The story begins when Edward Wren and Claire Harvey met at university in Winchester.

After discovering a shared passion for storytelling, live music and puppetry Ed presented Claire with a text he had written years before based upon his experiences in his family (which was later to become NSDF 07 success 'The Ordinaries in...an awkward silence') and so auditioned some students at the University to become the first cast of The Ordinaries. With no budget and no real idea of how to put on a production we entered the show into NSDF 06 (National Student Drama Festival http://www.nsdf.org.uk/) but did not get accepted into the festival. Shortly after this the show was entirely re-written, recast and re-entered into NSDF 2007, under the company title 'The River People'. It was accepted into the festival, received some very positive feedback and awards (see 'Shows' section) and from this the company were offered a short colleges and schools tour of the midlands and most remarkably a slot at The Bedlam Theatre (http://www.bedlamfringe.co.uk/) at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival that same year.

At the 2007 Fringe Ed and Claire were surprised to recieve such positive feedback, and most surprisingly, a Total Theatre Award shortlisting for 'Best emerging Company'. After the Fringe and the mini tour 'The Ordinaries' and their sofa were put to bed (well, Ed smashed the sofa up in the garden), and in early 2008 ideas for a new show were bubbling for Ed and Claire, again based upon real events, but this time in Claire's family, the death of her Father in 2004.

Not wanting to struggle as much with finances this time, we applied for a small research and development grant from the Arts Council, in conjunction with the Arts Council's 'No Strings Attached' scheme (http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/subjects/project_detail.php?sid=15&id=1008) with some help from The Farnham Maltings. This enabled us to buy materials for set and puppets, and to pay everyone for the new show, titled 'Lilly through the dark' for a two week period.

After presenting a scratch showing at the end of the 2 weeks, the show was further developed and performed at The Farnham Maltings before heading up to The Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it received some fantastic reviews, award nominations, feedback and some sell out shows.

After the Fringe, the company had atttracted the attention of The Point Theatre in Eastleigh, who offered Ed and Claire the chance to be Quartered Artists at the venue for a year, an opportunity that we soon accepted.

We have since re-designed 'Lilly' and taken her on a second outing to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where we had a sell out run. We were also very happy to receive a Total Theatre Award for 'Best Emerging Company' and also the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize, which awards us a bit of money to bring a work in progress performance up to the International Festival next year!

Which was very nice.

So we have been here at The Point for nigh on a year, and have plans to stay here for a bit longer on the 'home from home' scheme. We also plan to tour 'Lilly' in summer 2010 with Arts Council funding...so look out for us if you're down south.

Finding ourselves in 2010 Ed, Claire and the rest of The River People have had a strange few years trying to find our way in the theatre world, but it seems that some people really like what we're doing, so we reckon we'll carry on for a bit...