Resident's News

I’m doing some work with new theatre company Greyscale at the moment, and they’re about to embark on a series of shows and showings of work in development over the next few months.

First up – Greyscale have been working at the Ustinov in Bath this week on Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.  Following two open rehearsals, there is a work-in-progress showing tomorrow night (Wednesday 3rd March) of this new re-working, with three actors playing all the parts.  I’ll be there. Not in it. Obviously.

Then the company are in rehearsals for a double bill of Stewart Lee’s What Would Judas Do? and Tim Crouch’s My Arm.  This is the first time either of these shows has been performed in the UK by anyone other than Lee and Crouch themselves. They’re both quite brilliant pieces of work.  And after each of these performances Greyscale are showing two works in development ‘Tonight David Ireland Will Lecture, Dance and Box’ by Sandy Grierson and ‘A Prayer’ by Selma Dimitrijevic, both Greyscale members.

Greyscale are interesting because they are producing new writing which doesn’t place the writer in isolation. They create work with actors, designers and directors in the process from the outset. It’s a holistic kind of approach which is fascinating to watch.

They’re at the Ustinov in Bath between 21 April and 1 May, and at Northern Stage in Newcastle between 5 and 8 May.  You can also catch ‘Tonight David Ireland…’ and ‘A Prayer’ at Oran Mor in Glasgow between 29 March and 10 April.

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So the Microfestivals are now properly go. This is both frightening and deliriously exciting.
Our first stop at BAC on the 2 & 3 April is now all but programmed. We have (deep breath):

• New work-in-progress shows by Mapping4D, Mischa Twitchin and We Belong to This Band! (a new project by Simon Bowes from the incredible Kings of England).
• One-on-one encounters involving Melanie Wilson, Tania El Khoury, Mamoru Iriguchi, Brian Lobel and Emma Benson
• Installations by Forced Entertainment's Tim Etchells, Charlotte Jarvis, Edinburgh Based Stadium Rock and Rosalie White
• Durational performances by Bill Aitchison and Stoke Newington International Airport
• Intimate performamnces by Search Party and Andy Field
• Forest Fringe's Travelling Sounds Library featuring the work of Blast Theory, Unlimited Theatre, Abigail Conway and more.
• And music by Kieron Maguire (from The Paper Cinema), Letters to the Front and last but never least Little Bulb Theatre

Excited any? WHY YES WE ARE. YES WE ARE A BIT.
You can buy tickets here, which you should do soon because they are selling like the hottest of cakes and we'd love to see you all there.
Then it's going to be onwards to Glasgow, Swansea and Bristol but more on that later.
The future is bright. The future is actually quite busy...

Tim X Atack wrote this nice piece about ‘Watch Me Fall’ at the Inbetween Time Launch in Bristol on the 5th Feb 2010.

Nobody touch him

Action Hero show Watch Me Fall, their brilliant paean to daredevil stunts. Whacked out on testosterone and diet coke, they chop up dialogue from mediocre b-movies about Evil Knievel and make poetry of the battered non-sequiturs he would mumble into the stadium microphone after a bad fall. They shout at the audience for doubting their integrity. They play loud music and slap each other about, Gemma Paintin kicking her cohort James Stenhouse in the head repeatedly. They set fire to stuff. It’s one great big over-hyped jumped-up lead-up to a spectacularly understated stunt, the principle components of which are a pushbike and a fountain of bubbling soft drink. It’s a portrait of a man’s world, where women are objects, and men are objects on bikes. It’s a cavalcade of stereotypes paraded up and down a strip that runs the length of the room, with the audience either side, snapping away on disposable cameras, becoming stereotypes themselves, whooping and clapping like seals. “MY NAME IS DICK CHENEY” shouts Stenhouse, “AND I WILL WALK THAT TIGHTROPE, ON THE MOON, IN A SACK, ON FIRE.” As the ‘Maiden Of The Mist’, Paintin lies on her back and is doused in a whole bottle of sugary carbonated gloop (which is horrible, on all sorts of levels.) “Why don’t they do that to the man?” asks someone next to me. And I think: because that would be part of a different show.

http://www.timatack.co.uk/

‘A Western’ will be showing at Brut Wien in Vienna, Austria on the 9th and 10th of April, followed by Fusebox festival in Austin, Texas on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th April and then Tig7 in Mannheim, Germany on the 14th and 15th May.

Tesco wants to put a store on Cheltenham Road in the old Jesters building. I think this is bad news for the area check out these sites for more info -

http://www.tescopoly.org/
Facebook Group

Vote with your cash is a nonsense - those who have the most money have the largest impact, those with the least cash have fewer choices. There is little basis for expecting ethical outcomes given this set-up precisely because it awards power to those that already have it. In fact our version of democracy is a (flawed) attempt to overcome 'vote with your money' which is nothing more than a re-enforcement of the status quo.

There are alternatives which provide cheaper, better quality, more ethical groceries - food co-ops, local veg boxes. Not an answer for everyone but better than offering Tesco as a panacea.

Supermarkets aggressively target local shops - they go there with clip boards and collect lists of the goods stocked and their prices. They then run these specific goods at a discount in the nearest store in a direct attempt to put others out of business. This was the direct experience of the health food store on the Clifton Triangle some years back. He chased them out of his store on numerous occasions.

Once the competition was shut down the organic section of the supermarket opposite shrank to allow for more profitable lines. So overall there was a loss of competition and choice.

If anywhere can remain Tesco free then it's Stokes Croft. Especially if folks are prepared to reduce the store's profit margins thought a bit of non-violent direct action.

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Is this country a big place?
Put into context obviously not. It takes three days non stop to drive half way across Canada. And yet you could realistically sleep for almost two of those days and miss virtually nothing bar prairie. Travel from the West Midlands to South Wales in a couple of hours and you’re moving between two different worlds.
We’ve had plenty of time to think about these kind of questions as we’ve roamed up and down the country in the last few months. I’ve learnt new things. I’ve become more outraged by the cost of petrol. I’ve discovered how hard it is to be vegetarian at service stations. I’ve fostered a deep, ingrained mistrust of thetrainline.com.
The result of all of this is that we have a programme of Microfestivals for you – beginning in London in April and ending in Bristol in May.
Each will be a unique weekend of strange events, intimate encounters and performance installations. In each place one ticket will allow you to be a part of everything.
It goes like this:
In London on the 2 & 3 April we’ll be working with our long-time supporters BAC, using a dizzying array of spaces scattered across the beautiful Old Town Hall in Battersea.

In Glasgow on the 16 & 17 April we’ll be with The Arches in their epic subterranean maze of railway arches beneath Central Station.

In Swansea on the 24 & 25 April we’ll be sharing an unusual space with National Theatre Wales’ Assembly programme as part of their month of events in the city.

And Finally in Bristol on the 8 & 9 May we’ll be helping launch the brilliant Mayfest by taking over the whole of Bristol’s legendary Old Vic Theatre, from stages to workshops to backstage corridors and other hidden corners of the building.
In each of these locations we’ll be working with a mix of local companies and Forest Fringe artists from across the country. You’ll be able to see some of the most exciting events that we supported at the Edinburgh Festival last summer, and a collection of brand new pieces, many of which we hope will be journeying to Edinburgh with us this summer.
For each of the individual Microfestivals we’ll be announcing a full line-up of artists closer to the time but already we can tell you that featuring in the programme will be Melanie Wilson, Forced Entertainment’s Tim Etchells, Co-creator of the amazing Home Sweet Home Abigail Conway, the legendary Stoke Newington International Airport, Tinned Fingers, Action Hero, Search Party, Brian Lobel and Emma Benson as well as a host of incredible young artists such as Tania El Khoury, Peter McMaster and Swansea’s Shellshock Theatre. We’re also still programming more events for all the locations so if you’re an artist and you’re interested in being involved leave a comment below or get in touch via our website.
The Microfestivals will also see the launch of the Forest Fringe Travelling Sounds Library, an exciting new collaborative project bringing together a brilliantly diverse range of audio-pieces into an interactive library made from recycled hard back books and mp3 players. But more on this very, very soon…
So that’s it, basically.
Hopefully we’ll be coming somewhere near you. We’re stupidly excited by it all and we hope you will be too. As always, if you’ve got any thoughts or comments or questions – just leave them below and we promise we’ll get back to you.
Otherwise – bring on the spring.

(img. by Brandon Christopher Warren)

Well hello there sports fans, we’re back again.
So I know we’ve hardly been gone long, but DOES IT EVER FEEL LIKE IT.
It’s been a busy, dizzying, breathtaking few months and we’re still trying to figure out quite what to do about it all. First off – thank you to everyone who has supported us or congratulated us or has just been pleased for us in winning the Peter Brook Empty Space Award. We listened to the lovely things Dominic Cavendish had to say and shook Peter Brook by his wrinkly and surprisingly small hand and couldn’t quite believe it was all happening. But happen it did and that encouragement (and the £2000 that accompanied it) have been a huge help in the plans we’ve been working away on since then.
Oh and what plans.
Best way of thinking about it is to imagine we’ve been squirreled away in some subterranean laboratory from the golden years of Hollywood, pouring coloured liquids into other coloured liquids and plugging wires into frogs until eventually in at the end of an ever-accelerating montage of experiments something has crawled off the Petri dish and wandered out into the world. We meanwhile, appear blinking into the sunlight trying to figure out where our creature has gone.
But now it’s out there. It’s roaming the streets stealing apples from market stalls and trying to understand this thing they call love. So we figured that we would tell you all about it, before anybody else did.
The Forest Fringe Microfestivals
So Edinburgh has been a wonder the last few years. A truly delirious journey. We’ve learnt so much from the people we’ve worked with and the successes (and failures) that we’ve had about how to create an environment of risk and generosity that can really nurture and support exciting new projects of all forms and sizes. We’ve been able to bring together a brilliant community of artists who collectively make work as exciting as anywhere in the country. And we’ve been able to generate a level of profile for those artists and those ways of working which felt like a really valuable opportunity.
We wanted to do something with that opportunity. To explore something new. To find a way of taking everything that was exciting and vital about Forest Fringe in Edinburgh and showing that it needn’t remain in Edinburgh. That the kind of messy, creative hub that developed there could be re-imagined in numerous other sites and contexts.
And so cue the coloured liquids and the smoke and the Petri dishes and the arguments and the experiments and finally we’ve just about figured out what it is we’re doing. And we called it a Microfestival – a model for a new kind of event, somewhere between a festival and a tour and a scratch night and a gathering.
With this Microfestival model, we wanted to be able:

1. To create a different context and a new kind of space for artists to try out new ideas and show unusual work – one-on-one encounters, audio walks, video installations, interventions, happenings. In other words, hopefully almost anything that someone might come up with.
   
   
2. To visit different parts of the country and meet new audiences and artists who couldn’t or wouldn’t come to Edinburgh. To have the opportunity to introduce those people to the kind of work that we love and invite them to become a part of the Forest Fringe community.
   
   
3. To explore new spaces. Or to find new ways of using old spaces. To repurpose and reimagine them for what we want to do.
   
   
4. To create an event that can act as a gathering point for artists, audiences and producers in different parts of the country. A chance to come together – so that we can learn from them and they can learn from us. To create a spark from which new ideas and new projects can spring.

Which is all lovely obviously but wouldn’t mean anything unless we could actually figure out how we were going to do this. How to invite an audience to experience all these events in a space that didn’t feel crowded or confusing but similarly didn’t leave you queuing constantly outside closed doors or just wondering numbly from piece to piece. How to create a Minifestival that, like our home in Edinburgh, is built around artists coming together to create an event that has value for them beyond a commission or a fee; where artists dictate how and when and why they want to be involved. And how to find new spaces to work in new parts of the country – figuring out where the right place to go is and why.
So that’s where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing. And now comes the part where we actually do it, which is undoubtedly the most exciting part. In the next post we’ll explain in more detail exactly where we’ll be and when and a few of the people who’ll be there with us, but if you have any thoughts about any of the above please do put them in the comments – it’s all always massively useful.

Here is a video of me talking about The Middle Bit made by the lovely people at Bristol Old Vic.

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Really need to get back into the swing of this thing.  It’s been terribly neglected recently. A bit of TLC. Yes.

So here’s a bumper list of some things that I will be seeing/listening to over the next few weeks:

LAUNCH OF INBETWEEN TIME
Helen Cole, formerly Live Art Producer at Arnolfini is launching her new production company-cum-festival this Friday. There’s a party with shows by Action Hero and Tom Marshman, and it should be a lot of fun. The website for Inbetween Time is still under construction, but keep checking back – it’ll be launching this week.

GREYSCALE – SPRING TOUR
Very exciting new company. A group of actors, directors and writers with an excellent track record are touring two one-man shows, Stewart Lee’s What Would Judas Do? and Tim Crouch’s My Arm.  First time both of these plays will have been performed by another actor. They’re also developing two new plays which will be shown in development alongside the Lee/Crouch shows.

They’re so new they don’t even have a website yet, but they’re showing at Oran Mor in Glasgow, Northern Stage in Newcastle and Ustinov in Bath. Check them out.

EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
New favourite band. Also loving the return of Field Music, Local Natives, Passion Pit, Delphic, the new Gorillaz song, some old Pavement, and the last Bonny Prince Billy album.

MAYFEST 2010 PROGRAMME ANNOUNCEMENT
We’re going to be announcing the programme for Mayfest 2010 very soon. It’s possible we’re going to do it bit by bit. Or it may be all at once. We’re also about to launch a new website. It’s all ridiculously exciting. Cue lots of exclamation marks!!!!!!!

FIREBIRD THEATRE – THE TEMPEST
There are two very different versions of The Tempest happening in Bristol this Spring. One is by Shakespeare at the Tobacco Fatcory, the other by Bristol’s Firebird Theatre. A group of disabled actors, this show is sure to be an extraordinary experience if their past work is anything to go by.  It premieres at Bristol Old Vic on 4, 5 and 6 March and then tours to Salisbury and Taunton. Bristol Old Vic is selling very well by the way, so you might like to book tickets sooner rather than later.

PLUS…
A new dance platform at Circomedia, Ausform at The Cube and the very slow emergence from the depths of winter into the first signs of Spring.

Over and out. Promise not to leave it so long next time.

I’ll be hanging out at Bristol Old Vic for quite a lot of this week watching new scratch/work-in-progress showings of some shows. It’s the first incarnation of the theatre’s new development programme.  If you’re up to speed with the various artists making work in and around Bristol at the moment, you’ll recognise many of the names.  Go here to see the full programme.  They’ve done some lovely leaflets too, courtesy of Document. Check it out…

We will be performing ‘A Western’ at The Nuffield in Southampton in a double bill with Inspector Sands

Thurs 18th + Friday 19th March at 9pm

tickets £10 (£8) or £5 with an Inspector Sands ticket. Box Office: 02380671771 or book online

click here to see the four star guardian review

Haven’t really posted much here recently. I’m going to try and write more, but other things keep taking over.

In the meantime: follow me on Twitter for some more immediate soundbites: @mostin

We’ve had a great time showing ‘Watch Me Fall’ across the UK. Highlights include an epic second night at Shunt, Gemma breaking her arm in Newcastle, and real blood on my forehead in Manchester.

3 more dates left, so if you haven’t come along to cheer us on yet, its your last chance.

5th Feb – 8pm Inbetween Time launch Party in Bristol. (invite only, contact us if you would like a ticket)

17th Feb -  7:30pm Colchester Arts Centre. Tickets £6 book here or ring 01206 500900

19th Feb – 7:30pm Axis Arts Centre, Crewe. Tickets £7 (£4.50) book here

Scroll down to see the Guardian review. Join our Facebook group to see video footage, photos and interviews.

merry xmas xxx

Yippee, it's official, I am now famous. Not only was I on the back page of Venue, but now I get my first proper mention in Lynn Gardner's What to See this week. Result.

Obviously it doesn't matter except that hopefully it will bring in a few more people to see the show. Which is great because I'm not sure I'll ever perform The Middle Bit again after Tuesday 8th Dec.

It's a deeply personal bit of work and if I'm not close to the material then it would be like pulling false teeth- painless & pointless.

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Ah the gentle art of making things happen.

Another Open Space Technology meeting from Theatre Bristol.

I am reminded that nothing happens at these things unless you make it happen. So in that spirit i will be running an Open Office event this Friday at Residence.

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Start: 18 Dec 2009 20:00

A workshop looking at setting up and running an organisation like Residence.

Do you want to meet your peers and work together to bring your office out of your bedroom?

Then come along.

Tea Provided.

Start: 4 Dec 2009 10:00 End: 4 Dec 2009 13:00

Residence will be holding an Open Office at 11 St Nicholas Street at 10am-1pm this Friday 4th December.

This is a space to meet, work and chat.

Come along and bring some cake.

Because of the license we have on the building we cannot run public events. So you will have to ring the door bell. At which point I will invite you in.

I have just finished reading Oedipus Rex, the classic Hellenic tragedy in which Oedipus discovers that he has killed his father and committed incest with his mother, which has made me think about the nature and appeal of tragedy.

The details of his suffering and his reaction, carry the audience along on waves of emotion. What is this power that tragedy holds? Why is it so appealing? Why do we lap up such tales of woe?

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Here are details of the last few dates for ‘Watch Me Fall’ before the yuletide.

Friday 27th November 7:30pm Stoke Newington International Airport, London. Tickets £5 on the door only

Saturday 28th November 7:30pm Stoke Newington International Airport, London. Tickets £5 on the door only

here’s a map of how to get there

Wednesday 2nd December 8pm Bluecoat, Liverpool. Tickets £5 ring 0151 702 5324 for tickets

Thursday 3rd December 7:30pm Leeds Met Student Union. Tickets £10/£7 ring 0113 812 5998 for tickets

Friday 4th December 8pm Greenroom, Manchester. Tickets £9/£6 ring 01616150500 for tickets

hope to see you somewhere soon xx