Emma Rice returned to Oxford last week a conquering champion (of sorts). Marking its first tour date after a mightily successful debut at the Old Vic, Rice's new company brought their inaugural play to the Oxford Playhouse. And with it came the opportunity for an audience to get involved in a Q&A with Rice, to help unpick the highs and lows of her career to date.

As Daily Info took its seat in the auditorium, it was heartening to see an audience packed with students. There has always been something approachable about Rice's work at Kneehigh, the Shakespeare Globe, and now with Wise Children. Often dealing with adult themes, they are nevertheless accessible productions that seem particularly suitable for a wide audience. The talk was split between focusing on her current production and expanding out into her career, and what advice she can give to those interested in pursuing a career in arts.

It was fascinating to hear how important Wise Children, and Angela Carter as a whole, were to Rice, with Carter being a key writer of the director's student days. Carter's work offered the role models Rice sought at that age, with The Bloody Chamber acting as an entry point. These are tales of wild women, capable of anything and not victimised by life, often as part of a retelling of a familiar story. Added to this is a complicated, honest view of sex, and there is a lot in Carter's work you can see reflected back down through Rice's.

Rice went into great detail on the process of adapting Carter's hefty novel. Without an overbearing estate to deal with (Carter's final wish was that people take her stories and do with them what they like, as long as they reimbursed her children), it gave Rice the freedom she needed. Adapting initially from memory, she was able to chop out two large sections of the novel that would have made adaptation particularly difficult, whilst adding in lines from other works, notably Rice's poetry. Once she marshalled it into some kind of script, the show was workshopped twice, bringing in initial ideas for design and music, and then brought into a rehearsal room for five weeks. Often working with the same people, Rice placed faith in them and gave them freedom, so that elements were less in the director's hands.

Wild Children was THE production for Rice to bounce back with after her time in charge of the Shakespeare Globe. Bubbling away inside her for eight years, it was a production she initially contemplated at the Globe. And then she was removed from her post, two years in. Rice did not shy away from this, probably one of the most public incidents of the creative's career. She was diplomatic and honest, sometimes brutally so, about the disconnect between herself and other parties, who were deeply invested in the Globe. It was clear she'd miss the venue, but that they didn't click. The director was upfront about her failures, about how long it took her to achieve success, and extraordinarily sympathetic to a generation growing up where there is enormous pressure for success.

Our audience left invigorated by one of the great directors currently working in theatre. She was honest, inspiring, breathtakingly smart and yet entirely approachable. There were enough teases for something special coming from the director next (probably in 2019) that we all knew this would be far from the last time Rice would visit Oxford.

Whilst every theatre production inevitably demands a vast amount of emotional investment from those involved in its creation, Wise Children nonetheless stands out as a particularly personal play for director Emma Rice. Not only is it her first time in the directors’ chair since leaving her position as the artistic director of the Globe, it is also the first production from her company ‘Wise Children’. Rice claimed that the name is a reference to her own directing style that ‘teeters on the edge of childlike’ whilst encouraging and requiring no small amount of wisdom from the members of the company.

In this regard, the saying ‘it is a wise child that knows its own father’ feels particularly relevant. When quoted in the play, it is specifically in reference to the subject of paternity, yet here, the wider meaning of knowing the history of your world and your origins and gaining wisdom from such knowledge seems more relevant. Simply put, the company ‘Wise Children’ seems the result of Rice’s entire experience thus far as a director, and the play Wise Children seems the best possible showcase of her talents.

Wise Children is a play about theatre and family, and how for our protagonists, twins Nora (Etta Murfitt, Mirabelle Gremaud, Omari Douglas) and Dora (Gareth Snook, Bettrys Jones, Melissa James) the two are invariably linked. Beginning before they were born and ending when the pair are 75 years old, the narrative guides us through their tumultuous childhoods after being abandoned by their father Melchior Hazard (Ankur Bahl, Paul Hunter) and raised by the kind and eccentric Grandma Chance (Katy Owen), then through their time as showgirls before finally ending with them in their old age.

Throughout the story, we observe how much each of the characters’ lives are impacted by the theatre, or, more specifically, to what extent are the lives of certain characters based entirely in the theatre. Dora and Nora, for example, aim throughout their lives to gain acceptance from Melchior as his children, yet the best they can ever hope for is his acceptance of their theatrical talents. Melchior himself quotes Shakespeare constantly and as he grows old, he wishes only to play Lear. This desire comes true in a way, as he’s ultimately left clutching a (literally) cardboard crown with two monstrous daughters that he accepted as family whilst he rejected his offspring that ultimately cared for him.

The production itself is immensely enjoyable. At various points, the cast announce “what a joy it is to dance and sing” and the play certainly succeeds in convincing you of that. Wise Children is immensely colourful, featuring an imaginative use of props and lighting that will no doubt be familiar to those who have seen other plays directed by Rice. Furthermore, the score that accompanies it greatly enhances the theatrical bombast of many scenes. The acting is universally strong, with cast members convincingly playing multiple roles and genders to emphasise how theatre and performance are so inherently linked to the narrative. It’s undoubtedly an impressive showcase of range that is highly commendable.