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Company number: 3724349
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Past programme
Showcases an eclectic range of fresh and interesting contemporary work, largely by emerging artists
Casa and Magical Chairs
Casa
A theatrical dance piece with elements of structured improvisation, a collage of still images and stylized sketches inspired from typical everyday life situations.
Big heavy coats come to life... Characters go through individual journeys... Sense of belonging and what makes a place home are questioned...
Magical Chairs
"There are an estimated 143 million abandoned chairs worldwide. Many millions more are abandoned or separated from their immediate and extended owners, living on the street, in institutions, or supporting their siblings on their own..."
A short play about childhood, magic tricks and musical chairs brings you a game of the absurdist kind, with realistic undertones and dystopic nuances. Can you take it seriously? Can you enjoy it?
www.youtube.com/user/annaritamazzilli#p/a/u/0/J60xJa3CEbQ
Mervyn Peake 1911-1968: Centenary Celebrations
The Blue Elephant marks Mervyn Peake's centenary year with a mini-festival of his plays and poetry celebrating his diversity as a writer. Following our world premiere of The Cave last year, we discover once again that Peake's imagination and inspiration extended far beyond Gormenghast...
Tuesday 26 April: Rehearsed reading of Noah's Ark
Intended for children, Peake’s unmistakable prose makes his behind-the-scenes account of this well-known biblical story just as engaging for adult audiences. Originally aired on BBC radio, this charming play is long overdue a theatrical staging.
Noah's Ark was given a full production at the Blue Elephant Theatre for Christmas 2011.
Wednesday 27 April: Rehearsed reading of Mr Loftus or And a Horse of Air
The dust in his room is ankle deep yet Mr Loftus still insists on being served tea and brandy by his butler. With an eccentric anti-hero whose manners are decidedly ungentlemanly, this previously unseen play is Peake's distinctive take on the comedy of manners.
"Mad? Did you say mad? I have gone sane. That's much more difficult."
Thursday 28 April: The Poems of Peake
An evening of Peake's poetry read, staged and interpreted by a range of artists. With a post-performance Q&A with the writer's son Sebastian Peake.
Trunkated
Rosie’s Pop Diary
Fringe Report Award-winning Comic Rosie Wilby started out as a singer-songwriter fronting her own band ‘Wilby’. The story of band relationships and breakups, bizarre auditions, parties and gigs was captured in words in the column Rosie’s Pop Diary that ran from 1996-2000 in the now defunct Making Music Magazine.
Mixing visuals, storytelling, stand up and acoustic versions of the songs written at the time, Rosie brings back to life the emotional rollercoaster of trying to make it in the music business at the height of Britpop… and investigates whether her column really told the whole story…
Yellow Moths & Spilt Milk
Four wise men once asked:
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality…
(Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see)
Drawing on dreams, popular culture, autobiography, mythology and physics, Pachamama’s Bordello invites you to plumb the depths of reality from the cell to the celestial. Join us as we run across the planes of human existence with wild abandon. Prepare to encounter shady tricksters, a mother obsessed with birds, a poor version of Judy Garland, cabaret singers, hospital patients and eternal wanderers. Using a heady mix of live singing, physical theatre and snippets of stories, Yellow Moths & Spilt Milk pokes at what it means to be on this journey called life.
Asta Nielsen is Dead [a silent move]
"The silent film actress Asta Nielsen died in 1972
A performer doesn’t have a long life on stage
One of us has to die
Soon”
These are the first subtitles in this performance. Two performers will interact with projected texts and images, using methods found in silent films. As in these films, the performers will suffer from the tragedies of love & attempt to escape bizarre and humorous accidents. At the end there is just one open question: who is going to die?
Asta Nielsen is Dead is an experimental dance mime by
[RE:artzzZ]------re|thinking art.
Concept & Performance: Regina Fichtner & Patrizia Carlota
Music & Sound: Steve Haben
Editor: Ana Carrusca
Rubies In The Attic
1898 An Italian boards a boat for America as a Russian Jew. Mistakes Cable Street for Cape Town.
1900 Charles joins the circus.
1938 Pat is taken in by a bald man at the bar.
Beautiful and bold Cabaret Theatre created and performed by The Ruby Dolls. Rubies In the Attic explores the shared histories of four women, starting at the turn of the 20th century. Intertwining Coward with Klezmer and Tango with African folk, the Dolls cross musical landscapes and political divides. Join them as they unearth their beginnings and sing their back way home.
Not looking for anyone
"People want to be found, but they’re not looking for anyone…"
Guerilla Dance Project attempts to answer the question of what has become of
social dance and physical courting rituals in an anonymous urbanised society,
and what its prospects are as our social interactions become increasingly
digitalised.
The show examines this through the lens of a female individual, using
vocabulary from the company’s trademark ‘random acts of dance when you least
expect them’. As she observes the numb world around her, routine movements
unfold into a vibrant display of our contemporary physicality, forcing us to
'experience the everyday as aesthetic'.
Once Upon a Time...
Filskit Theatre is commited to creating work that ignites the imagination of
audiences. Using their own special 'Filskit' blend of micro projection, light,
movement, shadow and music, they take a closer look at a real fairytale
female...
http://www.filskittheatre.com/
Macbeth
Ambition, violence, tyranny and evil... Lazarus returns to Shakespeare for this explosive and blood thirsty production of one of the most iconic plays ever written.
Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, rises with a viscous and savage thirst for power, reputation and dominance. His rapid and sensational succession through the ranks - encouraged by his wife's dominance - leads to him being crowned King and ultimately his destruction.
A large ensemble of over fifteen actors will create this dark, violent and demonic production, combining text, movement and music to create a world of witchcraft, masculinity and divine intervention.
Tom's
Three shows, three critically-acclaimed offerings: since 2005 Sketty Productions have been using original puppetry to fuel their physical approach in creating emotive drama.
The work produced has been praised as extraordinary, innovative, beautiful and intelligent, and as much dynamic as it is deeply moving.
Taken from the true story of Tom Nabarro and his partner Ellen, this latest piece explores the lives of an inspiring young couple prevailing over apparent tragedy. What has been discovered is a story of astounding determination, unique love, hope...And laughter.
Recordings
Click to play
- Radio Interview
- Feature on Reprezent radio
Clichéd & Mind The Gap
Clichéd
Sebastian Rex Dance Group
Cliché: an overused expression or idea.
What happens when clichés are stripped from their meaning and being given new ones? Can Mendelssohn’s wedding march ever be used for the unhappiest day of your life? Will the Jaws theme tune ever signify anything less frightening or are there plenty more fish in the sea? Following critics’ choice in Time Out, SRDG return to the Blue Elephant with an exploration of the oldest phrases in the books…
Mind The Gap
Acting Like Mad Mind the Gap is a playful exploration in story-telling, channelling into the futility of youth. Four friends go on holiday to London. They sit, talk, sleep with each other and play games in short staccato dialogue, with characters playing other parts in order to tell their stories. We get a glimpse into these young lives - their personalities and childhood traumas - in a quirky and energetic manner. Scenes are short and dynamic. Just like that sentence was. Even more so. Like that. Reviews Review by Vicky Bell from The Public Reviews Review by Olivia Parker from Running In Heels Review by LondonDance.comRecordings
Click to play
- Feature on Reprezent radio
The White Devil
Following a hugely successful production of The Duchess of Malfi at the Blue Elephant last year, Lazarus returns to John Webster to stage one of the finest and most complex Jacobean tragedies, The White Devil.
Vittoria, wife of Camillo, is consumed in a decadent and dangerous love affair with Duke Bracciano, husband to Isabella. Their intoxicating game of lust and sexual obsession leads to the destruction of the court and their own existence.
This passionate and tragic piece will be played by a large ensemble who - through the use of text, movement and music - create the debauchery and decay of the Italian court. The hunt is on for The White Devil…
Reviews
Review by Katie Shellard from Running In Heels
Review by Naima Khan from Spoonfed.co.uk
Review by Georgia Blake from WhatsOnStage.com
Press coverage
Interview with director Ricky Dukes
Recordings
Click to play
- Feature on Reprezent radio
The Cave [WORLD PREMIERE]
by Mervyn Peake
In one cave, thousands of years of history are played out. A history marked by conformity and the persecution of anyone who dares to speak out. One family struggles to live their day-to-day lives. Then one day a young girl enters the cave and throws their belief system into question.
This unsettling and powerful play by Mervyn Peake - author of Gormenghast - is a dark, inquisitive look at the nature of authority and its effect on the human condition.
There will be a post-show discussion with the writer's son, Sebastian Peake chaired by writer Neil Norman on Tuesday 26 October.
Reviews
It has streaks of the angry postwar nihilism of Anouilh and Sartre: the hopeful theme of rejecting fear and social coercion leads only to amoral fragmentation in the last act. But it is extraordinary: a howl, an imperfect and painful philosophical struggle, part of a remarkable artist's testament. Honour to the little theatre." –Libby Purves, The Times
Review by Caroline Jowett from Express.co.uk
Review by Paul Vale from The STAGE
Interviews
Interview by BehindTheFringe.com
Londonist Out Loud 2: Aaron Paterson from Londonist on Vimeo.
Rehearsal
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The three artists involved in the exhibition to accompany the play 'The Cave' have spent a number of days watching and making drawings of the rehearsals. They have all responded in ways particular to their own working methods. Collecting images and ideas during rehearsals has been enormously inspiring for all three artists.
Florence Peake has concentrated on 'one to one' contact with the director and cast of the play and produced a set of drawings showing the dynamic nature of the rehearsals. By a mixture of quick observations and more 'worked' drawings she echoes her own practice in choreography and performance.
Lewis Peake, with his experience in film and television, has used a combination of photography and drawings as starting points for his work in the exhibition.
Fabian Peake has used the drawings and watercolours produced during the rehearsals to develop ideas and visual themes in his studio. The work produced displays a linear path which often diverges greatly from the original subject. The initial drawings 'on set' were the basis for a more cerebral interpretation of events encountered in the rehearsals.
Jukai 樹海
At the base of Mount Fuji lies a stretch of forest known locally as 'The Sea of Trees'. Centuries of secrets lie hidden under the mossy earth, where rivers of lava have hardened over to form the cavernous forest floor. Thousands of people who have entered these woods have never been seen again. Some simply got lost. Others went in intending to disappear…
Theatre Témoin collaborates with Taiko drummers to devise a new piece which incorporates half-mask, contemporary theatre and Japanese traditional music to tell a story about straying from the path.
FAQs: "Jukai" @ Blue Elephant Theatre, London [BehindTheFringe.com]
Featured article: JUKAI Review 28 Sept -16 Oct [JapaneseLondon.com]
★★★★★Review of Jukai 樹海, by Theatre Temoin [Remotegoat.co.uk]
Review by Amy Yorston [The British Theatre Guide]
Borough Faces etc.
A member of The Camera Club at Kennington, Philip Ratciff is a local portrait photographer.
Most of the pictures were taken in and around the Borough Market with enthusiastic co-operation of members of Trinity College of Music.
Stairway To Heaven
Cheops’ Pyramid. Egypt. 2,700 B.C.
The biggest, most terrifying and dangerous construction site the world has ever known.
A hundred thousand men will haul two and a half million limestone blocks weighing a total of six million tons up a building the size of a skyscraper using nothing but human muscle.
On his first day working on the pyramid, one young man has to adapt quickly to a new life in a work gang where intense friendships and hatreds are forged in a feverish furnace of desert heat, brutal humour, backbreaking work, horrific accidents, drink, sex and death.
And as the ghosts of dead workmates and visions of Amun Ra the Sun God elbow their way into Makhthon’s dreams, something strange is happening just out of sight, on the higher ledges of the pyramid, where the workers are never allowed.
Where does the stairway really lead?
Press
We see the World through the Prism of our Understanding
An exhibition of work by Jessica Davies.
Spark: London
Everyone has a story in them. Extraordinary true stories of life in this fine city told by a specially-selected group of Londoners.
Recordings
Click to play
- A story told by Martin Cullingford
Press
