Shortly after we kicked off Boudicca Productions (or Boop, as we called it), we began talking about a logo. Or, more accurately, something we could actually put on our social media that made us look like a production company rather than two people who had typed our name into Canva.
When I started scratching my head about what I could send Holly that was a little more considered than “Boudicca Productions” in Comic Sans inside a tiny Instagram profile-picture bubble, I thought it was worth stepping back.
Rather than starting with 'what the logo should look like', I started with 'what do I want people to take away from what we do?'
What do we want Boudicca to represent?
As a child, I had an illustrated children’s book about the Romans in Britain, and somewhere in the pages was a picture of Boudicca that I remember being spellbound by.
She was tall, with wild, almost ridiculous red hair and a very good glare (in hindsight, she looked very much like my mother), but what I really remember was the spear.
It was this long, jade-green spear that she held tightly at her side. Now, I have absolutely no idea how historically accurate that spear was, and, having subsequently done approximately five minutes of research, I suspect the answer is not very. But in my childhood imagination it was completely real.
It was beautiful. Deep green, with gold wrought-iron-looking embellishments, almost as though it had been pulled out of an enchanted forest or a fairytale. But it wasn't delicate. It was dirty. There were smudges of earth and what looked, to my childhood eyes, suspiciously like dried blood.
So, quoting my highly respected and thoroughly researched primary source, the DK book about the Romans that I owned as a child, Boudicca had a spear and, apparently, she had a pretty great one.
Then, as I fell down the rabbit hole of Celtic spears on Google Images, I found myself liking the idea of the spear becoming something beyond a reference to Boudicca herself. Because there is something quite fitting about a spear as a symbol for what we want Boudicca Productions to do.
We want to throw the industry forward.
We want to make work, create opportunities and build spaces that move things onward, rather than simply accepting the status quo. We want to question the theatre culture around us, make room for different voices, and create a creative environment that feels richer, more inclusive and more welcoming to people who have historically found themselves outside of the industry’s norms.
And we don't just want to do that for ourselves.
One day, when our children, and children of our friends, colleagues and collaborators start making their own way into this industry, I want them to inherit something better than what we were handed.
Something more generous.
Something more open.
Something that has learned from the people who came before it, and grown for the better.
The spear became a symbol of that.
Boudicca raised a spear against an invading force. We aren't planning an actual rebellion, as dramatic as I tend to be! But we are interested in that same spirit of resistance, courage and forward movement.
So, in a wonderful full-circle moment, the fairytale spear from my children's book now sits above my theatre company's logo, reminding me of where we came from and, most importantly, where we are going to go and, hopefully, leaving the industry with a slightly better spear than the one we were handed.