About Time Keeps The Drummer

All you have to do is hang out with a three-year-old to have a different way of thinking about time.

Jenny OdellSaving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock

This is special… Fevered Sleep’s new production lets young people speak their minds… Young people’s hopes and fears for the future are expressed in a raw, compelling performance

The Stage, about We Are Not Finished at The Place, 2021

EARLY BIRD OFFER: limited tickets available – book now to save!

Time Keeps The Drummer is a durational show all about time, performed by ten children aged eight to eleven. A single adult drummer playing a motion capture drumkit represents the ceaseless beat of clock time, which can only be experienced through the headphones provided.

Through movement, improvisation, projection, music and lighting, the young performers offer their audiences an opportunity to witness an ever-evolving experience. Each performance is shaped in real-time, making every show different and unique.

Audiences are free to come and go as they please throughout the duration of the piece, to linger, to rest, and to reflect. Time Keeps The Drummer evolves throughout the day, offering an opportunity to slow down, engage, and enjoy time in all its unpredictable forms.

With original compositions by composer Mariam Rezaei, this durational performance for family audiences invites you to experience time on your own terms. Ignore the ticking of the clock and step into a space where time is fluid, joyful and chaotic – full of wild abandon and limitless possibility.

Audiences must book an entry time so that they'll get priority entry to the space if it's at capacity. Because there may be queues at various points, the entry times are there to ensure you get the best experience possible, rather than restrict you to a specific time. You're welcome to come and go as you please throughout the piece.


Cast and Creatives

Direction, choreography, design, sound design: Sam Butler & David Harradine

Music: Mariam Rezaei

Original movement direction: Ashley Jordan

Design: Bob Price

Lighting: Hansjörg Schmidt

Production management: Sam Evans

A Fevered Sleep Production.

Commissioned & Co-Produced by WestK.

Co-commissioned and presented by The Place, ArtsDepot, FABRIC, Cambridge Junction.

Thanks to: Yorkshire Dance and ArtsDepot for supporting R&D & Origination of work.

About Fevered Sleep

Established in London, UK in 1996 by artistic directors Samantha Butler and David Harradine, Fevered Sleep makes experimental work in theatre and dance, film, installation, print and digital art.

All our projects are made through processes of collaboration, participation and co-creation. We’ve worked with performers, designers, artists, scientists, doctors, teachers, vets, philosophers, social workers, all sorts of other adults and many, many children. We see our creative process as a kind of research: a way to investigate and reimagine the complex and extremely challenging world in which we live. We're committed to social and environmental justice, to radical politics, to the rights of the non-human, to advocacy and to change.

Our work draws attention to the marginalised, the unseen and the overlooked, by inventing new kinds of spaces that bring people together to share their experiences of things that matter. We’re trying to make the world a more caring, curious, compassionate place, one unlikely art project at a time.

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  • : EARLY BIRD - LIMITED AVAILABILITY. Book Now
  • : EARLY BIRD - LIMITED AVAILABILITY. Book Now
  • : EARLY BIRD - LIMITED AVAILABILITY. Book Now