‘Chrome yellow’ by local writer and performer Wayne Stewart

ArtHouse Jersey supports Wayne Stewart with the return of his one-man stage show Chrome Yellow, alongside the team at the Jersey Arts Centre who originally developed this production as part of a residency in 2022.

Chrome Yellow sees aspiring nihilist Wayne wrestle with meaning and purpose as he tries to understand exactly why he walked 650 miles across France alone in July 2021, and is left battling with a spiritual awakening that’s imbued him with a peculiar obsession with yellow.

In this personal and philosophical story chronicling his journey from Saint-Malo in Brittany to Argeles-Sur-Mer on the Mediterranean, Wayne delves into themes of existentialism, personal reflection, and the search for purpose. On a quest for new-found freedom while drawing on memories of his past, Wayne attempts to understand what brought him to the point of making the journey in the first place. Peppered by entries from his travel journal with the hope to understand what it all meant, if in fact it meant anything at all.

About Wayne Stewart

Wayne Stewart is a Jersey-born and based writer, director, performer, and teacher, with a background in stand-up comedy, theatre, and interdisciplinary performance. His work fuses storytelling, movement, comedy, and song to create humorous yet thought-provoking experiences that explore identity, human connection, and the search for meaning. Beginning his journey in theatre at Jersey Arts Centre’s YouTheatre, he later honed his craft in stand-up before expanding into a broader theatrical vocabulary, embracing character work, movement, and music. Over the past decade, he has written, directed, and performed original solo works, including Chrome Yellow and Indigo Moon, which blend absurdist humor with moments of poignancy.

Director of ArtHouse Jersey, Tom Dingle, said: “I first saw ‘Chrome Yellow’ at the Jersey Arts Centre’s brilliant Festival 35 weekend and was struck by its honesty and gentle profundity. Wayne is a superb storyteller who, whilst he is telling us about a journey that very few of us would think to take, somehow makes it feel real and relevant and a comment on the human condition. We are delighted to be working with him and our friends at the Jersey Arts Centre to bring this back for Jersey audiences ahead of hopefully touring the work outside of the island.“

Director of Jersey Arts Centre, Daniel Austin, said: “Wayne kept both a photographic journal and a written diary of his adventures across France in the summer of 2021. When he returned, Jersey Arts Centre suggested that he make a piece of theatre about those experiences, and that we would work with him to realise this. The result is a meditative quest that explores what we do in this world, and why we might do it. There are moments of self-discovery, for both the performer and the audience, that are serene, philosophical and, at times, hysterically joyous. Look out for Elvis!.”

Main photo by Will Jack Robinson.