lost at sea within weeks of each other, took place in the time between christmas and new year of 1968/69 off the coast of Hull. 58 Trawlermen lost their lives. Lillian Bilocca, along with many other brave women, took new legislation demands to the goverment to make trawler farming a safer occupation. Though this saved many lives, In the end this new legislation meant it was too expensive to farm and many lost their jobs, this show tells of the contraverstial moments Lillian faced whilst fighting for Hull's men's lives.

Creative Team

Directors: Sarah Frankcom & Imogen Knight

Written by: Maxine Peake

Music: The Unthanks

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Stage Designer: Amanda Stoodley

Lighting Designer: Chris Davey

The Seagull

Dir: Sean Holmes

Venue: The Lyric Hammersmith

Sound Design

Switching effortlessly between the ridiculous and the profound The Seagull forensically examines the transcendence and destructiveness of love. The burning need to create Art and how harshly that need can be crushed permeates throughout the play.

This version was adapted by Simon Stephens and we set the piece against the four seasons, starting with Spring moving through to Winter, calm lakeside nights in Act 1 to treacherous storms in Act 4. We also experimented with both Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and Max Ricthers incredible 'Re-Composition' of it, reflecting the modern update of a classic.

Creative Team

Director: Sean Holmes

Associate Director: Jude Christian

Adaptation by: Simon Stephens

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Stage Designer: Hyemi Shin

Lighting Designer: Anna Watson

White Bike

Written by: Tamara Von Werthern

Dir: Lily Mcleish

Venue: The Space Theatre

Sound Design

I've loved working on this beautiful show and with an great team telling this story in an inspiring and creative way.

Inspired by the story of Eilidh Cairns & set along an existing route ‘The White Bike’ is an affecting play about personal loss and a celebration of one woman’s life, tragically cut short. Directed by Lily McLeish (Associate Director on The Royal Court/Katie Mitchell’s Anatomy of a Suicide & Ophelias Zimmer) and written by Tamara von Werthern (Founder of Fizzy Sherbet – a new writing initiative for women writers) this world premiere creates an immersive experience of cycling in a physical, abstract and imaginative way.

Creative Team

Director: Lily Mcleish

Movement Director: Simon Pitmann

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Assistant Sound: Joe Dines

Stage Designer: Lucy Sierra

Lighting Designer: Dan Saggers

Video Designer: Ellie Thompson

thespyinthestalls.com (full review)

"The set design (Lucy Sierra) is well thought out and the soundscape Pete Malkin) compliments the action beautifully.."

Frogman

Curious Directive

Dir: Jack Lowe

Venue: Edinburgh Fringe Festival, UK Tour

Sound Design

Frogman is a part Virtual Reality, part Live Theatre show that was created by Curious Directive, Directed by Jack Lowe.

The Great Barrier Reef, 1995. Meera is 11. It's her first sleepover. Strawberry Dunkaroos, Sega Mega Drive and coral fragment analysis descends into torch-lit storytelling from sleeping bags. Lights off. In the corner, Meera’s aquarium is beginning to glow. Outside over the reef, the Frogman hovers, looking for traces of a missing child. As police search lights refract through the ocean, the annual coral bloom is due, creating an underwater snowstorm. Time is running out. A coming-of-age, supernatural thriller, this is a ground-breaking, world-first theatre experience, experienced in VR headsets from double Fringe First award-winners, curious directive.

We took 3 weeks out in Australia filming the young Meera and her friends and created 4 VR Sequences that take you into the world her younger self. Originally created for Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Frogman is now on tour around the UK.

Creative Team

Director: Jack Lowe

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Associate Sound: Dan Balfour

                                                                                                                                                  Stage Designer: Camilla Clarke

The Kid Stays in the Picture

Complicité

Dir: Simon McBurney

Venue: Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

Sound Design

“There are three sides to every story: my side, your side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently.”

In the 1960s and 70s, Robert Evans became one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood. He saved Paramount Pictures from collapse and produced films including The Godfather and Chinatown.

By the 1980s he was broke, with his personal and professional life spiralling at epic proportions. In 1994 he published his award-winning autobiography, chronicling it all.

Director Simon McBurney explores the rise of the legendary film producer against the backdrop of a changing America through the second half of the 20th century.

Creative Team

Director: Simon McBurney

Co-Director: James Yeatman

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Associate Sound: Ben Grant

Stage Designer: Anna Fleischle

Lighting Designer: Paul Anderson

Video Designer: Simon Wainwright

Costume Designer: Christina Cunningham

BritishTheatre.com (Mark Ludmon) (full review)

"The Kid Stays in the Picture dazzles with sound and vision thanks to video designer Simon Wainwright, lighting designer Paul Anderson and sound designer Pete Malkin."

Spiked-online (Patrick Marmion) (full review)

"Set to Pete Malkin’s hypnotic soundscape of phones, planes and highways, this is also a visual kaleidoscope with shifting perspectives using video cameras and projections. It could so easily become a muddle of hi-tech exhibitionism. But instead it sweeps you along on the tsunami of Evans’ life."

Evening Standard (Henry Hitchings) (full review)

"For a while at the outset we’re confronted with a row of actors speaking into microphones, and it seems as though we’re going to be stuck with something akin to a dry corporate presentation. But before long a swirling collage assembles — combining projections, news cuttings, deft impersonation and carefully curated sound effects to create an absorbing feast of reminiscence."

Plays to See (Luke Davies) (full review)

"the whole production seems to effortlessly glide across space and time, with a constant flow of arresting images and richly detailed sound and movement."

The Encounter - International tour

Complicité

Dir: Simon McBurney

Touring: Australia, New Zealand, USA

Sound Design with Gareth Fry

The Encounter has been and continues to be a huge Sound Design project, after it's Broadway run of at the John Golden Theatre in New York it's now on a tour of Australia and New Zealand, which will be followed by a small Tour of America.

Creative Team

Director/Performer: Simon Mcburney

Co-Director: Kirsty Housley

Sound by: Gareth Fry with Pete Malkin

Stage Designer: Michael Levine

Lighting Designer: Paul Anderson

Video Designer: Will Duke

Assistant Director: Jemima James

New York Times (Ben Brantley) (full review)

"Mr. McBurney and his ace sound designers, Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, have created an aural labyrinth of many layers. You’ll be watching Mr. McBurney’s lips moving in sync with what you’re hearing, only to discover that it’s just a recorded voice you’ve been listening to."

Hollywood Reporter (David Rooney) (full review)

"the production's most astonishing artistry is the infinitely layered enveloping world conjured by sound designers Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin. Close your eyes and you might find yourself reaching for bug spray."

Exuent (Nicole Serratore) (full review)

"the show is heavily reliant on binaural sound to create a sonically immersive environment (the incredibly complex sound design by Gareth Fry and Peter Malkin is a great reason to resuscitate the now-defunct Sound Design Tony award). With the headphones, we have no distance from the events because the show is happening inside our heads. With the intimate power of sound, we give over entirely to what we hear, even if we know it is not real. We’ve been told that’s not an actual recording of a buzzing mosquito and when we hear it later as part of the artificial cacophony of jungle sounds we do not stop and question it."

Talkin Broadway (Matthew Murray) (full review)

"the astonishing sound design by Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, who use a trio of microphones (including a binaural head) to play games with time, space, and thought you probably never thought possible. Echoes repeat and sustain themselves into infinity. Seemingly random noises layer into gorgeous but chilling tapestries outlining entire ecosystems. The British McBurney, simply by angling his head, can conjure an electronic American voice that rings utterly natural. Words transform into memory, which in turn become a wholly different reality, which is itself then subject to McBurney's tiniest whims. And if he wants you to become hot, cold, or despairing, or to escort you to the brink of death, he'll stand in exactly the right place and unleash his utterance in just the right way to ensure you're helpless in his hands. It really is all this precise."

The Tempest

Donmar Warehouse

Dir: Phyllida Lloyd

Venue: St Anns Warehouse, Brooklyn, New York

Sound Design

The Donmar Warehouse returns to St. Ann’s with The Tempest, the finale to Phyllida Lloyd’s thrilling all-female Shakespeare Trilogy. Led by the great Harriet Walter as Prospero, and with songs by the legendary Joan Armatrading, The Tempest takes place in a women’s prison, where Lloyd’s intrepid “inmates” play the roles Shakespeare originally wrote for men. The Tempest proves a moving metaphor, conjuring Prospero’s magical island from the stark prison setting. The result “…is a multilayered act of liberation.” (Ben Brantley, The New York Times)

Creative Team

Director: Phyllida Lloyd

Sound Design: Pete Malkin

Music: Joan Armatrading

Set Designer: Chloe Lamford

Lighting Designer: James Farncombe

Movement Director: Ann Yee

Video Designer: Duncan Mclean

Assistant Director: Ola Ince

Light and Sound America (David Barbour) (full review)

"Pete Malkin is the sound designer this time, and, thanks to him, the isle is full of noises, including hip-hop, EDM, and new age music, in addition to strangely powerful effects -- for example, a slap that is magnified until it sounds like the most murderous of blows."

Zeal NYC (Jil Picariello) (full review)

The sound design by Pete Malkin delivers extra enchantment, particularly the ear-tickling bone-crunching riff of Ariel’s transformations—the first time I found myself waiting impatiently to hear a specific sound in a theater. (And what the talented Jane Anouka does with the sound is a pleasure to the eyes as well.)

Beware of Pity

Complicité

Dir: Simon McBurney

Venue: Barbican Theatre

Sound Design

For the first time in the UK, Beware of Pity was performend on the Barbican stage in Feburary 2017 for 4 performances and streamed live to thousands over Youtube. We originally created this show at the end of 2015 in Berlin and it's played as part of their reporitory of shows since then. After London it will be performed in Paris. 

For dates and Tickets head to the Schaubüne website

Creative Team

Director/Performer: Simon Mcburney

Associate Director: James Yeatman

Sound Design: Pete Malkin

Associate Sound: Ben Grant

Stage Designer: Anna Fleischle

Lighting Designer: Paul Anderson

Video Designer: Will Duke

Evening Standard (Henry Hitchings) (full review)

"While the production contains a few scenes that dazzle the eye, notably a montage of wartime atrocities, visually this isn’t as rich as much of Complicite’s previous work. Instead it’s Pete Malkin’s layered soundscape that does most to create the piece’s psychological and historical density."

The Independent (Paul Taylor) (full review)

"The production is a miracle of musicality as it coordinates live video projections, archive footage (of, say, the ballerinas masochistically fan-worshipped by Edith), a powerful soundscape (Mahlerian yearning, a thudding heart), and dazzling montages and gifs that rattle us towards our own time of European division and a refugee crisis."

The Guardian (Michael Billington) (full review)

"The earth-pounding bustle of a cavalry drill is suggested through stylised movement and Pete Malkin’s sound score."