“Something Wonderful in My Back Yard”

“Something Wonderful in My Back Yard”, or “SWIMBY”, was originally conceived by producer Chloe Uden with the working title: “Transition Town – The Musical”. It tackles a very different subject to your common-or-garden musical: how do a motley group of ordinary, argumentative people persuade their make-do-and-mend, muddle-through market town to embrace community food and energy schemes and become more resilient? It was written by poet Matt Harvey and composer Thomas Hewitt Jones.

Early on in the process, I bumped into Matt at the Renewable Energy Marketplace show, and tickled his fancy with “Particulart” and the poetry of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin. The idea was born for a character spending the musical on stage knitting carbon dioxide. And so “Particulart” and the pattern for knit-your-own carbon dioxide is featured in the SWIMBY musical songbook. Check out page 37!