A new play celebrating Alan Turing premiered at Aberystwyth Arts Centre This year is the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, commonly known for his code breaking work during the war, widely considered the father of computer science and artificial intelligence and maybe lesser known for his work in mathematical biology. Throughout the country events have been celebrating the life of Alan Turing including a UK wide project which saw sunflowers being grown to test Turing’s theory that sunflower heads featured Fibonacci sequences, a theory that was left untested due to his death in 1954. Many areas of science were impacted by his work and it is undeniable that he left an outstanding legacy to many scientific fields. Audiences in Aberystwyth are in the unique position of being able to see a new play about Alan Turing premiered at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Wednesday, 28th November. Though many writers have attempted to tell Alan Turing’s story in film, theatre and prose, Welsh playwright Catrin Fflur Huws set herself the challenge of telling the story of Alan Turing from a very different perspective. Catrin Fflur Huws said of writing the play, “I went on a visit to Bletchley Park last summer and because of the way the National Codes and Cipher Centre was set out to tell the story of Alan Turing’s life, the parallels with the Easter story struck me. In that Alan Turing was the hero who was villified and then resurrected. His pioneering work during the war made him into a hero and then his conviction for gross indecency which saw him villified followed by his suicide which at the time would have had a level of social stigma. When Gordon Brown sent the official apology with the very poignant closing line of, “Sorry, you deserved so much better” it became a sort of resurrection. Whatever your religious perspective that’s a very poignant story arc and I thought somebody should write a play about that because it’s great story.” Sandra Bendelow from Scriptography Productions said, “I wanted to see the play produced from the moment Catrin started to talk about her idea. Catrin has achieved something quite astonishing in this play in creating a representation of his life story that would satisfy the most ardent of Alan Turing fanatics, whilst explaining some quite complex Alan Turing theories whilst also telling an amazing love story which questions the meaning of humanity and the importance of freedom. “ To book contact Aberystwyth Arts Centre 01970 62 32 32 or go online www.aber.ac.uk/artscentre |
| Aberystwyth arts Centre web site: www.aber.ac.uk/artscentre |
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Tuesday, October 30, 2012 |
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