Photo by Anna Levin

“There is no beauty without some strangeness”

Edgar Allen Poe

A performance art theatre adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s elegy to loneliness, grief, and transformation.

A man sits alone, wrapped in memory and inertia. Like Pinocchio or Poe’s haunted narrator, he is not quite real—flickering at the edges of his own shape. Surrounded by old books and flickering screens, he ruminates, overstimulated and under-chased. In today’s world, he might be obsessively scrolling for bad news, caught in the endless echo of digital noise. Until—something taps. A bird enters. And death, or something stranger, arrives.

The Raven is a solo multimedia performance that reimagines Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic poem for the contemporary moment. Blending physical theatre, poetic text, and live video, the work teeters between theatre and performance art, asking: What is it that’s frozen within us? What part of ourselves cannot move on? What knocks, asking to be transformed?

Created and performed by Charles Sandford, The Raven speaks to the haunted spaces of modern life: isolation, grief, technology, and the possibility of becoming whole again. It is both an elegy and an invitation.

The Team:

Lead artist & writer: Charles Sandford. Somatic Dramaturgy & Direction: Mary Pearson. Production Manager Rhianna Compton. Photographers: Anna Levin, Luke Bryant & Rhianna Compton. 

Creation Periods so far: 2023: Two creation periods with Animikii Theatre & Eden’s Cave Company. 2024: R&D at Bidston Observatory. 2025: Up Next Fest! Scratch Performance @ The Unity Theatre

Developing The Raven with The Unity Theatre & Artistic Director Eli Randle.

“What haunts us is something that seeks its own disappearance, it wants to become fully itself and so depart.”