Allen Charlton, Gisele Edwards
Invasion
In 1881, an amateur botanist Augustine Henry left Britain to join the China Customs Service. Posted to Hubei, near Wuhan, he collected plants to send home to Kew Gardens. One was Buddleja Davidii which, once marketed and planted in Britain’s gardens for its blooms, went viral as each plant’s million seeds took flight in spring transforming waste ground nationwide into a purple thatch. It was hated as an invasive species, and even today clogs the nation’s railway corridors. But with WW2 bombsites transformed from depressing eyesores into rashes of colour, the public’s relationship with Buddleja changed. Today, it competes in the eyes of many for the title of Britain’s national flower. Gisele’s slow-motion meditation on trans-plants transformation from nemeses to national treasures is a viral elegy.
Available August 30
Allen Charlton 
Gisele Edwards
Allen Charlton – Creator and Editor/Director
Allen Charlton edits documentaries for UK and US television and cinema. Recent films include BBC’s “The Man Who Saw Too Much” on writer / holocaust survivor Boris Pahor and episodes of ORMedia’s “Iran Iraq War.” Cinema projects include “The Capote Tapes,” premiered in 2019’s Toronto International Film Festival. Past strands include Storyville, Witness, Timewatch, Arena, Omnibus, Equinox, Frontline and Imagine. Awards and nominations include Griersons, Emmies, RTS Indies, Rose D’Ors, Bafta, Focal, Montreal
FIFA, and CineGold. He has worked with many theatre performers and with Gisele on two previous pieces for theatre.
Gisele Edwards – Creator and Conception
Gisele is a rope artist and theatre maker. She trained at CSSD, National Centre for Circus Arts and L’école Jacques Lecoq, Paris. Accolades include: London Symphony Orchestra commission (St Lukes); Juno in Trevor Nunn’s The Tempest (Theatre Royal, Haymarket); shortlisted for the European Jeunes Talents competition; winner/shortlisted Festival of Firsts (Linbury Studios, Royal Opera House, 2007/2010); Lauréat at the Centre International des Récollets, Paris; winner of the Jerwood Prize for Circus and has worked with Clod Ensemble, Theatre de Complicité, Shunt, Dante and Kosmos Quartets and in the Millennium Dome
Show. Gisele holds a degree in Chinese from Cambridge University.
Virtual Collaborators 