reviews

'There are countless magical flourishes hidden inside Horvat’s deceptively simple looking set. As the sky turns blue, Wort pulls some dusky blue sheets from the ceiling and hangs them, sweeping, across the stage.'

' Fiammetta Horvat’s set is essentially a blank page: a canopied stage-space washed in white. As the day draws on, vegetation flourishes throughout the set and Wort whips off her white coat to reveal a grass-green dress. Little flashes of orange burst through the costume.'

Wow said the owl. 2016. Mirriam Gillison.  The Guardian

'Fiammetta Horvat’s white set slowly reveals its secrets from pockets and places around the stage, until it is filled with a rainbow.

Horvat’s clever set and Wort’s performance creates a production that is profoundly simple but not simplistic.'

'The theme is colour and the very clever and simple stage set comes to life showing the audience all the colours that the owl sees...'

Wow said the owl. 2016. Flossie Waite. Children Theatre Review

'Fiammetta Horvat’s set and costume are full of secret caches from which coloured cloths and ribbons can be extracted, a bolt of sky blue fabric flows across the stage, leaf-covered branches sprout, flowers blossom on a frock to operatic accompaniment, butterflies flutter forth and settle. A gauzy bundle is a cloud floating in the sky and then a fish, a swan, a gull. A plastic bag is moulded into the face of a hungry storm cloud gobbling up everything. '

Wow said the owl. 2016. Howard Loxton. British Theatre Guide

'Lizzie Wort, resplendent in a variety of gowns of many colours, designed by Fiammetta Horvat to work as part of the set...'

Wow said the owl. 2016. Ronnie Haydon. The Stage

' The theme is colour and the very clever and simple stage set comes to life showing the audience all the colours that the owl sees...'

Wow said the owl. 2016. Finlay Fox

'This philosophical theatre show is fascinating and innovative in its own right'...

Error 404. 2015. Lyn Gardner. The Guardian

'Little windows cut into the back wall show animated fragments of the story, but apart from that it has to exist in our imaginations.'

'Fiammetta Horvat’s design is simple and really strong. She piles a set of wooden chairs in a heap up-stage-right on a large white square, for Callow’s characters to individually extract, move, sit on, deliver speeches to, scatter, turn over (in righteous anger) and line up'...      

The man Jesus. 2014.David Ralf. The Public Review

 'Callow’s task is somewhat alleviated by the spareness of Fiammetta Horvat's set: a blank, black canvas on which his only physical task is to occasionally move around a collection of wooden chairs intially concealed behind the fire-doors at the rear of the stage area. The featureless spartan setting, and the fact that Callow is the only moving object that the audience has to fasten on, sharply focuses attention on Hurt’s investigation of the impact Jesus made on individuals with whom his life at some point intersected.'

The man Jesus. 2013 . Terence BlainIrish Theatre Magazine

'Out of this pile, Fiammetta Horvat's design enables vivid recreations of the Last Supper, the money-lenders in the temple, the brutality of Golgotha and other set pieces.'

The man Jesus. 2013. Jane Coyle. Irish Times

'the naked simplicity of the set...'

The man Jesus. 2013. Cathal Delea. thegown.net

'The stage is completely stripped back, the brick walls and fire evacuation sign giving a sense of stark bareness, of barrenness, almost of bleakness. This allows the audience to focus only on the actor on stage and gives the feeling of the story being told in any space or time.'

The man Jesus. 2013. classygenes.blogspot.co.uk

'...the set had a similarly gentle, gradual evolution. ...set designer Fiammetta Horvat came up with her character-led, delicately soft design...'

Mess. 2012. Alice Saville. Exeunt magazine.

it’s quirky fairy tale like set designed by Fiammetta Horvat, hides plenty of surprises and many beautiful images.

Mess. 2012. John Roberts. The Public Reviews

...director Swift and designer Flammetta Horvat find strikingly evocative ways of presenting Josephine's journey visually, from symbolising her anorexia by a Rapunzel-like tower in which she hides from the world's impurities to the total mess that is made of the stage at the end to celebrate her recovery.

Mess. 2012. Gerald Berkowitz. TheatreguideLondon

Beneath a pink-lit parasol on a tower of towels, Josephine holds court like Samuel Beckett's Winnie in Happy Days.

Mess. 2012. Neil Cooper. Herald Scotland

Fiammetta Hovat’s set invokes comfort and looks like a giant wedding cake with an illuminated swimming pool ladder and a giant cocktail umbrella. The cream filling is a slowly emerging duvet which suggests that the thing which gives Josephine the most pleasure is a dark, confused tangle of food and sleep.

Mess. 2012. Helen Brown. The British Theatre Guide

The set was delicate and brilliantly transformed into a landscape of Josephine’s inner mind.    

Mess. 2012. Roaming Reviewer.com

The candyfloss and fairy lights aesthetic rubs against the subject matter brilliantly, as it manages to show the world as Josephine sees it.    

Mess. 2012. Matt Trueman. NewStatesman

Finally, the piece was tied together by the simple yet symbolic set. Cleverly designed by Fiammetta Horvat, it lent itself to the performance brilliantly.

Mess. 2012. Onestopsart.com

...sits atop a platform under a fairy-light bedecked parasol, like a lonely princess in a children’s story...

On Fiammetta Horvat's deft set, the cubicles become phone booths, changing rooms and nightclub toilets, the graffiti on the walls and the loo paper provide the script.

The stagecraft is a joy. A string of cut-out paper children are slowly concertinaed out of view as they are evacuated from their homes. A clothes line full of washing is backlit to reveal a city in flames, bombs raining from the sky. There are numerous vintage suitcases strewn around the set and in these become accordions, typewriters, kitchen tables; 

Waiting for Stanley. 2012. Natasha Tripney. Exeunt Magazine

The set is deceptively simple, a stack of suitcases in keeping with the starting point, a railway station, but nearly every one of those cases has a secret to reveal or contributes to the action in some way. Our imagination recreates the space as the interior of her home, her kitchen, the shelter... whilst the suitcases become kitchen tables, typewriters, a child’s bed...

Waiting for Stanley. 2012.  Kate Saffin. Fringereview.co.uk

What appears to be the detritus of a rundown wartime railway station provides (quite literally) a box of tricks, as suitcases transform into radios, cribs, typewriters and many other props.

Waiting for Stanley.2011. Naylor. Westend.broadwayworld.com

From the moment I entered the ‘Slick’ gates to when I left an hour and a half later, I really felt that I had left Sheffield behind and been transported to a new world.

Slick. 2011. Ruth Amos.www.veritamag.com

Around 250 members of the National Youth Theatre descended on the beach at Selwick Bay, Flamborough, last week decked out in bright orange overalls, to launch a new environmental initiative. 

Slick. 2011. Bridlington Free Press

 …“a memorable set. Ibsen's "spacious garden-room" and glass-walled conservatory become a dim, permeable hothouse space ­— separated only by thin strands, reaching from floor to ceiling — and a multitude of light bulbs swinging eerily from above. Static rain runs constantly down the back wall; a television, similarly grainy, has been integrated into the book and magazine-laden table at center stage, occasionally providing a cacophony of voices. Most unnervingly, the back of the stage is lined by potted plants connected to IV drips.”

Ghosts. 2010.  Elina Mishuris. Washington Square News

“The most noticeable star of the play is the set. Created by Fiammetta Horvat, it is little more than a series of strings that descend from the ceiling, giving the actors transparent rooms to inhabit. It works more like a boxing ring than a stage.”

Ghosts. 2010. Whistness. Quazen.com

 …"a smart modernist set treatment by Fiammetta Horvat and echoes solidly the main ethos of Ibsen.”

"Fish wires run vertically linking the stage floor to the ceiling.  These lines form a cage and transparent means for the audience to watch the drama unfold.”

…"an image of rain back lit on clear material adds to the human and weather dreariness.” 

Ghosts. 2010. Rugarberry.com

 …”the ultra-cool set by Flammetta Horvat […]its very unique and disturbing elements: different length wires with working light bulbs attached dangle from the ceiling, hospital I.V. bags hang over numerous potted plants spanning the back of the stage, a transparent cage created out of fish wire maps out the main playing area and three television screens separate the stage in thirds, showing a flurry of images that echo the actors' interior feelings.”

Ghosts. 2010. Maura Kelley. Offoffonline

…”the set is a vast presence.”

“The entire space becomes an exercise in transparency and illumination, thickly stylized.” […] ”… visual brilliance…”

Ghosts. 2010. Joseph Samuel Wright. Theatre is easy. theasy.com

"There are moments of impressive stage invention that evoke the transformative wonders of electricity" "…show's visual highlights."

Terrific Electric. Barbican Pit. 2007. Robert Shore. The London Evening Standard.

…”its designers and director in particular, that the actors are never upstaged by the effects, despite this being some of the most effective technical design I have seen.”

Terrific electric.  Barbican Pit. 2007. Louise Hill. British Theatre Guide.

”...a chaque détour d'une scénographie originale créée par sa fille Fiammetta sous la forme d'un labyrinthe." 

Labyrinthe Horvat. Musee Landowski. 2007. Figaroscope

“The set is noteworthy: what looks like a few bits of metal and plastic resembling a run-down old platform, transforms itself to neighbours' trees and secret hiding places in the blink of an eye.”

Anorak of fire. Etc theatre. 2004. Richard Castello. Fringe report.

…” set of wooden blocks and burnt paper strikes the right note of impoverished seediness...”

Achidi Js final hours. Finborough theatre.2004. Sam Marlowe. The Times.