picturesqueue
The Q – enhancing the nations queueing experience. Here is a link to Joanna Ornowska’s excellent images of a day spent Q-ing in Coventry. Talking Birds premiered The Q at locations in the City Centre as part of London 2012 Open Weekend.
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lost bassoon
HECKEL BASSOON No. 11321-5 STOLEN IN BIRMINGHAM UK
On July 18, 2011, Heckel bassoon No. 11321-5 was stolen from Gretha Tuls, principal bassoon in CBSO, Birmingham UK in her house.
The bassoon has a light brown colour, has a Dutch leg rest on it( legrest itself wasn’t taken). the keys are nickelplated and the top ring is white.
It contains 2 Heckel crooks as well: CD 2 XL and CC 1 XL. It is carried in a black Marcus Bonna case with the brand name ADAMS on it. ( the bassoon comes apart in 4 pieces in the case)
email: grethatuls@hotmail.com
phone: 00447747315746
dutch phone: 0031629466318
Gretha is my next door neighbour. The burglars were prevented from breaking into our house by quick-witted and vigilant Iris, who spotted them lurking in the back yard. They will have no idea how important the instrument is to Gretha. It’s a pointless theft. If anyone has any information or hears of it being offloaded, please get in touch.
Graeme
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Tags: heckelbassoon
queued up in coventry
Q MOB from MINDRIOT PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.
… a few glimpses of the Q Mob on the first of 2 days spent pampering the queueing public of Cov. as part of the London 2012 Open Weekend. Next week (29th/30th July) the Q Utility Vehicle makes its way to Birmingham City Centre. Look out for performances in Chamberlain Sq. and outside the Hippodrome Theatre.
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The Q
‘Queue Enhancement Specialist’ Rose break-dances his way round Talking Birds’ FarGo rehearsal unit, sporting crisp-out-of-the-bag tangerine streetwear (see pic).
By way of celebrating the London 2012 Open Weekend (1 whole year to go ’til the Olympics) Talking Birds will introduce The Q to the precincts of Coventry this coming friday and saturday. The Q team will illustrate and recognise good practice in the field of queueing and in doing so aim to elevate the great British tradition of queueing to Olympic sporting status. It’s a cheap way of trying to get more medals, but we think we’re on to something.
Obviously one person maketh not a queue. No, a queue happens as soon as one of you starts breathing down my neck, so come along and join on the line.
You can follow the Q_mob Twitter feed for updates.
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prize-winning act
Alexa Fury reveals the face of Cassandra in Kindle Theatre‘s cultish drrty grrl band version of The Furies….
The show had its second outing last week as part of the remarkable BE Festival 2011 at AE Harris. On Saturday, at the closing awards ceremony, The Furies received the ACT touring award, with its prize an invite to the ACT Festival in Bilbao. The talk was of The Furies achieving a cult status, but first the show has to be reworked and rehearsed up for Edinburgh audiences. Watch this space for performance details.
To add to the air-punching glory, I managed to walk away from BEfest with the ‘Pamper Hamper’ raffle prize. Quite what that means, I’m unsure, but rest assured Dave the Roadie will smell good.
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Tags: kindle BEfestival
I can predict the future
Long ago, in the days before the AEHarris venue even a twinkle, Stan’s Cafe were resident on the top floor of an abandoned factory building on New Canal Street in a largely derelict part of Digbeth. There was a vibrant alternative cultural scene here, not to mention activity of the established giants; UB40′s studio round the corner, Birmingham Opera’s memorable Candide performing in the Chuckworks…
But Brum had grander schemes in mind. Amid much talk of Eastside Regeneration, hopes of a successful City of Culture bid and the proposed relocation of the Royal College of Organists to Curzon Street, the New Canal St. factory was bulldozed and the ground prepared for a series of building schemes which would include Richard Rogers’s iconic New Library.
Some seven or eight years on, this is what the site now looks like (pic). Even UB40 have given up here and the once excellent pubs are now boarded up. A completely different Library building is currently being constructed “Westside” and here in Digbeth’s abandoned wastes, nature is reclaiming its own.
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“…be again, BE again…”
…With those strains of Beckett still trailing me, I return to Brum with a vigour, and time to focus on overdue work that’s suffered from the disruptions of touring. Meanwhile, as summer festival-time approaches, I’m feeling the thrill of a three-pronged performance assault ;
1. BE festival. Just what Birmingham needed….and the BE Team actually make it happen! The audacious and colourful BE Fest returns to AE Harris in 3 weeks’ time. The BE programme has just been announced and includes a second (improved!) outing of Kindle’s The Furies, which will conclude the opening day’s fare with its Rock and Rage. (I direct, and have occasion to play Dave, the roadie) 6th July, 10pm.
2. Latitude 2011. Red Shift return to the excellent Latitude Festival with The Invisible Show II. Last year was something of a try-out for the show and it proved a great success, so this year the piece is being developed so that audience responses and festival actualities might be folded into the narrative. The Invisible Show II will be performing several times during the day amidst the crowds near the Literary & Theatre Arenas. 14th – 17th July.
3. Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The grandaddy of them all. Not only do Red Shift penetrate the fizzing cauldron that is Pleasance Courtyard with their Invisible Show II, but the Furies fly into the ‘burgh too, a-wailing and a-screeching. Red Shift, 21st-28th Aug (11.30am, 2pm, 4.30pm daily); Kindle Theatre 24th-26th (late night, venue tbc.)
Watch this space for updates.
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looking like krapp
Beckett locates his 1958 play thus;
A late evening in the future.
“Wearish” old man Krapp listens to the declamations of his younger self via a thirty year-old reel-to-reel tape recording. He skirts any sentimental reflection over the death of his mother, brooding instead on memories of an anonymous nurse or the incomparable bosom of a passer-by.
Krapp’s Last Tape has become a classic rumination for the actor in his twilight years. Pinter, Hurt, Gambon… and famously Max Wall. Early reaction to me performing the role was greeted with surprise. You’re not old enough! But the real revelation is that Beckett wrote the part at the age of 51 for a 37-year old Patrick Magee. And “a late evening in the future” is exactly that – a projection of the future-self looking back on moments of the lived present…. all of which – as I write – happened yesterday, infact.
Krapp’s Last Tape proved an ideal warm-up act to the very last showing of Model Love, performed to a packed house in the Wickham Theatre at Bristol University. It is four years since the start of the project, and the successive versions of the show – as installation, print and performance - span a period of intense lightnesses and darks, which have spilled off the paper into life. Ed Dimsdale’s brilliant images from those early love-story photo-books provided the substance from which the work grew.
photo: Edward Dimsdale
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Tags: Bodies in Flight, ed dimsdale, krapp's last tape, simon jones
still moving
Four days of buzzing between B’s… Berlin>B’ham>Balham>Bristol.
…strictly speaking the Berlin part was actually elegant Potsdam, full of Schloss und Wasser, where the excellent Fabrik Tanztage played host to a visit of Stan’s Cafe’s The Cleansing of Constance Brown last week. We were looked after, fed gloriously and leave lovely friends behind. After a sleepless final night of de-rig, dunkelbiers and impromptu dancing, I return home with barely time enough for a wash cycle and re-pack before hitting the Capital for a Wembley treat with brothers-in-law and small persons (England clawing back a 2-2 draw off the mighty Schweizers) and then it’s a painfully long train journey back to the Midlands before repacking and heading to Bristol first thing this-morning.
This thursday, 9th June, here in Bristol, I’ll be performing a double bill with Bodies In Flight: Sam Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape and Bodies In Flight’s Model Love bookend the Inaugural Lecture of my long-time friend and collaborator Simon Jones, Professor of Performance at Bristol University. This is a real opportunity to celebrate Simon’s practice & research and I’m proud to be the embodied presence at that interface of Flesh & Text.
Here are details of the event, Still Moving, as published on the University website.
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scoop
Created by Talking Birds and MindRiot Prods. as stimulus for an education project with Coventry schools.
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