From January 2013- April 2014, Polly and her collaborators Tamar Williams, Neil Jackson and Shan Bansil undertook an extended exploration of the Greek myth of Icarus. 

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Transposing it to a Victorian music hall and then again to a labyrinthine factory, they wrestled with this ancient story of human hubris - developing the voices of women that the original versions of the Icarus story ignore and experimenting with a theatrical form that combined spontaneous storytelling with script and physical theatre.

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Preview performances took place at Minerva Works Birmingham in November 2013 and an extract of the work was performed as part of the Birmingham Rep Foundry Showcase in January 2014. A further script-in-hand sharing for an invited audience took place that April in Birmingham Rep's rehearsal room.

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The extended rehearsal process and the performances formed a crucial period in Polly's development of a new approach to theatre-making which combined devising, new writing and traditional, unscripted, storytelling.

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Ever since, Polly hasn't been able to leave the Icarus story alone. She has continued to play with its themes, and, in 2024, she began to re-develop her script, with support from NCACE and RCS Innovation Studio, into a new play, working-title BRIGHT CHILDREN.

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