Book through bristololdvic.org.uk
The Wasp
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm
Directed by Clare Dunn
Performed by Charlotte Melia & Katie Lyons
Wed 18, 6.30pm
Two old school mates meet up for the first time in over twenty years. One of them proposes the unthinkable, and she's made sure it's an offer the other will find very hard to refuse.
This is the first twenty minutes of a new play from Morgan Lloyd Malcolm that explores the dynamic of two women who know more about each other than they should.
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm originates from Bath and is working with a West Country based team for the first time to deliver the early stages of this longer piece.
33
The Wardrobe Ensemble
Wed 18, 8.15pm
Following their highly acclaimed debut show RIOT, 33 is the second part of The Wardrobe Ensemble's Real Things Trilogy. Bringing together South American music, fierce, macho choreography and soulful stories, The Wardrobe Ensemble presents their take on the incredible story of the Chilean miners.
A tale of friendship, hope and Elvis Presley, 33 will take you beyond the cameras, let you meet the families and leave you 2000 feet under the ground.
www.thewardrobeensemble.com
The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak : A Chamber Opera for Puppets
Wattle & Daub Figure Theatre
Thu 19, 6.30pm
"The history of this monster is as curious as his habits were disgusting..."
From his beginnings as a sideshow freak in 18th century Paris, to his service as a spy for the French Revolutionary Army, Wattle & Daub Figure Theatre trace the story of Tarrare's insatiable hunger using puppetry, movement and a thrilling original score.
Created in collaboration with Hattie Naylor and with music by Tom Poster.
Wattle & Daub Figure Theatre are a Bristol-based puppetry and visual theatre company. Their debut production, Triptych, was developed through Bristol Ferment. The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak is supported by Arts Council England and Theatre Bristol.
www.wattleanddaub.co.uk
Ablutions
FellSwoop Theatre
Thu 19, 8.15pm
Age guidance: 16+ (swearing, some sexual content and adult themes)
Picture yourself as a bartender, sipping top-shelf whiskey and watching your customers descend into nightly oblivion. Your heart is broken by the world around you and leaving your whiskey aside, you hatch a devious, unthinkable plan of escape...
Award-winning FellSwoop Theatre return with a new show set on the Western Coast of America, blending a live soundtrack, detailed mime and a witty text. Adapted from the novel by Patrick DeWitt.
www.fellswooptheatre.com
To Have & To Hold
Adam Fuller
Co-performed with Peta Dennis
With original music written and performed by John and Laura Holmes of The Glowglobes
Fri 20, 6.30pm
To Have & To Hold (The Modern Day Fable of Molly & Mabel) uses storytelling, rhyme and puppetry to tell the tale of Molly and Mabel, sisters whose lives are re-entwined following the sudden and synchronised deaths of their husbands. As they approach old age, they must grow accustomed to each other's company once more and find their place in an often overwhelming world. Are they merely fodder for modernity? Or have they still got the stomach for a fight?
Adam Fuller is a writer and performer who's worked with Full Beam Visual Theatre, Idiot Child and Pickled Image.
TIE
Tom Wainwright
Made in collaboration with The Tin Can Collective
Directed by Rikki Henry
Sat 21, 6.30pm
(at Circomedia, Portland Square)
A Theatre In Education Company called Cut The Rap enter a youth club in Lawrence Weston. They are there to perform Ride, a new play about teenage sex. It is a bad play. And the accompanying workshop falls apart. In fact, they so offend the young people they've come to work with, the company are held hostage and made to do their own flawed workshop, by the children.
This is a script-in-hand performance of a very early draft. It features a cross-generational cast of 11.
Tom Wainwright is a writer and performer based in Bristol. Previous credits at Bristol Old Vic include Muscle, Pedestrian and most recently Coasting.
Ours Was The Fen Country
Dan Canham
Sat 21, 8.15pm
Since 2009 Dan Canham has been capturing conversations with people of the fens in East Anglia. Eel-catchers, farmers, parish councilors, museum keepers, molly dancers and conservationists have all been interviewed. In this ethereal piece of dance-theatre, Dan and his team fuse movement and sound with the words and memories of their native collaborators to get to the heart of this beautiful, bleak and mysterious expanse of flat land.
This is a first chance to catch the early stages of the full piece which will come to Bristol Old Vic next year.
stillhouse.co.uk
Bluebeard
Gallivant
Written and devised by Lee Lyford, Hattie Naylor, and Paul Dodgson
Tue 24, 8.30pm
A man was recently charged for murder in the States having carried out the sexual fantasies of a woman he had met on the internet. It is well documented that some women seek romantic communication and even marriage with convicted serial killers. But why?
In his chamber, Bluebeard talks to us intimately, with the delicate appetite of a connoisseur, disconcerting us with his passion and belief in the beauty of his deviant, violent, sexual acts. Will he repulse you, entertain you or seduce you?
Contains adult themes. Recommended age 16+
Another Fine Mess
Chris Gylee and Emily Lim
Wed 25, 6.30pm
A simple story of loss, renewal, country music and eggs.
Another Fine Mess is inspired by Pebble Island, the childhood memories of comic-book artist Jon McNaught. This experiment in wordless storytelling describes an intimate landscape through a sequence of living images.
Another Fine Mess is co-imagined by Bristol-based designer Chris Gylee and London-based director Emily Lim. They have recently worked at venues including: Ovalhouse, Tobacco Factory, National Theatre Studio and Southwark Playhouse.
The Islanders
Amy Mason
Music by Eddie Argos and Jim Moray
Wed 25, 8.15pm
The Islanders is a show about memory, relationships, and growing up. As teenagers, Amy Mason and Eddie Argos went on holiday to the Isle of Wight. 13 years on, their memories of the trip vary wildly. Using stories and songs they explore the truth about a holiday, and island, that have become absurd in the retelling.
Amy Mason is writer based in Bristol. She was the 2011 writer in residence at Spike Island Arts Space and recently received an Arts Council grant to complete her first novel.
www.amymason.co.uk
Get Shorty
Various Artists
Thu 26, 6.30pm
Take a pocketful of writers.
Lock them in a room one night a week for six weeks.
Stir things up with a big stick.
Limit them to ten minute dramas.
And the result? Get Shorty.
Hot-off-the-press short plays by five of the most exciting new writers from Bristol and beyond. A wonderfully eclectic selection box served up by our very own Ferment ensemble company in a Get Shorty frenzy of script-in-hand reading. The best things do come in small packages....
The Heat
George Gotts
Thu 26, 8.15pm
When a group of old university friends get together in the heat of the summer in the south of France, old jealousies, sexual tensions and class conflicts all come to the surface.
This new play by George Gotts asks: are friends the new family? And, if so, are they just as fraught with pain and trouble as a real family?
George Gotts is a Dorset-based writer whose plays include Cocoa (Theatre 503), No One Move (Barons Court Theatre), A Plague of People (co-written with Steve Waters, Hampstead Theatre), The Raven Glass (on attachment National Theatre Studio) and short plays Ex Libris for Birmingham University and Seance for the RSC.
Shifts
Sita Calvert-Ennals and Duncan Speakman working with writer Adam Peck
Fri 27 & Sat 28, 7pm & 9pm
(Venue TBC - keep an eye on Twitter and our website)
Set in a time where oil is scarce, fear is plentiful and borders are closing, this show asks how humans relate to change, adapt to survive and remain humane .
Shifts is a new collaboration between Duncan Speakman and director Sita Calvert-Ennals and forms the early stages of a project bringing together their individual interests in truthful narrative experiences and the intimacy of sound.
www.sitace.com
If You Decide To Stay
Sylvia Rimat
Fri 27, 6.30pm
Sylvia Rimat presents a very early snippet of her new project, if You Decide to Stay, in which she tries to retrace a lifetime of decision making in a complex world.
Sylvia is a performance-maker from Germany currently living in Bristol. Her projects often revolve around the process of remembering, personal histories, risk and how we orientate ourselves.
www.sylviarimat.com
Knot Circus
Jonathan Priest
Fri 27, 7pm
What is on the end of your rope? How much rope is enough? If something comes undone can it be fixed? Is there a thread that we can follow? If you are politically opposed to the effects of gravity, where should you stand?
Jonathan is an international circus artist who will be making knots around these questions in an exploration of the relationship between a circus performer and his rope.
ATOMKRAFT (A Score For A Press conference)
Greg McLaren
Sat 28, 6.30pm
Roddy Magnox, Australia's richest man wants to build a nuclear power station in the
middle of Bristol. He’s holding a ‘press conference’ to try to convince you why this is a good
idea. You, (the audience) are cast as journalists and receive a press pack upon entry. Using the
information contained within you must ask questions of the panel in order to discover what’s going on.
Apart from Roddy, the panel consists of nuclear workers, activists and possibly scientists from the
future (if the internet connection holds up) although, it’s hard to tell who’s who though because
there seems to be two of each one. Some are ‘real’ others are performers. Can the audience
decide who or what is ‘true’ and what or who is not, preferably before the countdown reaches zero and something disastrous happens…?
Greg McLaren makes shows about modern life, from the frighteningly global to trivially personal. This work is part of ATOMKRAFT; an investigation into global power production and consumption culminating in a full scale theatre production in 2013.
www.gregmclaren.com
Enduring Song
Jesse Briton / Bear Trap Theatre Company
Sat 28, 8.15pm
France. 1096. Matthew, a young French knight, sets out on the first Crusade. Behind him he leaves a broken family, a crumbling ancestral farm, and a teenage sister who must save it all from ruin.
From the siege of Jerusalem, to the churches of Antioch and the fields of France, Enduring Song is an historical epic about love, hope, and family from the writer of Bound which played at Bristol Old Vic earlier this year.
