CURRENT PROJECTS:

At the beginning of 2021 Maggie spent 8 weeks in a Motion Capture Studio as a member of THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY’s DREAM ensemble, in which they performed the role of Cobweb.

DREAM was a live performance set in a virtual midsummer forest. Inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, giving audiences the unique opportunity to directly influence the live performance, from wherever they were in the world.

DREAM used the latest gaming and theatre technology, as well as an interactive symphonic score which responds to the actors’ movement during the show.

Under the shadow of gathering clouds at dusk, lit by the glimmer of fireflies, Puck acts as the guide. You’re invited to explore the forest from the canopy of the trees to the roots, meet the sprites, Cobweb, Mustardseed, Peaseblossom and Moth, and take an extraordinary journey into the eye of a cataclysmic storm.

For more information see DREAM.ONLINE

Maggie demonstrates Cobweb

PEKING NOIR is a 6 x 20min episode BBC Radio: Drama of the Week.

You can listen here or on the BBC SOUNDS app.

“This riveting drama documentary follows a true story that’s clouded in mystery.” RADIO TIMES ☆☆☆☆☆

“Riveting…perfect listening for a long winter’s night.” DAILY MAIL ☆☆☆☆☆

Whatever anyone declared categorically about Shura Giraldi, someone else insisted on the exact opposite. Shura was handsome and beautiful; Shura was kind and good, Shura was exploitative and evil. Shura was just another struggling White Russian refugee trying to get by in 1930s China; Shura was the heart and brains of a gang that ran clubs, sex workers, illicit booze and drugs, when not robbing banks and stealing gems to fence in Shanghai. Shura loved ballet and cabaret, creating the Shura Giraldi Dance Troupe that topped the bill at all the best Peking nightclubs.

Shura sometimes presented as male and sometimes as female. Switching for anonymity, for commercial gain or criminal advantage, for love, for a whim.

Paul French is a historian and writer. He’s been on Shura’s trail for 15 years, digging through the paper records and archives in half a dozen countries in an attempt to get to grips with the enigma that was Shura. This story, a product of that tireless research, is full of truths, but like an old jigsaw brought down from the attic after decades, there are many pieces missing. So we’re using drama, written by Sarah Wooley, to conjure and join the dots of Shura’s story, and go in search of a lost life and a forgotten world.

The search will take us from a Russian far east in violent revolution, to the chaos of the mass emigration of the White Russians, to the crowded hutongs of Peking; from that city’s nightclubs and cabarets, to the casinos of Shanghai; from a China wracked by rampaging warlordism, invaded by Japan, and then fighting its own civil war that culminated in its own revolution.

Shura saw it all; Shura lived through it all; Shura, in part, explains it all.

Cast: Maggie Bain, Leo Wan, Daniel York Loh, Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Charlotte East, Luke Nunn, Cecilia Appiah, Ian Dunnett Jnr, Roger Ringrose, Jane Whittenshaw