The language of appearances: adapting Berger and Mohr’s Another Way of Telling

Pinchbeck, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8444-5549 and Babbage, Frances (2024) The language of appearances: adapting Berger and Mohr’s Another Way of Telling. In: BAFTSS “Adaptation Beyond Film”, 3 June 2025 - 3 June 2025, University of Birmingham. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This paper examines the challenges of adapting works which feature both images and verbal text as representational devices. Our discussion centres on adaptation for the theatre, and, unusually in this context, our focus is on the capacity of performance to respond to non-fiction sources: specifically here, a series of books by artist-writer-critic John Berger co-authored with photographer Jean Mohr. Michael Pinchbeck is a theatre-maker who, between 2018 and 2024, presented a performance trilogy inspired by Berger and Mohr’s books, A Fortunate Man, A Seventh Man and Another Way of Telling.