It is the first day of The Edinburgh International Book Festival and the gardens at Charlotte Square are filled with book lovers, all eager to see what this years festival has to offer. The 2016 programme is full of diverse events, readings, performances and surprises. One stand out event during the opening day is a live performance and illustration show called Alpha. This event takes place in a special strand in this years festival called Migrant Stories. Different narratives on migration are presented and Alpha fits neatly in to this section.
French Illustrator Barroux and performer Thierry Lawson have teamed up to bring the story of Alpha to life. A graphic novel of the same name has recently been translated by Sarah Ardizzone and released by Edinburgh based publisher Barrington Stoke. Today we are celebrating the release. The story focuses on a man called Alpha and his journey from Abidjan, Ivory Coast to Paris, France. On this trip he meets various interesting people and has to overcome a variety of challenges and difficult situations.
The audience get the unique chance to witness Barroux bring his illustrations to life. He sits behind a desk and has his ink, pens, paper and washes in front of him. As he draws his actions are filmed and projected on a large screen to the back of the stage. The drawings are loose and free and have an animated and tangible feel. At times the artist picks up a pair of scissors and cuts up the drawings and sticks the cut-outs to small rods. The drawings then have a new life, as cut-out puppet cars and people move across the screen. This underlines the movement and displacement we are experiencing and compliments Thierry Lawson’s brilliant spoken word storytelling.
In a way it is a shame that this event only occurs once during the Edinburgh festival season. With the Fringe on at the moment the show would easily translate to a theatre space, where multiple performances would allow it to reach an even greater audience. The graphic novel version of Alpha manages to capture the energy of the illustrations and more importantly the tone and significance of the story. This ensures the story of Alpha will have a noteworthy and long life after this unique and imaginative event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.