The message of Pilot’s production is not just for young adults but for all ages and all times. Ultimately, though, the writing, combined with committed performances from the cast, soul-shakingly communicates the truthfulness of the characters’ experiences.

Zana Fraillon builds a convincing and complete world. Puppets are laughter-raising (a toy duck) and terrifying (bird skull-wearing soldiers) masked characters bring to moving life the story-within-the-story, written by Jimmie’s late mother and read to the illiterate girl by Subhi.Īt times, S Shakthidharan’s adaptation feels shaky, more like a sequence of scenes than a fully developed drama. Praise for the novel, The Bone Sparrow: With an affecting and distinctive narrative voice. But as he grows, his imagination gets bigger too, until it is bursting at the limits of his world. Video projections illustrate tales being told (seascapes, skyscapes, the eponymous bird realised by Daniel Denton and Maha Alomari). The Bone Sparrow won the 2017 ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children. Born in an Australian permanent detention centre after his mother fled the violence of a distant homeland, life behind the fences is all he has ever known. The stage picture powerfully counterpoints impressions of confinement and freedom: Miriam Nabarro’s set silhouettes space-enclosing wire fences against the seemingly endless, colour-washed horizons suggested by Ben Cowens’s lighting. Presentationally, director Esther Richardson’s production is impressive.

It does, but not before vicious guard Beaver (Mackenzie Scott) has taken a terrible revenge. As the pair share their stories, Queenie and Somali refugee Eli (Elmi Rashid Elmi) take surreptitious photographs to send to the press in the hope that the unfolding story of appalling conditions within the camp will reach the outer world. The Bone Sparrow is a beautiful, heartbreaking, hopeful and deeply moving novel that explores a tragic and relevant topic with incredibly skill.

The bone sparrow book