There are several things that theatre company imitating the dog does not lack: innovation, bravery, boundary stretching notions of what theatre can be and directors. Unusually, the Lancaster-based company, which has been making work for more than a quarter of a century, has three artistic directors at its helm in Pete Brooks, Andrew Quick and Simon Wainwright. 

So why on earth bring in a new director for the company’s latest show? When it comes to people who can sit in the director’s chair of any show, imitating the dog has an embarrassment of riches, surely? 

When you meet him, it quickly becomes obvious that Tyrone Huggins is the perfect person to direct the company’s latest show.

“I know Pete and Andrew from years back, I co-founded a company with Pete Brooks called Impact Theatre in Leeds and I also did some set building work for Andrew in Leeds,” says Huggins, a highly regarded actor, writer and director.

“When they started working on their new show, they felt they needed an outside director and in particular a Black director and they say they thought of me immediately,” says a clearly flattered Huggins.

“I’ve also just finished a three year associate director role at Forced Entertainment in Sheffield and I’ve seen a lot of imitating the dog’s work so I seemed like a good fit, but I think what it really is, is that I’ve got reasonable experience of going into a company of established artists and not frightening them too much.” 

The new show, which Huggins and imitating the dog have been discussing since September last year, is typically fascinating; the company has a knack for telling stories that can’t help but intrigue an audience. 

All Blood Runs Red tells the extraordinary true story of Eugene Bullard. One of the first African-American military fighter pilots, he served with the French Flying Corps and was one of only a handful of Black fighter pilots to fight in the First World War. He went on to serve in World War Two, and acted as a spy against Hitler’s regime. His eclectic CV also reveals that Bullard was a circus entertainer, boxer, nightclub owner, jazz drummer and civil rights activist.

Regular imitating the dog collaborator Morgan Bailey, an actor who has appeared in a number of ITD shows including Heart of Darkness and Night of the Living Dead - Remix, first came across the story of Bullard when he was cast to play an American GI in a film being shot in France.

 “I think there were moments, during the filming, when it became clear that the filmmakers didn’t have a perspective on the way Morgan saw himself as a Black actor. And some of these moments thread their way through this piece. It was during the publicity period of the movie that Morgan met Pete and Andrew in Paris and they talked about Eugene Bullard and his experience some hundred years earlier in that city. So these strands form the basis of this show: Bullard’s autobiography, Morgan’s experience of making a film in France and the lunch in Paris where the discussion takes place.” 

When he came on board in September last year, Huggins felt it was a perfect coming together.

 “I hadn’t worked with Pete since something like 1985, so revisiting that relationship was something I was interested in. Then I started to discover the extraordinary story of Eugene Bullard, and there was also the story of Morgan and the character he was playing in the movie, so we are blending all three of those stories together,” says Huggins.

 It sounds like the kind of work that is typically challenging in all good ways from ITD. Since the very start the company has blended technology, digital, sound design with theatre to really push, poke and provoke exactly what theatre is and what theatre is for. 

Huggins says: “I’m really excited about going into the room. Some of what the company does is theatre that I haven’t experienced making before, so I’m mystified by some of it.

 “Having said that I have created work using digital technology before, I’d say two thirds of my work is new work and in doing that, trying to bring into theatre new techniques. I wrote a play in 1994, which was my first digital theatre piece, back then. It was called Sounds in Session and it was three characters in an old recording studio trying to create a piece of music: a producer, an engineer working on a computer and a singer, and I was looking at the idea of if the creativity was in the people or the technology. It was written as a 12 track album and looking at the idea of using sound as a digital thing. The screen of the sound booth I set up as a projection screen so at the end you saw a promo video of the song that the computer made them make.” 

If you’ve been paying attention to imitating the dog, and it’s been increasingly difficult to miss them in recent years, you’ll know that’s exactly the kind of technological-theatre blend the company has been exploiting. So if Huggins did this in 1994, does that mean he’s essentially been waiting 30 years for this opportunity?

He says: “It does feel like a match made in heaven. They say they trust me, so we’ll see what happens when we all get in the room together.”

See All Blood Runs Red on the 7th & 8th March. 

Get your tickets here!