Here’s a lovely review from our Brighton launch.
Production pics and review
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Sneak preview pics!
I have just got back from tech in our beeeautiful tent. It’s looking pretty incredible. The whole tech and art team have worked with astonishing speed. Gemma is a miracle director turned understudy turned bee turned detective. Her and Dan are just great together as bickering bruv and sis. No pics of the Queen Bee yet – you will just have to trust me that she is truly wonderful and gorge, the best queen bee ever, and I can’t wait for you to meet and greet her. The animations are jaw dropping and the vibrating floor is supercool. I’m so pleased.
We open this weekend at Brighton Fest.
I will blog more soon. Must rest my broken wing. Thanks to my terp Mo Bergson for the snaps.
Sophie Bee (Gemma Fairlie) and Barnabee ( Daniel Alun)
One Wing Sophie
Yesterday I broke my shoulder in a cycling accident on the way to rehearsals. I’m OK and feel very glad to be alive. Seeing as our play opens at Brighton Festival next Saturday 5 May, we all agreed that the best plan is to go on with the show. But playing a scout bee is very physical work and I need time to heal properly. Director Gemma Fairlie has very generously stepped in to fill my waggle dress and beehive wig and will wear my wings of steel when we open.
After spending half the day in casualty I returned to Bee Detective HQ and saw our beeautiful tent for the first time. Gemma gently broke the news to me that we’d have to take me out of the role until Cardiff Unity Festival. I was disappointed of course, but I wrote the show, which means I’ll always be in it even if I’m not onstage. And I’ll be able to watch one of my own plays for the first time ever. I’m so proud of it, and of how my talented co-bees have taken to their roles, and Gemma will be a brill detective, so I’m confident the children will adore it with or without me.
In fact the day before my accident we did a run through in front of a class of discerning 6-7 year olds in South London. Even without the set or full costumes, they absolutely loved it and really wanted to get involved and help Sophie Bee solve the mystery. They picked up the waggle dance right away and at one point in a CSI scene a kid shouted, “Wow! Magic bees!”
As I type this blog with one wing in a sling, Gemma is speed learning my lines, and practising the signs. We’ve created such a dazzling, ambitious, funny and joyous show, there is no way we can give up now. Not after so much work by all the bees behind the scenes and onstage.
Help us spread the buzz – we are working so hard,and against the clock in order to bring you a ground breaking, creatively accessible play. Calling all children forager bees! We have a mystery to solve!
Exclusive sneak preview of Queen Bee’s eggs
Rehearsal report – week 2: I’m the writer AND I play the detective in the show itself, which means I’m a very busy bee right now. But I can’t claim to as busy as a queen bee, who spends almost her entire life laying eggs, day in day out.
Some of the Queen Bee’s eggs for the show arrived this week! Our hive Queen Bee (Chris Morgan) will reside in a ball pool for most of the play, laying these ‘eggs’: 
There are two other fabulous actors in the show, Chris Morgan and Daniel Alun. Two weeks into rehearsals and I’m still fine tuning the script as the director, Gemma leads us all through each scene in depth.
Guess who?
This afternoon I’m memorising all my lines in both English and sign language. In the show we speak and sign the lines – at the same time. This means deaf children can follow the show as well as hearing. Daryl Jackson is working as our sign language monitor, to help us adapt the script into stage and child-friendly signs. The show is fully subtitled every date too! Our animator, James Merry is working round the clock to create beautiful animations to go with the subtitles.
Please help us spread the word about the show! We are at 4 festivals this summer. Share this trailer with all your friends! Zanx and zee you at the show. :Bz
Beehive wigs & bee arms
Rehearsals are now under way at a secret London location. I spent many happy hours this week watching Queen Bee and Barnabee (her son) rehearse, using the Honey Acting Technique, under the genius direction of Gemma Fairlie.
strictly come waggle dancing
Honey bees communicate the location of nectar sources (flowers) to each other by waggle dancing. It’s like sat nav, but more disco. As a scout bee, dancing is an important part of my character in the show.
While my co bees enjoyed an afternoon off, on Friday, Gemma put me through waggle dance boot camp. My character (Sophie Bee) is “the best waggle dancer in the world”. And Oh My Beez do I have a lot of dance practise to do! The dance is very nize howev, and one that all the human children can join in with during the show.
beehive wigs
Kat the designer popped in with our bee arms so we could try them out. No pics yet but I will post some when they are finished. The Queen Bee and I also tried on our beehive wigs. THEY ARE AMAZZING. The Queen looked stunning, and everyone had tears in their eyes and spontaneously applauded when she put it on.
Her majesty’s wig is taller than mine, with precious jewels, but mine is platinum blond, with dark stripes. I can’t wait to make an entrance on stage! As you probably know, blond striped beehive wigs are an essential accessory for top bee detectives.
Big thanks to the Guardian newspaper for the beeeautiful plug this week. I love the way they dub the show a ‘bee extravaganza’.
Right back to my Strictly Come Waggle dance practice.
Buzz and out.
Latest insider gossip from the production squad
The director says we must have a ball pool in the show to represent the Queen Bee’s eggs. Gemma wants some bee ‘eggs’ to light up. Bob the AV chap suggested ‘throwies’. These look like massive fun.
No idea if these things will make it into the final set, but I’m crossing my wings.
Talking of wings, Kat, the designer has commissioned wings of steel for Queen Bee, Barnabee and me. They have to be sturdy and robust to withstand three shows per day during the tour, so the frames will be made of steel.
James Merry’s bee animations will be projected onto hexagon shapes during the show.Director Gemma Fairlie said, “The whole design is bee-d up to the max (all the props are going to be “bimped” – bee pimped) and it will be a fun game to spot how many objects in the show have the hexagon shape. The set is being built soon – and appropriate wallpaper and curtains sourced from Homebuzz and Bee and Q.”
Gemma later apologised for the bee puns, but it was too late.
Today’s top tip from our projection expert Bob Jaroc: “You never project black; you project an empty vortex of time.” Troo say. 
On a lighter note, Will, our lighting chap is buying me some disco lights for my waggle dance disco stage. Ah, ha, ha, ha, Staying Alive/ Got the wings of heaven on my shoes. I’m a dancin’ bee and I just can’t lose. (Stolen Bee Gees lyrics, and not my actual lines).
The nize weather we’ve been having is annoying. The hosepipe ban means we might have to use concrete ballasts to pitch our tent if the ground is too hard. I’ve offered to do a rain waggle dance, which will sort the problem out.
I hope that gives you some idea of some of the complex and magic elements that are going in to making this show THE MOST AMAZZING BEE DETECTIVE SHOW in the world.
Don’t forget to share our trailer far and wide!
Casting announcement – Sophie Bee, Queen Bee and Barnabee
Huzzah! We are very happy to announce the cast for Bee Detective. There are three main characters in this thrilling murder mystery.
Sophie Bee (Sophie Woolley)
Brave, intrepid, adventurous scout bee, thrill seeker
Likes: Waggle dancing and flying outside looking for nectar
Hates: Lies and wasps.
Queen Bee (Chris Morgan)
A vain, workaholic egg layer of few words, mother to 40,000 (including Sophie and Barnabee).
Likes: Her birthday
Hates: Children
Barnabee (Daniel Alun)
Playful, lazy, jealous of his big sisters, especially Sophie Bee.
Likes: BeeBook, marching and honey.
Hates: Bears and worker bee waggle dancing
We start rehearsals in April, directed by Gemma Fairlie with Bee Sign Language monitoring from Daryl Jackson. Watch our amazing animated trailer!
Check out our tour dates. The show premiers at Brighton Festival 5-7 May.
Goo and the living chain – beehive theatre engineering
As we countdown to rehearsals, the production team are in a huddle of deeply technical discussion about set design, including our beehive honeycomb cells.
Three of these hexagon-shaped cells will screen the animation and subtitles (to help bring the hive alive, and tell some visual jokes, but also to make it accessible to deaf kids and deaf mums and dads)
The team have discussed whether to paint the hexagon surface with “goo”, a specially made reflective paint for projecting onto. But of all the surface options, Bob, the Audio Visual Builder reckons, “matt white ply seems to be the production manager’s weapon of choice.”
The animation projection talk is VERY technical. Here’s an example (look away now if you are allergic to maths):
“The 2 hexagons need to be combined into a 2048 x 768 file (see hexagons 2s up) as that is what is played out of the show mac then split to the 2 projectors. I have tested pro-res (LT) @80 with 5 uncompressed audio channels @ 44.1 and it runs smooth of the show mac so 2048 x 768 pro res LT @80 are your magic numbers.”
Ok you can look again now. Woohoo! Easy peasy pal, no problemo. I’ve got my pencil in my mouth and my finger on the calculator. I’ll have that sorted for you in a jiffy.
This deeply technical collaboration and set design chatter reminds me of the way bees build a new hive. They form a “living chain” that looks a bit like a dangling daisy chain. It’s like a web of bees all standing on each other’s shoulders, holding hands, and doing a circus trick, whilst building a honeycomb live-work complex. Some are like engineers, and some are like gymnasts.
The start of this ace bee documentary shows how bees construct a hive.
The YouTube subtitles are pretty good on it. Don’t forget to check out our animated trailer and share the buzz far and wide!
Casting announcement: The villain.
This honey bee enemy (a varroa destructor mite) is so vile and evil I can hardly bring myself to blog about him. It was really hard to cast this character. We auditioned thousands of talented baddies for the role but one mite stood out in particular. I am “delighted” to announce the baddy in Bee Detective will be played by General Destructor.
Portrait by James Merry. We cannot publish a photo for legal reasons.
Sorry…give me a minute…no sorry I have to stop now, I feel zick. Bzzzluuuurarghh 
Costume and set sneak preview
Bee Detective designer Kat Heath measured me for my costume yezterday. The sketches look amazzing. Here is a sneak preview!
Now Kat has the actor’s measurements she is buying material to sew the costumes together. The Queen will have sequins on her dress, and I’m a bit jel. But we both have beehive hair, and I’m the only bee in the world with a magnifying glass.
Here is Kat’s model for the set. She has to make precise calculations to make sure the honeycomb screens are the right height for the projector. The subtitles and animations will be projected onto three of the honeycomb screens across the stage.
