Resident's News

I am looking for Incident Books or excerpts from Incident Books from pubs and bars across the UK.

I want to read them out as a performance: a litany of drunkenness and violence.

All names & locations will be changed to protect those involved. All submissions will be treated in confidence.

If you have access to an Incident Book but cannot send it to me you can email photos of interesting pages, just get in touch here.

You can also post Incident Books directly to Residence:

11 St Nicholas Street,
Bristol
BS1 1UE

Thank you in advance for your contribution.

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As part of our Frontman process we’ll be showing some ideas we’re working on at Forest Fringe

Tuesday 17th Aug at 4pm

Its part of the festival of secrets so its not in the programme.

See you there!

and don’t forget you can see us performing ‘A Western’ at Kilkenny Arts Festival wed 11th and thur 12th Aug

and at The Tobacco Factory in Bristol on 18th, 19th + 20th September

Thanks to everyone who's followed what we have to say for ourselves here in the bustling online metropolis of blogspot. It's been delightful.
Now that our beautiful new website is finished and online we've moved the whole blog operation over there. You can find the blog here.
So update your RSS feeds and take a moment to join our own miniature online community, via our social networking forum - where you can leave your own posts, start groups and debates and hopefully find yourself ever more involved in the world of Forest Fringe.

fig. 1 William Shatner, ready to blast you with his love machine

So you may well have started to hear rumours of this mythic spectacular called William Shatner Karaoke. Well, if you want in, the time has come to lay down your cards, cross the line, and do all the other things that historically designate that you want to be involved.
But first, the preamble.
What is William Shatner Karaoke?
Way back when in the mists of time Forest Fringe co-director Debbie Pearson was almost unhealthily fixated on the musical oeuvre that one-time Sci-fi embarrassment and latter-day post-ironic superstar William Shatner was busily carving for himself.
If you haven't had the opportunity to experience the musical stylings of The Man the kids call Shat, then let us illuminate you:
Shatner takes a popular song.Shatner transforms popular song into an evisceratingly earnest monologue, to a gentle instrumental backing of the original songs melodyShatner delivers said monologue clutching a cigarette a speaking straight to camera.The world looks on aghast/amazed.
Here's one example. Here another. Here, my very favourite.
In thrall to this spectacular act of re-interpretation, Debbie coined the idea of William Shatner Karaoke. An opportunity for all of us to treat some classic songs with the kind of painfully serious monologuing they never asked for or expected.
A legend was born.
Flash forward several years...
On Monday 9th August, as part of our night of music and performance at Forest Fringe from 11pm onwards, we are going to host William Shatner Karaoke in public for the very first time, with live musical accompaniment from the good, good people of Little Bulb Theatre.
So here's what you need to do to be involved:
1) Choose a song.2) In the comments or via email to andy[at]forestfringe.co.uk, leave us the name of that song and your own name, and any accompanying notes you might want us to have.3) Turn up on the night ready to deliver that song to camera as a totally earnest spoken word monologue. 4) You do not need to deliver it in the style of William Shatner, in fact, you should almost definitely find your own style for it.5) We'll provide musical accompaniment and a live video feed projected on a giant screen behind you. 6) Try and bring the lyrics along with you though we will also endeavour to supply them ourselves.7) We'll also try and have some extra spots for people to join in on the night.
AND THAT'S ABOUT IT.
Please also note that if this proves spectacularly popular two things will definitely happen.
1) We won't be able to get round to everybody's song.2) It will make a return at our closing party on the 21st August.
Right. Good luck. Get suggesting.
Let us boldly go where none of us have dared go before.

Not satisfied with the four miniature festivals we've already put together for you we've decided to add another...
As is almost always the way we've had an incredible last minute rush of exciting little projects and experiments that we've decided to smuggle into our programme, all of which we've decided to gather together under the banner of a Festival of Secrets.
We can't yet tell you where and when, or even what, these may be, but keep a track of us on twitter, facebook and by dropping into the venue and you'll find out how you can experience some secret projects by the following artists:
Action HeroChris ThorpeNigel Barrett and Louise Mari of SHUNTKindle TheatreCharlotte JarvisRyan Van WinkleJo Bannon
Just two weeks to go now. Let the good times roll...

We're delighted to be able to let you know that for the first time ever this year you can book reservations for Forest Fringe shows online, in advance of the festival, thanks to the lovely people at Brown Paper Tickets.
They've helped us to set up a special page where you can reserve a place for any of the shows taking place in our main hall and a number of the off-site projects we're running as well. To have a look around and make some bookings go here.
Hopefully this means that if you're the kind of person that likes to be able to plan everything out in advance you can now do so. If however you enjoy being able to roll up to Forest Fringe five minutes before a show is starting and just jump in, don't worry as we'll be making sure we still have plenty of space available on the door.
Also note that you don't need to book for anything happening in our Festival of Ideas between 12pm and 5pm every day or any of our late night performance events running after 11pm. For all those projects you're free to drop in and out whenever you like.
And, of course, all the shows and events you'll find with us are all still totally free.

At times I wished that we had all been playing a massive game of social media bingo.  Collecting names of iphone apps and websites. The scrawled list in my notebook got longer and more frantic. I thought I was pretty ‘on it’ in the social media world. Apparently not.  As the conference wore on, the buzzwords got more and more improbable. A ‘strategy sandwich’ anyone? Or even a ‘Twattergy’? [I think the last one was a joke. I do hope it was].

We were all there to talk about how marketing has now moved away from ‘push marketing’ – where marketing departments push out a message to their audience and hope they’ll be interested – to ‘pull marketing’ – where there is a more open and transparent relationship between us and our audiendces. Where there can be a conversation. Where they can help us shape what we do.  Although there were around 500 of what Mark Earls called ‘the brightest arts marketing minds in the UK’ there, I couldn’t help but wish that there were more artistic directors, producers and programmers there, as it became apparent that in order for the arts to thrive over the next few years, producers and markteers need to be working much more closely together.

I’m not going to attempt to summarise two days of talks and debates about how social marketing, both on and offline, can help arts organisations, but my particular highlightswere Shelly Bernstein, Chief of Technology at Brooklyn Museum, Nicky Webb of Artichoke and Christian Payne aka Documental.ly. You’ll be able to read the full report on the AMA website in a month or so. 

I returned to work on Friday, with an iphone creaking under the weight of new apps, and a genuinely sad, geeky excitement about some new websites and networks.  I’m probably about two years behind most of the blogosphere with these, but hello AudioBoo and Posterous, and as for you Foursquare – I’m glad I’ve finally worked out what you’re for. Even if it does mean that I’m probably going to get stalked and murdered.

When i was 19 i got a job at a factory in Guildford which made steam wallpaper strippers.

My role consisted of taking short aluminium rods from a box on my right, pressing a foot peddle that started a spinning band of sandpaper, then milling a slight bevel on to each end of the rod.

I would then place the rod in another box to my left. I had to complete a certain number of boxes each hour. Despite the presence of a charming, german girl with whom i chatted at lunch, i lasted just 3 days at the job.

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RITUAL!

Suddenly it all makes more sense. I was thinking between shows about how uncomfortable i was with my previous analysis. Then this idea came to me: the whole thing with the one-on-one shows makes more sense if viewed as a rediscovery of the power of personal ritual.

In the UK we do not have powerful rites of passage or initiations, our rituals such as they are have become hollow and abstracted. Such as collecting exam results from the headteacher. A cursory handshake which changes nothing.

Rituals create a repeatable set of rules and situations that alters or presents a new reality to the participants, a reality which, thus altered, allows them new experiences. The changes must be adapted to, responded to and in doing so the person makes changes in themselves and faces aspects of life that perhaps they have not encountered before. The participants are encompassed within the ritual, they are both subject to its rules and responsible for its outcomes.

Surely in a society such as ours where most people live in a constant pattern of work, where challenge often amounts to a tight deadline, and out fundamental assumptions go unchanged, we need rituals which truly ask something more from people.

How much can you give?

How much can you take?

What do you really believe?

Given total freedom what would you say?

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What does it all mean?

I've been thinking on my day off about the nature of one-on-one or indeed many-on-one theatre.

I think there is some interesting work and the artists i have spoken to have a clear vision of what their individual shows are trying to communicate. Which is great, because sometimes in theatre ideas get a bit woolly, and there just isn't any room for fluff in a 1-1 show.

The basic mechanics of the format allow for some truly amazing and transformative work to be made. You can access your audience emotionally and physically in a way impossible at other scales. You can push them further whilst allowing for everyone to have a totally different reaction. They can be totally present as themselves and yet be completely part of the work. They can even rail against the experience and have that worked with.transformative

As a format how does it arise? What are its origins?

I have an awkward feeling that it is the culturisation of a individualistic, self regarding, self centred mind set, that capitalist ideas of the pre-eminence of the individual have feed through into a theatre that has moved from a mass audience to a singular one.

Perhaps we are so over saturated with clamours for our attention that the only thing which can hold us is a direct and all encompassing experience, unmitigated by the presence of others.

There is a encapsulation, analogous to cinematic escapism that seems present, you are transported into a world where made-up rules have real consequences, the actor dies on screen in a hail of fakery, but within the film it is a tragedy, in the 1-1 the performer is performing - it is a kind of fiction, but there may be tragedy or joy for the audience member depending upon the rules of that performance, and it will be experienced as a real situation because the forth wall is a bubble containing both actor and spect-actor.

Who knows? Inspired by the Korean film 3 Iron I just thought that it would be fun for people to try and see my face and it spiralled from there.

Last of all a dose of negative pragmatism: it is economically unsustainable.

Once you go beyond my extremely minimal set up with one performer and a show that lasts 60 seconds or less, where it would be possible for me to charge perhaps £1 for the experience and thus make up to £60 per hour to be split between the venue, the usher and myself and even then it's pretty tight, to a situation where the show lasts maybe 45 minutes and contains 5 performers where you might need to be paying a hypothetical £225 for your ticket, it becomes obvious that the enterprise requires huge subsidies and a lot of volunteers to make it happen.

Is this a problem? The way I see it West-End Musicals and Stand-Up Comics are the only kinds of theatre/performance that stand a chance of making money, and often they don't. So it isn't at all essential that art should pay for itself, otherwise you just get Ben Elton (depending on the stage of his career).

But funds and goodwill are finite resources so there are opportunity costs involved - a single place at a 1-1 show might mean sacrificing ten audience members at another show. So does the 1-1 have to be 10 times as good?

Whatever the answers I will be getting chased around a room by strangers, saying the first thing that comes into my head and letting people say whatever they want, until Sunday night.

Get involved.

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Doing these performances has made me remeber something written by Harun Morrison about them i am quoting it in full here but you can read the original - here.

SATURDAY, 6 SEPTEMBER 2008

The Face Game & The First Time / Edward Rapley / 8th - 10th August 2008 / (Forest Fringe) Edinburgh Festival 2008

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A little heads-up about this all-out spectacular coming to Wales Millennium Centre this summer. Cirkus Cirkor are a circus company from Sweden. They manage to achieve what many circus companies never do, which is a marriage of technical and physical skill with an ability to tell absorbing stories. There’s live music and everything.

Anyway - here’s a video – the show runs from 12-15 August and you can book on 029 2063 6464 or online at www.wmc.org.uk

I do these two games, in one (The First Thing) i open my eyes and say the first thing that comes into my head about the person sat in front of me, in the other (Your Turn) they have a minute to say whatever they want to me.

It really struck me that the very first thing that comes into my head is often banal, or even offensive, and that somehow they are a simplification or a reduction of the person.

This was re-enforced by people saying amazing things to me in the second game, who if they had come to The First Thing would have probably met with a fairly bland response.

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(Melanie Wilson at the Forest Fringe Microfestival at BAC, image by Ludovic Des Cognets)

This is a call for all the artists and actors and makers and doers who are thinking of heading to Edinburgh this summer. This is a chance to do something different with your time whilst you're there.
We wanted you to be able come together during the festival and make something new. To learn from some incredible artists. To be fired up and inspired. To leave Edinburgh with a new project, new collaborators and a different way of thinking about theatre.
To that end, we have two projects for you:
Forest Fringe's Making Days13, 19 & 21 August 2010
Thanks to the support of the lovely people at the Jerwood Charitable Foundation we've been able to bring together an eye-wateringly exciting collection of artists to help us with a new project we're calling the Forest Fringe Making Days.
Part scratch, part workshop, part discussion, each making day is a chance for a group of artists to explore a different way of making live performance. Beginning at 10am, over the course of each day you'll create a new piece, something very raw and new in which hopefully will be the seeds not just of a new future project but of a broader understand of a whole way of making theatre. Spread over the course of the festival we'll have three of these making days, each led by two incredible artists:
Friday 13 August - Audio Performance: A chance to explore the diverse possibilities of making audio work, experienced via headphones, led by Duncan Speakman and Melanie Wilson.
Thursday 19 August - Intimate Performance: A day spent looking at the kind of intimate relationships that theatre can create between artists and performers, led by Adrian Howells and Deborah Pearson.
Saturday 21 August - Site-specific Performance: A day for exploring how performance can be site-specific and what that might mean for the relationship between a place and what we make of it, led by Grid Iron's Ben Harrison and Geraldine Pilgrim.
Each day will finish with a sharing where an audience can experience the result of your day's work, followed by an informal discussion involving artists, audience and anyone else who might be interested.
The Making Days are, like everything at Forest Fringe, a totally free opportunity. If you're interested in being involved please email andy[at]forestfringe.co.uk with a brief description of who you are and why you're interested.
There is unfortunately a very limited amount of space for each day. You don't need to have any prior experience in any of this kind of work to take part but if you could let us know why you're interested that will help us try and make the very tricky decision as to who can be involved. For the same reason we'd appreciate if people could apply for no more than two of the Making Days and state which of those two they are most interested in.
Take This Longing:A DIY project by Simon Bowes20-22 August, 2010
For a weekend, outside Edinburgh, off from the Fringe, we will encourage each other. Participants will negotiate between themselves (and then name) an achievable outcome – a project for the future – enriching our various practices and creating a point of convergence between us. Together we will identify needs, wants, and frivolous wishes and aim, somehow, to fulfill them. We might discover common ground or shared need (or we might discover we have nothing in common). Whichever the case, we will find a way to agree on what needs to be done. We may end up calling this “a project”, a practice”, “an ethos” or “a movement”.
For more information please have a look here.

(STK International, image by Briony Campbell)
The reason Forest Fringe is able to exist at all in Edinburgh is thanks to the people at the Forest Café. It was they who first invited Debbie to use their beautiful upstairs space to create a performance programme for Edinburgh and their involvement with Forest Fringe continues to be one of the main things that gives our place its character.
Every day during the festival when we finish at 10 the hall becomes home to a series of incredible music nights and parties hosted by The Forest café. This year they are going to be particularly spectacular as it’s the Forest’s 10 year anniversary – a pretty incredible lifespan in the face of an ever-changing and city.
After experimenting last year with hosting a couple of these parties ourselves as, including a legendary night of STK International’s Live Art Speed Dating, this year the Forest have given us the chance to programme a whole series of late night events across the festival. Come along on any of these nights for a delirious cocktail of performance, music, film, unusual encounters, strange experiences and general good times.
--DETAILS
LoveSong (a night of music and performance hosted by Forest Fringe)Monday 9 August, from 11.30pm
Live performance and live music bleed into each other in unexpected ways. Hosted by Little Bulb Theatre, you’ll get a chance to experience music from Over the Wall and our house band The Suitcase Royale alongside hidden experiences with artists including Brian Lobel. There’s also an opportunity to play Forest Fringe’s very own William Shatner Karaoke, with live accompaniment from the lovely folk at Little Bulb.
MoveyHouse (a night of film and performance hosted by Forest Fringe)Tuesday 10 August, from 11.30pm
A chance for artists to have a meddle with cinema and see what they come up with. Featuring an audio-visual set from Fiona Soe Paing, Andy Field’s participatory happening Moveyhouse and a secret video installation by Charlotte Jarvis, plus another set from our delightful house band The Suitcase Royale.
Cruising for Art (Brian Lobel and special guests)Wednesday 11 August, from 11pm
A night of queer delectations. Grab a hankie, cruise the hall, and have an intimate encounter with a stranger. Your smile or wink will start a wild journey, a tender moment, or an intimate conversation. 'Cruising for Art' celebrates a history of cottaging and similar activities in public spaces and includes one-on-one performances with some of the UK's most exciting performers. Punctuated by cabaret acts and gently led by our delicious djs, 'Cruising for Art' will be a night to remember.
Ping Pong Quiz Show (STK International)Monday 16 August, from 11pm
Following last year’s incredible Live Art Speed Dating, the boys from Stoke Newington return to Forest Fringe with another new project. Hosted by a disgraced ex-primetime TV show host, an over the hill regional ping pong champion [U16] and held together by the adjudicator/lovely assistant, Ping Pong Quiz Show is a game show style quiz and tournament where teams pit their wits and ping pong skills against each other in a dazzling array of challenges. Part Satirical Show, part absurdist parlour game, the evening rounds off with a full on ping pong tournament and some dancing.
My Time (BAC Young Producers)Saturday 21 August, from 11.30pm
To say goodbye to Forest Fringe for another year we’re giving the space over to BAC’s delightful and inspiring young producers, all aged between 16-20. There’ll be programming events and encounters across the building, along with music and partying to celebrate the end of another year in Edinburgh.

It’s Friday. It’s slightly overcast. I am sitting in Bristol Old Vic and there are hundreds of seagulls screaming above me. One of them is sitting on the skylight above my head.

They’re also testing the fire alarms. Intermittent extremely high-pitched noise every 30 seconds or so.

Here are some things I like. I guess this post could be in the spirit of Twitter’s Follow Friday.  Mine is just a list:

1.  This rather good trailer for BAC’s One-on-One Festival
2.  Rediscovering The Mexican by Babe Ruth.
3.  The idea of the Qu Junktions Barn Nova at Shambala Festival
4.  My Name is Sue. I saw it at the Tobacco Factory this week and absolutely loved it
5.  The labels function on gmail. My emails are all pretty colours
6.  Political Mother by Hofesh Shechter. I haven’t seen it, but am very much looking forward to it coming to Sadler’s Wells
7.  The Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition at the Serpentine. Again, not seen it yet, but will be in the coming weeks
8.  The brilliant Edinburgh Fringe Programme Drinking Game, created by Forest Fringe
9.  Caribou
10.  The soon-to-be-late Central Reservation in Bristol

That’s it.  I’m going to be at Bristol Ferment tonight, watching The Summer House at 6.30pm. Come join me.

Image: Hofesh Shechter Company: Political Mother © Brighton Festival

This time last year, I helped out with the marketing for the first Blysh Festival (pronounced Blush) at Wales Millennium Centre. Had a ball. They decided to do it again, and asked me to work on it again too.

The aim of the festival is to bring some slightly more edgy, exuberant and, I hate to say it, cool work to the Weston Studio, which is WMC’s smaller space.  It’s a huge building and sometimes one can feel a little bit lost amongst The Sound of Music and Les Miserables. Blysh is an attempt to make the building a little more welcoming to those who wouldn’t usually cross the threshold. And that’s exactly the kind of project I like working on.

There’s a mix of work, some circus, some cabaret, a load of free music on the Glanfa stage (which is front of house), some carnival, and some interactive stuff.

They’ve got the brilliant Rotozaza, who were at Mayfest this year with Wondermart. You can do it at Blysh entirely free and in a supermarket of your choosing. They’ve got Bourgeois and Maurice – razor sharp cabaret/vaudeville. They’ve got the brilliant Secret Carnival’s Day of the Dead party. Their closing party last year was a riot.

Follow the links above for more info. It kicks off on 16 July and runs until 25 July. See you there.

(James Baker, 30 Days to Space)
We like the unlikely places in which live performance can make a home for itself. The strange encounters you might discover in tiny rooms or on park benches, in grand cinemas and cramped video stores. We like the ways we find to look at the things around us in a different way.
These are projects that will take you somewhere unusual. Some of them are scattered across Edinburgh, others are hidden in corners of our own building. Some happen only once or twice, others are repeated throughout the day, and others are available whenever you want or need them. Come down to Forest Fringe and you can guarantee there’ll always be some miniature experience to be unravelled.
Regardless of where you’ll end up, all these events will begin at Forest Fringe. You’ll then be guided by us to wherever you need to be.
--DETAILS
every minute, always - Melanie Wilson & Abigail ConwayMonday 9 – Saturday 14 August, 4pm
every minute, always is a headphones performance taking place in the main auditorium of the Filmhouse cinema on Lothian road, created for two people to encounter together. From the intimate, low-lit vantage of the cinema seat, the participant is guided by the voice of the narrator into a rich and sonically transporting world of cinematic perspective.
PLEASE NOTE: This is a performance for pairs. You must register for this performance with another person.
Away Into the Night – Sarah HopfingerMonday 9 & Tuesday 10 August, 6pm & 8pm
Away Into The Night is a new performance that investigates the question: How do we say goodbye? For a small audience at a time, this personal and participatory piece asks us to remember in order to move forwards into an unknown future with hope.
Like You Were Before – Deborah PearsonMonday 9 – Saturday 21 August (not 14), 10pm
Debbie will take you on a journey through time but she can only access her own time and she can only access it through a video. The video never changes, but she does. An intimate performance in Alphabet Video in Marchmont, Debbie’s old place of work.
DEDOMEGAMIX – Richard DedomeniciMonday 9 – Saturday 21 August, all day
To commemorate the looming tenth anniversary of his leaving art school, Richard DeDomenici forensically reexamines the first decade of his creative output and draws some damning conclusions. In what is described both as a groundbreaking challenge to the existing Fringe venue status quo, and a pragmatic austerity measure, DeDomenici intends to perform DEDOMEGAMIX in a small portable tent, which he stubbornly refers to as a ‘Pop-Up Nomadic/Boutique Autonomous Microvenue’.
Jarideh - Tania El KhouryMonday 9 – Friday 13 August, all day
A secret encounter and a suspicious one on one performance. It is inspired by both crime films and real events such as the Metropolitan Police’s terrorism awareness and operations made in the past by women fighters in the Lebanese resistance.
The Bench – Ant Hampton (Rotozaza) and Glen Neath Monday 9 – Saturday 21 August, all day
In the same vein as Rotozaza’s internationally successful ‘autoteatro’ work, 'Etiquette', TheBench invites two audience / participators to respond to instructions given via headphones, but with some significant differences...- they are outside, on a bench and, they don't know each other.
30 Days to Space - James BakerMonday 9 - Saturday 21, all day
I want to become an astronaut. I want to get to Space. Space (as defined by NASA) is 50 miles up from the Earth’s surface. That sounds doable. By climbing a 6ft ladder 1467 times each day for 30 continuous days I will eventually reach a height of 50 miles; space. Each climb of the 6ft ladder will be marked by drawing a chalk star onto the wall.
As if it were the last time: A subtlemob – Duncan SpeakmanFriday 13 August, 7pm
'as if it were the last time' invites you to take part in a secret event this August.
You've seen the people freeze in train stations and the mass pillow fights, well this will be a more invisible experience, like walking through a film.
To take part in this event register in advance at http://subtlemob.com and you'll be invited to download an MP3 and turn up at a secret location to listen to the soundtrack at a specified time.
When We Meet Again (introduced as friends) - Me & The MachineMonday 16 – Friday 20 August, all day (till 8pm)
When We Meet Again is a wearable film and a one to one sensorial performance featuring you, your invisible friend, a 3D soundtrack and an old forgotten dance, an ocean, a flavour and me. Video filmed from a first person perspective and played on video goggles replaces your point of view by that one of a film character.
This is just to Say – Hannah WalkerMonday 16 – Friday 20 August, 5pm & 9pm
This is just to say is… a conversation with poems in it. It’s about manipulation, Britishness, love and winning. This is just to say… is smudging its make-up, buying you bouquets and screening your calls. This is just to say… is an intimate audience piece set around a table. Pull up a chair and drink some wine.
It’s Like He’s Knocking – Leo KayTuesday 17 & Wednesday 18 August, 6pm and Thursday 19 August, 4pm
A stripped back performance incorporating storytelling, dance theatre and afro Brazillian percussion, set in the intimacy of a bedsit. A collage of moments taken from the lives of three generations of men. Drink a toast to loved ones, bet on some cards and close your eyes to remember your past.
Audience capacity 12.

Quick heads up about the second Bristol Ferment, which opens on Friday and runs until 17 July. It’s part of Bristol Old Vic’s development programme for local artists and features scratch performances and works-in-progress from a whole range of artists – writers, performers, musicians and so on.

My highlights are The Summer House, a new work in development from Will Adamsdale, Neil Haigh (Cartoon de Salvo), Matthew Steer and John Wright (2 July, 6pm); Come to Where I’m From, four solo pieces performed by local writers Tim X Atack, Natalie McGrath, Adam Peck and Tom Wainwright (10 July); Growing Old With You from Search Party (15 July); Sam Halmarack and the Miserablites (16 July); and Nuclear Family by Tom Wainwright (developed through the Royal Court Young Writers Programme) (16 July).

So this July, I’m losing my musicals virginity. I’ve been freelance for about five years and haven’t yet worked on marketing a musical. That’s all about to change.

I’m working with the Musical Theatre School in Shepton Mallett, who used to be based in Bristol and called BAPA. They’re staging the big Broadway and West End hit ‘Spring Awakening’ at the Redgrave Theatre betwen 7 and 10 July.  It’s a very sexy coming of age story about a group of teenagers who go on a journey of self-discovery and exploration, and it’s all set to a pacey contemporary score.

It’s based on Frank Wedekind’s classic 1891 play – which was banned in Europe for thirty years, and in England until 1968. It’s worth checking out as this is the first production outside of the West End.

You can book tickets through Colston Hall on 0117 922 3686 or online at www.colstonhall.org, and the show runs between 7 and 10 July at 7.30pm (matinee on Saturday at 3pm). Tickets are £15/£10 concessions with a special Under 21 price of £8.

Here’s the flyer: