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Review: Praxis Makes Perfect at Motion, Bristol (Mayfest 2013) - Bristol24-7

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Review: Praxis Makes Perfect at Motion, Bristol (Mayfest 2013) The physical theatre element of the show was well choreographed and absorbing and avoided tiresome overemphasis By Lou Trimby Tuesday May 28, 2013 0

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Praxis Makes Perfect at Motion, Bristol, part of Mayfest 2013

‘Immersive theatre’ is very much in vogue at present. Critics, producers and performers can talk for hours or write reams on its subversion of the performer/audience dynamic, how the audience become part of the performance as it surrounds them and how the lines blur and each performance is different due to the different audiences and so it goes. The

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very phrase ‘immersive theatre’ can be off putting without hyper and hyped analysis of the form. Thus it was with a degree of scepticism that I approached ‘Praxis Makes Perfect’ the new play/performance piece/gig by the National Theatre of Wales and Neon Neon (Gruff Rhys, Super Furry Animals and US hip hop producer). I’d already been told to wear something red and take a book which meant something to me. Dictating the dress sense of an audience wouldn’t ordinarily seem subversive then I remembered this is immersive theatre, you feel like part of the show, oh huzzah. So I donned my aesthetically pleasing red theatre‑going cagoule, found a book which meant absolutely nothing to me, I’m not in the habit of giving my books away and hadn’t had time to go to a charity shop, and went to Motion to see just what all the fuss was about. Motion was buzzing when we arrived. The show was about the life of multi‑ millionaire publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli ‑ a fascinating character a multi‑ millionaire who was also a Communist, a communist who published an anti‑ Soviet and potentially anti‑communist bestselling novel ‘Dr Zhivago’, a man who played basketball with Castro, was possibly tortured by the CIA and may well have been murdered by the Italian Secret Service. Once we entered the arena where the performance was to take place the diversity of the audience was apparent, many regular gig goers were in attendance presumably to see Neon Neon, as were many theatre attendees there for The National Theatre of Wales. And none of them entirely sure what

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Tags: Bodies In Flight, Gymnast, Mayfest, Review, Theatre Mayfest Review: Gymnast Posted on 01 June 2013 by Chloe Fry

The show begins with audio reciting a selection of the young gymnasts’ personal stories, which helps you to feel engaged with each performer as their inner thoughts and dreams are played to you whilst you watch them watch warm up. One audio of a young girl tells you that she feels as though she is “flying” when she is completing her routines. These recordings allow you to enter the performers’ head spaces as you watch them execute their routines and exercises. The audio teamed with the gymnasts stretching before you also allows you to gain an understanding of everything that makes up each performer, and what they go through to be able to do what they do so fantastically, as they talk you through their daily warm-ups and exercises. After the personal stories, a choir took their place on the floor, interspersed through the gymnasts, which helps the warming-up seem more dramatic and energetic. The choir’s harmonies were all beautiful and set the tone of the show perfectly, as the choir’s songs worked to, in a way, explain the processes each gymnast was going through, and the emotions they were experiencing as they took to the floor or their equipment. The use of a live choir, rather than a pre-recorded sound track, makes the show feel more three dimensional as they worked perfectly in time with the gymnasts and their unbelievable movements. Another fantastic thing about this choir was that people of all ages, sizes and genders could be a part of the show in some way and everybody on the floor had an active part, whether it be producing wonderful harmonies or elegantly throwing their bodies around the equipment before you. The youngsters’ flexibility was unbelievably entrancing as they moved about into positions which many can only dream about. It felt as though you were perhaps watching highlights from the GB gymnastics team at London’s 2012 Olympics last year. The standard was fantastically high. You could clearly see how hard the whole team have worked together to make the show look slick and effortless. The perfect unison of the gymnasts www.ayoungertheatre.com/?s=mayfest&x=-1081&y=-120

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mayfest | A Younger Theatre

and each singer in the choir allowed the show to progress without (seemingly) any mistakes or slip ups. This show was professional, intriguing and exciting, as the beautifully elegant and majestic routines hooked you, and made you hold your breath at the flips, spins and turns across the space, which seem, to someone who’s never done gymnastics, dangerous and exciting. All of the performers have an absolutely amazing talent which should be highly celebrated and praised. Gymnast played at Mayfest Bristol.

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Mayfest review: The Memory Dealer Posted on 28 May 2013 by Chloe Fry

Your curiosity about this show is provoked from the very beginning, when you are emailed with small extracts of information and given the details to download the extremely brilliant and clever app. The curiosity doesn’t end until you walk out of your final destination, and begin to process what had just happened around you in the previous two hours. The app, which is used constantly throughout the show, perfectly works to direct you around the early scenes and set the basic themes of the plot. The first 20 minuets, which you spend alone around the centre of Bristol, with your headphones, listening to the specific app, allows you to become immersed in the whole environment and setting of the show. The peaceful orchestral music playing during the interaction with characters helps to build tension at the right moments, allowing the producers, in a way, to tell you how to respond to the events unfolding before and around you. The actors involved are brilliantly convincing in the parts they play. They effortlessly blend into the real word, making it difficult to separate this dramatic world from everything else, which makes the whole experience so engaging and interesting, as you become responsible for moving the plot along to the next stages. The actors never once step away from their roles, and expect you to be just as engaged. this could be seen as the reason the show works so well, as both actors and audiences are responsible for the show moving forward. The use of space around the centre of Bristol (within places such as The Bristol Hotel and College Green to name a few), was fantastic as it helped to bring a sense of realism, especially if you didn’t completely know your way around. It built the tension not only because you may or may not have known your way, but also because you most definitely didn’t know what you were about to walk into. I personally felt most anxious walking to the last destination as it was the furthest away, which allowed a chance to contemplate and imagine what possibly could happen next. The audience was split into two groups and each was given the same situations, but at different intervals and in different manners. For example, dialogue between actors and individuals varied. This allowed each individual to gain their own personal experience. The 20 minutes alone with your headphones at the beginning of the show allowed you to decide, in a way, where the rest of the afternoon will go, as you alone decide what is important information and what can be discarded. This new, and innovative show is a masterpiece, and fantastically produced and created. I hope it goes on to great success. The Memory Dealer was part of Mayfest in Bristol.

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Tags: Belarus Free Theatre. Tobacco Factory, Bristol, Human rights, Mayfest, Trash Cuisine Mayfest review: Trash Cusine www.ayoungertheatre.com/?s=mayfest&x=-1081&y=-120

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6/21/13

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Posted on 25 May 2013 by Eleanor Turney

Incredibly difficult to watch, Belarus Free Theatre’s Trash Cuisine is a hard-hitting and haunting 90 minutes that will stay with you long after you leave the theatre. Introduced as “a cook’s tour of the Globe”, the uniformly superb company use food, cooking and eating as a route into discussing human rights abuses and atrocities the world over. It’s a surprisingly funny show some of the time, although a large amount of the giggling feels nervous, but the touches of humour also serve to highlight the horror that the cast discuss and depict on stage. Having spent time travelling and talking to people, it’s truly chilling to know that all of the stories shown on stage are true, from the breath-stoppingly awful story of a Tutsi woman in Rwanda, to the casual execution of political prisoners in Russia and the bleak mundanity of the death penalty in the USA. The use of movement is distressing and dark, saying what words sometimes struggle to do; the movement sequences articulate the awful things that human beings do to each other in subtle and shifting ways. As the lighting switches suddenly and repeatedly from gloom to dazzling, interrogating light, Belarus Free Theatre foreground the things that we usually try not to think about. They don’t shy away from brutality – cast members are stripped, bound, manhandled – but the violence is never allowed to feel gratuitous. Even a water-boarding scene, carried out live onstage, feels vital, despite being awful to watch. Amongst these scenes of abuse and torture, there are quiet moments where the statistics are allowed to speak for themselves, to great effect. The numbers (of political prisoners, of years spent in prison, of murdered Tutsis, of people who’ve “disappeared”) are powerful in their context without any additional trappings. What’s so impressive about Trash Cuisine, apart from its boldness, is its scope. The USA comes in for just as much criticism over its use of the death penalty as any other country, and death-by-electric-chair is explored in upsetting detail. Parts of the performance are gut-churningly awful to watch and genuinely horrific. I’m pretty sure I stopped breathing at one point. But the trust that the performers show each other makes the piece confrontational without being alienating – it lectures and provokes without ever patronising or preaching. If the last scene is a touch long, well, one can’t help but feel that Belarus Free Theatre have earned the right to hammer their point home. An intensely powerful piece of theatre, Trash Cuisine is brutal, bold and brilliant. Trash Cuisine is at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol as part of Mayfest. For more information and tickets, visit the Mayfest website.

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Mayfest review: Cooking Ghosts Posted on 23 May 2013 by Eleanor Turney

This beautifully scattered shot and occasionally confusing piece presents a bleak and affecting portrait of mental illness, told through the eyes of the ill woman’s children. In a world that celebrates and idolises maternity, a mother telling other people to “never have children” still has the power to shock. Beady Eye Theatre’s piece, Cooking Ghosts, never feels as though it shocks for the sake of it, presenting a delicate and sensitive show that examines what drives a mother of three to repeatedly attempt suicide – and ultimately manage to kill herself. It’s not a perfect piece, but the cast of three weave together past and present with such skill that it is impossible not be caught up in their story. The sense of loss and abandonment is powerfully expressed. In what could have been a clumsy idea, the cast are mostly dressed as babies, interacting with www.ayoungertheatre.com/?s=mayfest&x=-1081&y=-120

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mayfest | A Younger Theatre

and imitating video footage of toddlers and clutching toys. The poignancy of these children trying first of all not to annoy their mum, and later trying to “cheer her up” or “fix her”, is devastating – it doesn’t need a fancy set or clever script. The dialogue is sparse; much of the story is narrated over the top of flickering images and projections. One of the cast is pregnant, and images are projected onto her bare stomach. A grown man and woman stage a puppet show, desperate for attention and approval. Sibling rivalries and alliances are laid bare. It’s familiar, comforting stuff, shot-through with the anticipatory dread of trying to protect someone suicidal. The piece is set mostly in the ’50s and ’60s so we see the mother being given electro-shock therapy, “after which she was in black and white”. Some of the scenes drag on too long, and some of them are a little bizarre – the mother figure is seen by her small children as a bull, and so often wears a huge, horned mask. At several points she is nude, and one poor man in the front row is dragged from his seat and made to bob for apples in the Garden of Eden. As a way of trying to explore mental illness and how it affects the sufferer and their family, it’s pretty successful. Scenes which struck me particularly were those where the sheer joy of children playing in a garden were juxtaposed with the despair of their mother. There are bits that I liked more than others, naturally, but overall, this is a subtle and moving piece about mental health which handles its subject deftly. Cooking Ghosts is at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol as part of Mayfest until 23 May. Visit the Mayfest website for more details

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BBC News - Giant crocheted doily made for Bristol Mayfest

BRISTOL 15 June 2013 Last updated at 11:27

Giant crocheted doily made for Bristol Mayfest A giant crocheted doily which appeared under a railway bridge in Bristol was commissioned as part of a oneday outdoor theatre event, it has emerged. The 12ft (3.6m) diameter "spider web" underneath Stapleton Road railway bridge was created by two artists working with people from the area. It was commissioned as part of the Hook, Skip, Repeat event organised by Theatre Bristol and Mayfest. The work was made using rope and a giant crochet needle. It is one of a several largescale rope structures set to appear around the city. The artists Heidi Dorschler and Jeremiah Krage from Cornwall invited passersby to help them weave the doily. "It's hugely important to us to work in spaces and venues outside of the city centre and this opportunity was too good to pass up," said Matthew Austin, coartistic director of Mayfest, the city's contemporary theatre festival. The event was funded by Stapleton Road Working Group. The group was set up in February 2011 to tackle the negative perception of the road and to bring together residents and traders to improve the neighbourhood. Things To Do

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Adventurous Theatre for Playful People - Mayfest 2013 | Arts Council

Adventurous Theatre for Playful People ‐ Mayfest 2013 Date: 29 April 2013 Region: South West

16-26 May, Bristol UK Bristol's Mayfest celebrates its tenth anniversary in style with its most ambitious programme of live performance so far. With a Grants for the arts award, Mayfest 2013 celebrates theatre from across the globe that is political, funny, moving, provocative and exciting. Events include a virtual trapeze ride, a large-scale immersive gig in a nightclub, a rock version of a classical myth in a converted church, and giant Share multi-coloured doilies in public spaces around the city. The ten day Festival shines the spotlight on artists who are doing things a little less ordinary. Alongside a full programme hosted in Bristol theatre venues, this tenth anniversary programme also bursts out into more places, buildings and sites than ever before, not least with a series of ten new bespoke commissions from a selection of Bristol's most exciting artists. The programme features performances by Kate Tempest (recent winner of the Ted Hughes Poetry Award), New York's Banana Bag and Bodice, National Theatre Wales/Neon Neon, Belarus Free Theatre, Ontroerend Goed, Ockham's Razor, Kieran Hurley, Paper Cinema and many more. Mayfest began life at Bristol Old Vic in 2003 as a month-long programme of experimental work in the Studio. In 2008, when Kate Yedigaroff and Matthew Austin became Artistic Directors of the festival, it became a city wide event, coproduced with Bristol Old Vic alongside many organisations across the city, and has continued to work with local, national and international artists to animate the city with new and bold theatrical ideas. In 2011, Kate and Matthew established MAYK, a new independent producing organisation that directs and produces the festival alongside a growing portfolio of other projects throughout the year. This year's festival features over 150 performances by around 50 companies and artists and will reach a bigger audience than ever. www.artscouncil.org.uk/news/arts-council-news/adventurous-theatre-playful-people-mayfest-2013/

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Adventurous Theatre for Playful People - Mayfest 2013 | Arts Council

The tenth anniversary programme features a roll call of previous Mayfest companies and artists, including Ridiculusmus and Clod Ensemble, who were in the very first festival in 2003 alongside an ever-growing family of new theatrical talents. To mark the tenth anniversary, MAYK and Bristol Ferment have commissioned ten Bristol based artists to make a new work especially for the festival, based on one of the senses. These artists are: Richard Allen, Jo Bannon, Benji Bower, Lucy Cassidy, Laura Dannequin, Sam Halmarack, Kathy Hinde, Tom Marshman, Sleepdogs and Tom Wainwright. Peppered throughout the festival, these new works will offer a fresh perspective on the way we experience the world around us, and continue Mayfest's ongoing commitment to placing local artists at the heart of the festival programme. For their third annual co-commission with Theatre Bristol, Mayfest are working with Cornish Artists Jeremiah Krage and Heidi Dorschler on Hook, Skip, Repeat, an interactive outdoor performance where passers-by can join the artists in creating giant, multi-coloured doily-like structures which will be installed in public spaces across the city. The project is inspired by Bristol's maritime heritage, and created using locally made rope from Bristol Rope & Twine. Artistic Directors Kate Yedigaroff and Matthew Austin said 'In a time where there is much talk of austerity, Bristol is without doubt bucking the trend when it comes to arts and culture. It continues to be a city where artists come to live, make work, innovate and experiment, and where audiences enjoy an unrivalled mix of theatre, digital art and music. Festivals provide a unique focal point for that creativity and our tenth anniversary programme celebrates the wealth of talent in the city and places it alongside some of the most brilliant theatrical voices from around the world. We can't wait to get stuck in.' Phil Gibby, Arts Council England's Director for the South West 'Mayfest provides a fantastic opportunity for people to enjoy all sorts of performances in interesting places across Bristol. Over the past ten years it has grown into an internationally recognised festival where leading theatre makers create high quality work for local people and visitors to the city. This is their biggest programme yet, and I look forward to seeing many people enjoying the range of exciting performances.

www.artscouncil.org.uk/news/arts-council-news/adventurous-theatre-playful-people-mayfest-2013/

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Guide to Bristol Mayfest 2013 | Bristol24-7

Thursday, April 25, 2013

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Guide to Bristol Mayfest 2013 Bristol’s Contemporary Theatre Festival, Mayfest, is back for its 10th anniversary this year – with plenty of exciting events in store By Lou Trimby Wednesday April 24, 2013

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Praxis Makes Perfect at Motion, Bristol, part of Mayfest 2013 .

May 2013 sees the tenth anniversary of Mayfest – Bristol’s contemporary theatre festival . With over 30 shows in numerous venues including the Bristol Old Vic, Arnolfini, Tobacco Factory and Motion, not forgetting performances which take place in secret locations Mayfest offers a veritable feast of theatre and performances. Here are just a few highlights: Beowulf A Thousand Years of Baggage @ Trinity Centre (May 17-19) Beowulf A Thousand Years of Baggage presented by US based company Banana Bag and Bodice has wowed audiences and critics at the Edinburgh Festival and worldwide. Taking the ancient poem Beowulf as its starting point the show presents the bloodthirsty saga as a musical/cabaret. The songs

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Guide to Bristol Mayfest 2013 | Bristol24-7

encompass various different musical genres ranging from jazz, to Weillian Our visa application processes are longer, more complex and more expensive than most of our major rivals for Chinese spend, writes Karen White (Read more...)

cabaret to rock to electronica and more. The show promises to be rowdy, raucous and fun as well as thought-provoking. More info at www.3ca.org.uk Zero @ Bristol Old Vic (May 24-25) Zero performed by Clod Ensemble mixes dance music and physical theatre to impressive effect. The original score by Paul Clarke is played by a group of 7 jazz and blues musicians including trombonist Annie Whitehead (Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Elvis Costello, Robert Wyatt, Jazz Jamaica Allstars), and Johnny Mars the harmonica player who has worked with BB King and Spencer Davis. Zero is described as ‘a world where nothing is certain – where women can be tigers and men can be snakes. Families, marriages and friendships are laced with sibling rivalries, frustrated desires and murderous ambitions. Heavens open and lives fall apart. ‘ More info at www.bristololdvic.org.uk Praxis Makes Perfect @ Motion (May 23)

Praxis Makes Perfect sees two firsts for Mayfest, the staging of theatre at Motion the huge club which hosts some of the best nights in the city and the debut of the National Theatre of Wales in Bristol. The show is devised by Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals and Neon Neon) and Bryan Hollon (Neon Neon) and is a fully immersive gig where the audience become part of the show. The gig asks the audience to imagine the life of millionaire Italian communist Feltrinelli who just happened to be at the heart of many of the most significant events of the 20th century. Feltrinelli was a fascinating character, he played basketball with Castro, was tortured by the CIA, published Dr Zhivago alongside banned books and revolutionary texts and in 1972 he died in mysterious circumstances. The album Praxis Makes Perfect has received rave reviews in the national press and this show, if anything like SFA shows in the past, promises surprises, visual jokes and the unexpected. More info at www.motionbristol.com

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Mayfest’s Matthew Austin on why Bristol is the perfect location for the festival Bristol 24-7 met Matthew Austin, co-Artistic Director of Mayfest to find out more about the festival and the people who make it happen By Lou Trimby Thursday May 16, 2013

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Matthew came to Bristol back in the late 1990s to study drama at the University of Bristol, and as is the case with many former UoB students, he fell in love with the city and stayed on after graduating. Like many people who work in the arts he has been a performer. He was a founder member of The Special Guests, a Bristol-based company who performed across the UK and were regulars at both Bristol Old Vic and

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Arnolfini.

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We asked if he missed being on-stage rather than behind the scenes: “At university I was both a performer and a producer, and afterwards I formed The Special Guests with some friends, and we carried on making work for about seven years. At the same time, I’d been working at Bristol Old Vic in the marketing department, where I got involved in Mayfest very early on, along with Kate, who was also working at the theatre.” He went on: “After a few years of doing both performing, producing and marketing, I was having a chat with someone at the Edinburgh Fringe and

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asked him if he’d ever thought of performing. His reply was that he never had because there were so many people out there who were doing it so much better than him. And that kind of stuck in my head, and I realised that I much preferred helping to make things happen. The thing I’ve always found really exciting is talking to audiences and enthusing them with my enthusiasm.”

IoD report, launched in Parliament, also shows that Asia has moved ahead of North America as a destination for UK exports, writes Tom McCarthy (Read more...)

In no small measure it is thanks to Matthew and fellow artistic director Kate .

Yegdiroff’s enthusiasm for contemporary theatre that Mayfest has become one of Bristol’s most significant annual cultural events. “Mayfest began in 2003 at Bristol Old Vic as a showcase for new work,” said Matt. “We took over as directors in 2008 when Bristol Old Vic closed for 18 months. Dick Penny, at that time Chair of the Bristol Old Vic board and the Arts Council were really supportive in us taking on the festival and so that’s when the next chapter in its history began. When we’re programming Mayfest the one thing all the work has common is that it has to be doing something new and different.”He added: “For example ‘Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage’ at Trinity was a show Kate saw in Edinburgh, she loved it as it was doing something new, bold and exciting with the Beowulf story and we’re really pleased we’ve been able to bring it to Bristol.

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Review: Mayfest Day 11 – Gymnast and A Thousand Shards of Glass | Bristol Culture

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Monday, May 27 2013 Gymnastics is one of the most theatrical of sports. So pairing gymnastics and a choir was not so much of a crazy idea as it might seem. The setting for Gymnast from Bodies In Flight was the Bristol Gymnastics Club in Hartcliffe and our performers were a group of gymnasts and the Night Bus Choir, led by the engaging Jennifer Bell.

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Photo by Paul Blakemore The two disparate groups walked around the apparatus, occasionally meeting, with the voices of the acapella choir accompanied by the thuds of gymnasts landing on floor or equipment, or applying chalk, or ripping off velcro straps. In breaks between singing or more physical exertions, audio interviews with gymnasts were played – including Josh Avallon who was one of the gymnasts in front of us. Interviews emphasised a total commitment to their chosen sport, where thousands of unique adjustments are required just to hold a “still”. This was inspiring stuff; the music and singing lifting the gymnasts’ feats to even greater heights. Over at a more traditional venue for theatre, although not the place you would expect, Lucy Ellinson is a performer who gets in your head, with her piercing eyes and hypnotic voice. In A Thousand Shards of Glass, written by Ben Pacey, directed by Jane Packman and performed by Ellinson high King Street in Coopers Loft, the audience is sat in a circle as a journey is evoked by words, recordings and sound. It’s called a “surround sound action adventure”, and we all have parts to

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Review: Mayfest Day 11 – Gymnast and A Thousand Shards of Glass | Bristol Culture

play, if only as Ellinson looks directly at us as while describing a collection of escapades. This captivating performer led me individually to my seat with confusing talk of the price of camels, made clearer during a whistle-stop journey by car of Cairo as I was pointed out as the camel dealer, a suitably surreal way to bring this year’s Mayfest to a close.

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Review: Mayfest Day 9 – Zero | Bristol Culture

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Review: Mayfest Day 9 – Zero Saturday, May 25 2013 When Mayfest began 10 years ago it was entirely based in Bristol Old Vic. The festival has certainly spread its wings since then, but the Old Vic is still its spiritual home and Zero in the main auditorium showed just how far the festival has come since its early days. Zero, by Clod Ensemble, is like going to the best jazz club you’ve ever been to, with musicians of the highest calibre, especially the virtuoso Johnny Mars on vocals and harmonica. Then there are the dancers thrown into the mix, presenting five distinct acts that tell a story which is difficult to entirely grasp, but with the direction and choreography of Suzy Wilson packs an emotional punch which is only heightened by the live musical score. Zero is at Bristol Old Vic today at 7.30pm. For more information, visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/zero/.

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Review: Mayfest Day 8 – The Memory Dealer and Praxis Makes Perfect | Bristol Culture

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Friday, May 24 2013 There is a theme running through Mayfest 2013: participation. The Memory Dealer and Praxis Makes Perfect are two examples of this. The Memory Dealer is on until Sunday, whereas Praxis Makes Perfect was a one-off performance last night, so let’s deal with the former first. Imagine if memories were traded, both legally and on the black market, and a resistance was formed to stop their wholesale exploitation. That is the premise of The Memory Dealer, which uses an iPhone app as a key part of this promenade performance. The list of collaborators, from Bristol’s Pervasive Media Studio to Nottingham University, is almost as big as the cast, who we meet in various locations within a short radius of the Watershed, including a hotel, a car and dentists waiting room.

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For me, the hotel room was the most interesting location, with snippets of

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memories contained within the pillow and from a corner of the room if we stood still. The participation element here was that you listened to instructions via the iPhone and then from the actors, but you could choose how to follow them and of course how to answer questions – so long as you had been paying attention to the audio. The most fun was walking around the city centre like a spy on a secret mission that only you knew about in a well-thought out and memorable show. There are 12 shows of The Memory Dealer between 11am and 4.30pm from today until Sunday. Each show lasts 90 minutes. Visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/the-memory-dealer/ for more information. Praxis Makes Perfect managed to secure Motion as a location, and thank goodness it did because it was often a tight squeeze, especially as pieces of stage were wheeled around through the audience.

www.bristol-culture.com/2013/05/24/mayfest-day-8-memory-dealer-and-praxis-makes-perfect/

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Review: Mayfest Day 8 – The Memory Dealer and Praxis Makes Perfect | Bristol Culture

This show by the National Theatre of Wales was so good that it was possible to forget that Super Furry Animals lead singer Gruff Rhys was taking part, here with the electro-pop of Neon Neon who providing the soundtrack for a tale about the imagined life of millionaire Italian communist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. Feltrinelli lived an extraordinary life – smuggling the manuscript of Dr Zhivago out of Russia, tortured by the CIA, playing basketball with Fidel Castro – and Praxis Makes Perfect had lots of fun exploring it. This time, the audience were revolutionaries, giving left fist salutes and swapping books as if they were precious gold as the actors moved among us, to best affect when they were a Soviet brute squad looking for the manuscript that always stayed just out of their grasp. Part-theatre, part-gig, part-history lesson, this extraordinary production was not just a Mayfest highlight but will be an undoubted highlight of Bristol’s theatrical year.

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6/21/13

Review: Mayfest Day 3 – Turning the Page and 97 Years | Bristol Culture

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Sunday, May 19 2013 A messy desk in the entrance lobby of Bristol Central Library. On it are maps, ticket stubs, empty sweet wrappers and various other assorted paraphernalia that individually mean nothing but as a collection of objects signify a great deal about the person to whom this desk belongs.

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Also on this desk is a guidebook of China. And it is this that is the most important object. When you arrive for your 20-minutes or so of Turning the Page, you are instructed to put on a pair of headphones and leaf through the guidebook which magically comes to life for an intimate and moving sound installation. A woman talks about the experiences that she has had while travelling through China, with snippets often surreptitiously recorded as she sits in a bar and is befriended by a young man, or boards a boat and joins in with a mass singalong. If only all holiday snaps could now be outlawed and this be the way friends and family tell you about the brilliant experiences they have had in foreign climes. Which isn’t to mean that everything the woman says is brilliant. She is at times lonely and at other times close to tears, like when recounting the moment that a stranger wordlessly took her sketchbook and painted a watercolour – which itself magically then appears on the desk. Turning the Page by Stand + Stare and Professor Tim Cole from the University of Bristol is at Bristol Central Library during opening hours and is free, with no need to book. Click here for more information.

www.bristol-culture.com/2013/05/19/review-mayfest-day-3-turning-the-page-and-97-years/

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Review: Mayfest Day 3 – Turning the Page and 97 Years | Bristol Culture

Over in a gallery on the basement level at the RWA is another piece also related to memory. 97 Years by Jo Hellier is an investigation into the mental state of Hellier’s grandmother, with video and audio of her grandfather. Snippets of recorded conversation are controlled by pieces of string on pulleys held by the audience with instructions from Hellier. As more audio is played, the sound blurs. It is disorientating, sometimes painful and difficult to understand. Presumably the idea is that we can empathise with the clouded thoughts of a person with dementia, but I preferred it when we could hear the reminisces of her grandfather rather than a higgledy-piggledy and distorted collection of noises. Despite Hellier being on her own, there was a lot happening here – with her talking to us live, carefully arranging decaying apples by order of colour, a jumble of strings, audio, and video of trees, ants and apples. The end came with a touching video of Hellier and her grandfather nattering away at a breakfast table about loose leaf tea. Then we were instrcted to lower our strings and the jumbled sound returned. 97 Years is at the RWA today. Click here for more information.

Photo of Jo Hellier by Paul Blakemore

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6/24/13

Review: Mayfest Day 10 – West and Temple Songs | Bristol Culture

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Sunday, May 26 2013 West was a vision of Bristol like you’ve never seen before. The cranes outside M Shed had become giraffes, the colourful houses in Clifton Wood were fish and bears were daubing graffiti on walls.

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We flew over the Suspension Bridge, floating alongside hot air balloons. We sailed down the Floating Harbour. And we stopped off in Stokes Croft. The hand-drawn animation had been created by half a dozen illustrators in a project coordinated by The Paper Cinema which was put together in the space of a week. It was wonderfully brought to life in Bristol Diving School with the help of two small video cameras as two artists manoeuvred pieces of card into place, creating depth as what they held was projected onto a screen. After the non-stop of excitement of much of Bristol this weekend, it was an almost dreamlike experience; all the while with a magical soundtrack of kora harp, piano and guitar, reminiscent of the intricate yet simple sound of Three Cane Whale.

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From a diving school on Spike Island to an empty office building on Victoria Street for Temple Songs, poetically held as the sun was setting. A culmination of another week-long project which has seen members of The Beautiful Machine singing individual songs to people in their offices, this was a song cycle written for the people working in the Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone, with experiences all based on true stories. An alternative title for Temple Songs was The Infinite Strength of Paperclips, and the banality of working in an office was a constant theme in the songs which were all sang acapella, as well as the thrilling feeling of being able to escape from keyboards and computer screens.

www.bristol-culture.com/2013/05/26/review-mayfest-day-10-west-and-temple-songs/

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6/24/13

Review: Mayfest Day 10 – West and Temple Songs | Bristol Culture

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6/24/13

Review: Mayfest Day 2 – Beowulf and Barry the Beaver | Bristol Culture

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Saturday, May 18 2013 If only every epic battle could be settled by a thumb war or soundtracked by two sassy backing singers. Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage is from Brooklyn-based Banana Bag and Bodice and is certainly not a dry retelling of the centuries-old tale.

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There may be a few dusty-looking academics introducing proceedings, but this being Mayfest there is no way that they will ever stay explaining the intricacies of the text and before too long they have switched characters and are climbing up radiators, battling in the depths of a lake and applying dragon makeup. This is delightful and unabashed fun, with circular tables set up at the front of the Trinity to allow performers and musicians to pass among the audience, in much the same way that The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart happened in this same venue during last year’s Mayfest. Every show this year will have to go some way to beat the entrance of Beowulf, who with thick glasses and a moustache is not quite your typical action man but nonetheless makes the women swoon and after a battle triumphantly holds the stump of a bloody arm above his head. Beowulf is on at the Trinity until Sunday. Click here for more details. From mythical creatures to mythical creatures, as Barry The Beaver – the latest creation of playwright and actor Tom Wainwright – made his debut at the Mayfest Cafe on College Green. A performance poet who dishes out his no-nonsense wisdom to anybody who will listen, Barry (below) will be popping up in locations across the festival, including today at 6.50pm at Circomedia, tomorrow at 7.45pm at Bristol Old Vic, and Thursday, May 23 at 5.45pm at the Brewery.

www.bristol-culture.com/2013/05/18/review-mayfest-day-2-beowulf-and-barry-the-beaver/

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Review: Mayfest Day 2 – Beowulf and Barry the Beaver | Bristol Culture

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10 things to do in Bristol this week, May 13-19 | Bristol Culture

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Monday, May 13 2013 Monday-May 27: Eat Drink Bristol Fashion, Queen Square

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The tipis have returned to Queen Square to host events from some of Bristol’s best restaurants alongside other events and a bar open all day. www.eatdrinkevents.co.uk/eat-drink-bristol-fashion/home/ Tuesday-May 25: The Nest, 212 Gloucester Road A pop-up shop featuring a daily-changing selection of handmade stock and one-off vintage clothes and homewares. Plus homemade cake. www.magpiesandi.com Wednesday: Alt J, Bristol Academy Benedict Cumberbatch recently made a triangle symbol while filming Sherlock. No secrets here; just a homage to Alt J from Cambridge.

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‘I’ve listened, now f**k off!’ 10 things to do in Bristol this week, May 13-19 Jeff zone now at the Fleece My Bristol favourites: Eugene Byrne New bear in the Bearpit New Banksy on Park Row? Gloucester Road pride of place in the Galli Frankie filmed in Bristol My Bristol favourites: Matthew Austin Preview: Cotham Hill Street Party 2013 Show all posts

www.o2academybristol.co.uk/event/45659/alt-j-tickets Wednesday: Tracy Thorn, Arnolfini The former Everything But The Girl lead singer speaks about a career that has seen her go from pop star to acclaimed author. www.ideasfestival.co.uk/2013/events/tracey-thorn/ Thursday: Egyptian Extravaganza, Bristol Museum Artist Gavin Turk will be revealing his own quirky interpretation of a magic carpet flying experience at a special free Museums at Night event. www.culture24.org.uk/sw000007?id=EVENT420168 Thursday-May 26: Mayfest Bristol’s annual celebration of contemporary theatre returns for its 10th anniversary year, with a myriad of highlights in venues across the city. www.mayfestbristol.co.uk Friday: What The Frock, The Square Club The first birthday party of the woman-only comedy tonight, with four acts and the promise of some extra special fun. www.whatthefrockcomedy.co.uk/#!events/cb3i Saturday: Windmill Hill City Farm Spring Festival (below) With live music, food stalls, face-painting, cookery, storytelling, drama, singing, woodworking and drumming workshops, and lots more. www.windmillhillcityfarm.org.uk/events/spring-festival.html Saturday: Spiers & Boden, Colston Hall On this tour, the Bellowhead duo are inviting fans to suggest folk songs with local significance for them to learn and perform

http://www.bristol-culture.com/2013/05/13/10-things-to-do-in-bristol-this-week-may-13-19/[20/05/2013 12:39:52]

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10 things to do in Bristol this week, May 13-19 | Bristol Culture

before each gig. www.colstonhall.org/whatson/Event3348 Sunday: Cotham Hill street party The third annual party brings together local traders, with entertainment including live music and lots of stalls. www.oxfamcothambook.wordpress.com

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Ellie says: May 15, 2013 at 3:57 pm

And don’t forget the Southbank Arts Trail – 18th and 19th May, 11-5pm. More info http://www.sbaweb.co.uk/ Reply

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June 13, 2013: BBC News – ‘Giant crocheted doily appears under Bristol bridge’ “A giant crocheted doily has appeared under a railway bridge in Bristol. The 12ft (3.6m) diameter ‘spider web’ was seen hanging under Stapleton Road railway bridge by Gail Boyle as she drove into work earlier. ‘It’s a massive piece of crochet… and the nylon cord must be up to an inch thick,’ she said. ‘I’ve no idea who is responsible, it might be ‘yarn bombing’, but I crochet and I know that they are proper crochet stitches,’ she added.” June 14, 2013: Daily Mail – ‘Is this a hole new craze? Guerilla artists ‘yarn bomb’ railway bridge with 12ft-high DOILY’ “It was the enigmatic Banksy who brought guerrilla art to the world’s attention with his iconic style of political graffiti. Now a group of so-called ‘yarn bombers’ have come up with their own genre that would make the Women’s Institute proud. For they are suspected of being behind a 12fthigh doily that mysteriously appeared under a railway bridge in Bristol this morning, much to the bemusement of passersby.” June 15, 2013: BBC News – ‘Giant crocheted doily appears for Bristol Mayfest’ “A giant crocheted doily which appeared under a railway bridge in Bristol was commissioned as part of a one-day outdoor theatre event, it has emerged. The 12ft (3.6m) diameter ‘spider web’ underneath Stapleton Road railway bridge was created by two artists working with people from the area. It was commissioned as part of the Hook, Skip, Repeat event organised by Theatre Bristol and Mayfest.” June 17, 2013: Bristol 24-7 – ‘Giant crocheted doily made for Bristol Mayfest’

www.bristol-culture.com/2013/06/18/how-the-news-works-in-bristol/

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How the news works in Bristol | Bristol Culture

“A giant crocheted doily which appeared under a railway bridge in Bristol was commissioned as part of a one-day outdoor theatre event, it has emerged. The 12ft (3.6m) diameter ‘spider web’ underneath Stapleton Road railway bridge was created by two artists working with people from the area. It was commissioned as part of the Hook, Skip, Repeat event organised by Theatre Bristol and Mayfest.” June 17, 2013: Bristol Post – ‘Knitter has public in stiches’ “Bemused members of the public were in stitches after a rogue knitter made a 12ft doily and hung it under a Bristol railway bridge. The giant ‘cobweb’ appeared under Stapleton Road railway bridge in Easton on Friday morning. It is believed to be the work of yarn bombers or guerrilla knitters – street artists who make decorations by knitting or crocheting wool, or turning yarn into pom-poms. The huge doily was spotted by Gail Boyle as she drove to work. She said: ‘I have no idea who is responsible.’”

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Matthew Austin says: June 18, 2013 at 7:58 am

Also, we made it nationally too: dailymail.co.uk/news/article2341725/Is-hole-new-craze-Guerrilla-artists-yarn-bomb-railway-bridge12ft-high-DOILY.html And yesterday we had a call from a Canadian radio station about it! Hilarious. Reply

Jenny says: June 18, 2013 at 10:31 pm

Was the spider part of the same event or was that there before? The web looks cool by the way! Reply

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www.bristol-culture.com/2013/05/17/mayfest-2013-begins/

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6/24/13

Mayfest 2013 programme revealed | Bristol Culture

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Wednesday, April 3 2013 Mayfest, Bristol’s foremost festival of theatre, is celebrating its tenth anniversary in style with what promises to be its most ambitious programme yet of live performance, with everything from a rock version of a classical myth in a converted church to giant multi-coloured doilies around the the city. As well as theatres, the Mayfest 2013 programme will also visit more atypical sites this year than ever before, including the Central Library and a gymnastics club, and will also feature a series of ten new bespoke commissions from Bristol artists. Performers include Kate Tempest (recent winner of the Ted Hughes Poetry Award), New York’s Banana Bag and Bodice, National Theatre Wales/Neon Neon, Belarus Free Theatre, Clod Ensemble, Ontroerend Goed, Ockham’s Razor, Ridiculusmus, Kieran Hurley, Paper Cinema and many more. Mayfest artistic directors Matthew Austin and Kate Yedigaroff said: “In a

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time where there is much talk of austerity, Bristol is without doubt bucking the trend when it comes to arts and culture.

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“It continues to be a city where artists come to live, make work, innovate and experiment, and where audiences enjoy an unrivalled mix of theatre, digital art and music. “Festivals provide a unique focal point for that creativity and our tenth anniversary programme celebrates the wealth of talent in the city and places it alongside some of the most brilliant theatrical voices from around the world. We can’t wait to get stuck in.”

Mayfest 2013 takes place in Bristol between May 16 and 26. For more information and to view the full programme, visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk.

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Visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/the-great-spavaldos/ for more

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information. An evaluation of Britain through the eyes of what at first glance looks like a swaggering, gum-chewing shaven-headed football manager. But like a Cristiano Ronaldo free-kick, Total Football bends and swerves in all directions. Preconceptions are dashed and Ridiculusmus, the name of this company, live up to their moniker in the Bristol Old Vic studio as some surreal events unfold, culminating in the walls literally collapsing in. The two actors and co-writers, David Woods and Jon Haynes, switch between doing impressions of IOC president Jacques Rogge and a spot of fishing in a play is enjoyably surreal.

www.bristol-culture.com/2013/05/23/review-mayfest-day-7-the-great-spavaldos-and-total-football/

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6/24/13

Review: Mayfest Day 8 – The Memory Dealer and Praxis Makes Perfect | Bristol Culture

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stood still.

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The participation element here was that you listened to instructions via the iPhone and then from the actors, but you could choose how to follow them and of course how to answer questions – so long as you had been paying attention to the audio. The most fun was walking around the city centre like a spy on a secret mission that only you knew about in a well-thought out and memorable show. There are 12 shows of The Memory Dealer between 11am and 4.30pm from today until Sunday. Each show lasts 90 minutes. Visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/the-memory-dealer/ for more information. Praxis Makes Perfect managed to secure Motion as a location, and thank goodness it did because it was often a tight squeeze, especially as pieces of stage were wheeled around through the audience.

www.bristol-culture.com/2013/05/24/mayfest-day-8-memory-dealer-and-praxis-makes-perfect/

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Review: Mayfest Day 8 – The Memory Dealer and Praxis Makes Perfect | Bristol Culture

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6/24/13

Preview: Mayfest 2013 | Bristol Culture

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Bristol May Bank Holiday weekend events - What's on 24-27 May - 24 May 2013 - Guide2Bristol News Email:

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Bristol May Bank Holiday weekend events - What's on 24-27 May As May’s second bank holiday weekend approaches fast Guide2Bristol has been taking a look at what’s going on in the city this Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday to come up with a few suggestions for you to consider. One of the things Bristol does best is festivals, and this weekend is full of them, with something for everyone from foodies to music, theatre and art lovers. Vegfest UK at is the first to get underway, opening at the Harbourside at 5.30PM on Friday evening and running until Sunday. Visitors to the world’s biggest veggie event can expect to find stalls selling food, bodycare, accessories, fashion and more, as well as talks, demos, cinema, crazy golf, kids’ activities and a cinema. There is also a full performance programme featuring live music and DJs with headline acts in the evenings including the Happy Mondays. For further information, including opening times and admission charges, visit www.bristol.vegfest.co.uk. Following a successful inaugural event last year Love Saves the Day returns to Castle Park on Saturday and this year will be followed by a second day of live music known as Love Saves Sunday, which will be headlined by Chic featuring Nile Rodgers. Saturday is a sell out, but, at the time of writing, a few tickets remain available for Sunday when the line-up also includes Julio Bashmore, Soul II Soul, Ms Dynamite, Ghostpoet and Babyhead. To find out more visit www.lovesavestheday.org. A Love Saves The Day After Party takes place each night at The Big Chill Bristol until 3AM. These legendary parties feature local and national DJ talent and are free entry all night. They are very popular, so be sure to get in early! Upfest is Europe’s largest urban and street art festival, now in its sixth year and crafted by POSCA it returns to Southville this weekend when more than 300 artists from Bristol, the UK and around the world will be painting live over three days from Saturday. The action will once again be centred on the Tobacco Factory with artists also painting at Redpoint Climbing Centre, Bar BS3, Corner House, Workout Bristol, Brewery Theatre, The Try Again, Souk Kitchen, Vector Seating, Raleigh Road, Royston Gardens, Greville Road, Hen and Chicken, Luckwell Club, North Street Green, Spotted Cow, Motoring Direct, The Masonic, The Old Book Shop, The Hare and No. 74. For further information, including a downloadable map showing all the venues, visit www.festival.upfest.co.uk. Plenty going on for foodies down at Queen Square where Eat Drink Bristol Fashion are continuing to serve up delicious treats in their tented paradise all weekend. Local chef hero Josh Eggleton has done the city proud, don't miss the great eats! Bristol’s festival of contemporary theatre, Mayfest, which opened on 16 May continues until Sunday with a full programme of events including Belarus Free Theatre’s Trash Cuisine at Tobacco Factory Theatre, Il Pixel Rosso performed by The Great Spavaldos at The Island, and A Thousand Shards of Glass, presented by the Jane Packman Company, at Bristol Old Vic Cooper’s Loft. For the full programme and details of how to book tickets, visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk. The Volunteer Tavern at 9 New Street, near Cabot Circus, is hosting a Spring Beer Festival from Friday until Monday. Admission is free and visitors will find live music and food as well as a wide range of local craft beers and real ales. Hoochie Coochie is to host its second event at its new home The Mauretania Lounge on Friday night, an evening of interactive fun when visitors will find games, karaoke, a cabaret show and music. Tickets are priced from £8 to £10 and are available from the Bristol Ticket Shop. The dress code is OTT - glitter, glamour, flamboyant and ridiculous. www.hoochiecoochiecabaret.com. Grammy Award-winning country star Steve Earle, along with his band The Dukes, will be performing at the Colston Hall on Friday evening. The show begins at 7.30PM and tickets are priced at £29.50 plus booking fee. The event will be preceded at 6.30PM by a free performance in the foyer by Mr Dowlands Midnight, bringing together European guitar and the lute-like sound of the Middle Eastern oud. There will be more free music in the foyer at 6.30PM on Saturday when Poppy Perezz will be deliver a feel good, sunshine happy performance. For further information visit www.colstonhall.org. House music legend Kenny Dope comes to The White Bear on St Michael’s Hill on Saturday, for a special Bank Holiday All dayer. Music from 3PM until 12AM comes from the Masters at Work maven and a host of local talent. There will be stalls and DJs at The Old Stillage, Church Road, Redland on Saturday for For Frock’s Sake! Open from 2PM until late, visitors will find clothes, jewellery, cushions, bags, sunglass cases, and more. Admission is free and more information can be found at www.forfrockssake.co.uk. Bristol Barbarians are hosting a Rugby 7s Tournament at Norton Lane, Whitchurch on Saturday. The gates open at 11AM and the first game will get underway an hour later. Entry costs £30 per team and admission is free for supporters. There will also be a barbecue and music. To find out more visit www.pitcheroo.com/clubs/bristolbarbarians. Bargain hunters visiting the Bristol Flea Market at Ashton Gate Stadium on Sunday will find up to 150 stalls selling antiques, collectibles, vintage clothing, jewellery, shabby chic furnishings, and more. It will be open from 9AM until 3.30PM and admission costs £2 to the public and £5 for trade. International physical theatre storytelling troupe Moonhound will be visiting the Wardrobe Theatre on Monday evening, to present Stories that Move, a playful, energetic, acrobatic improv-based performance. The show starts at 8PM and tickets cost £5. www.thewardrobetheatre.com. These are just a few suggestions for things to do in Bristol this weekend, for more ideas and further information, visit the events pages at Guide2Bristol.com, and however you choose to spend the bank holiday weekend in the city we hope you have a fantastic time. Click here for Bristol Accommodation

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Kieran Hurley brings BEATS (http://mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/beats-2/)to this year’s Mayfest on May 17th19th at the Bristol Old Vic Studio. This awardwinning new play is a coming of age story written and performed by Kieran, exploring rebellion, apathy, and the irresistible power of gathered youth in the face of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, which banned public gatherings around amplified music. It also includes techno – lots of techno. We caught up with Kieran to speak about his motivation for making the piece, and the music behind it.

What inspired you to make BEATS? I was really interested in exploring what it means for people, particularly young people, to claim and share space on their own terms. The free party movement was hedonistic and not necessarily political, but the introduction of the Criminal Justice Act suggests that someone, somewhere, in power felt threatened enough by this subculture to legislate against it. A lot of interesting stuff happened in the fall out from that, people became politicised in response to the experience of being persecuted in this way. So it seems that after that there began to be much more crossover between the rave generation and radical politics, with things like Reclaim The Streets and the party-protest movement. None of that stuff really makes it in to the show but an interest in it is part of what prompted it I suppose. Why the 90s? Do you think there was a watershed there? On a very basic level the show is set in the 90s because that’s when the 1994 Criminal Justice Act was passed and that seemed a good starting for exploring some of the stuff I wanted to look at. It certainly feels like a significant moment in terms of a shift in civil liberties, but I don’t think you can call it a watershed when you consider what happened before was Thatcher, and what happened next was post-9/11 policy making. I do think that the 90s rave scene is a moment in our recent cultural history that is ripe for further exploration. It hasn’t quite been mythologised in the way that, say, punk has yet, and we’re crying out for more stories about it. It also meant getting to celebrate some pretty excellent music in a way that really seems to appeal to a lot of people. There is a clear link in your work between art and politics. Do you think the connection is inevitable? I absolutely think that all theatre is political. But perhaps the relationship is more obviously apparent in some work than in others. I think I tend to start with a broad political thematic, and then play around with until I find the story I want to tell. Hitch (performed at last year’s Mayfest), for example, has about as light a touch on its discussion of anti-capitalist politics as you could imagine for a show about a G8 protest. It’s really a show about a search for community and solidarity in a highly alienated and atomised society – that’s where its politics are. And theatre is the perfect forum for exploring that because it necessitates a live, shared space. If you could change one thing in the world, as if by magic, what would it be? Goodness … I supposed I’d halt and reverse climate change. Obviously that would have to involve smashing capitalism, so I think I sneak a little two-for-one there … “The Power of Youth will change the world” – discuss. Ha. Well, I’m a great a believer in the importance of young people’s energy and insight, and the show is certainly concerned with a particular type of radical potential that sometimes rears its head when young people collectively claim space as their own. But I wouldn’t want to over-romanticise anything; old people are excellent, and “changing the world” is a pretty diffuse aim. Besides, I’ve never been one for making predictions … What’s on the horizon for you?

I’m pretty busy, which is a good thing. I’m currently preparing to open a new show I’ve made collaboratively with a bunch of other artists at the Arches Behaviour festival. It’s part of a development project set up by the Arches and the National Theatre Scotland (NTS) so it’s been an opportunity to sort of experiment a bit with form. Who knows how it’ll go, but I’m excited by it. I’m involved in a bunch of stuff at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, including a play I’ve cowritten with AJ Taudevin called Chalk Farm, which will be presented by ThickSkin, a company who I admire hugely. BEATS will be touring England more in autumn, Hitch occasionally pops up now and then, there are some other things in early development and I’m writing a couple of new plays. This year I’m on a writer’s attachment with NTS, which is great for me. You’re a Mayfest regular now – what are you looking forward to? It’s nice to be considered a Mayfest regular. It is a wonderful festival. I had a brilliant time here last year, but the problem with being a visiting performer at a festival like this is you never get to see as much of the other work as you’d like. While I’m around I’ll certainly be trying to see Kate Tempest (http://mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/brandnew-ancients/) and Jo Hellier (http://mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/97-years/), as well as Andy Field’s Zilla (http://mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/zilla/) (though I’ll probably only be able to catch part 1…) Finally, describe BEATS in five adjectives or less. Ravey, talky, smoky, loud.

-– -– -– -– -Catch BEATS (http://mayfestbristol.co.uk/event_2013/beats-2/) at Bristol Old Vic Studio on May 17th19th. mayfestbristol.co.uk (http://mayfestbristol.co.uk/) twitter.com/kieran_hurley (https://twitter.com/kieran_hurley) Words: Richard Aslan

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2013 heralded 10 years of Mayfest. That’s a decade of shifting Bristol’s perceptions of theatre as an archaic artform. And judging by the gathering of audiences at the majority of this year’s events, it’s a true success story; one of reengaging a new generation with theatre’s potential as a form of performance which transcends restraints of space, form and definition like no other. It was an 11-day programme littered with highlights. Brooklyn-based company Banana Bag and Bodice staged a remarkable adaptation of the 9th century Old English epic poem Beowulf in A Thousand Years of Baggage at the grand old Trinity (17th-19th), re-imagining the monstrous tale in an expressive flurry of jazz, punk and cabaret. Kieran Hurley’s performance in Beats (Bristol Old Vic Studio, 17th-19th) was a startling, multi-character display harking upon the 90s heydey of rave, with no small part played by evocative lighting and musical offerings. The oh fuck moment (Arnolfini, 21st-23rd) meanwhile saw Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe’s celebrated show offer a hugely inventive and intimate poetic exploration of the innate messiness of life which charges each day with the potential for hilarity. On the 23rd, Neon Neon took over the Motion warehouse club for their highly-anticipated Praxis Makes Perfect live show/promenade theatre performance. Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys is a man who has never shied away from the bizarre, the surreal or the unexpected. But his ongoing collaboration with electronic artist Boom Bip has now yielded a project as weirdly wonderful as anything from the Super Furry days of tanks on stage and Mexican wrestler techno workouts. Neon Neon’s second album is essentially a rock-opera based on the life of Italian publisher and leftwing activist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, and his adventures in the service of Communism. Although on record some of the strange references and characterisation don’t quite work, in the context of the full live performance (which includes paint-splattered nudity, showering the audience with fake money, and facial hair only a dictator could love) the music comes to life. Gruff’s whimsical delivery pokes its nose in and out of a stylised soundtrack that ploughs a similar furrow to their debut album – that is, for the most part, camp electro pop. But the real strength is the genuine coordination between the performance and the music – the dialogue-less acting from the National Theatre Wales team adds a layer of depth and daftness that the audio version alone just can’t capture. A quick run through of some Neon Neon favourites at the end of the performance (Raquel, I Lust You) seals the deal. On to the 25th, when we were privy to one of 12 showings/happenings of Rik Lander’s The Memory Dealer. We met at Bristol’s Watershed at noon sharp for what had been billed as a truly pervasive theatre experience. We’d been asked to arrive with headphones and a smartphone with at least 50% battery life, but having failed to do so were able to loan one from the friendly staff, who gave us a brief rundown of what we should expect and how to interact with the production through an easily-installed app. There was an enjoyable sense of bewilderment among our intimate seven person posse as we embarked on our journey around a range of locations, audience mingling with actors and encouraged to inquisitively explore narrative elements whilst being expertly led by the smart improvisational cast. These individuals populated a dark, not-so-distant-future world in which people can buy, sell, steal and even license memories, doing an astounding job in guiding us through the plot without breaking character or being reduced to cringey, tongue-in-cheek winks to the audience. In fact, their performances were convincing enough to imbue our 90 minute walk around Bristol’s handsome docklands with a slightly alarming quality. The Memory Dealer utilised clever devices in its creation of an alternative world, including mock publications and websites to be visited before the show in order to build the plot without having to rely on rigid monologues or the use of overly pricey tech. Far from being new to experimentation, Rik Lander was practicing interactive drama – including one

of the UK’s first web dramas, magic-tree – as early as 2001. The implications of this latest genre of entertainment are potentially limitless once audiences, technologies and investors begin to recognize what a flexible and powerful format it is. Mayfest once again showed itself not just a truly impressive labour of love, curated with care, uncanny imagination and a bold and admirable freeness of spirit, but also a true Bristol institution that we hope will continue to inform and entertain this city for many years to come.

-– -– -– -– -– mayfestbristol.co.uk (http://mayfestbristol.co.uk) Words: Adam Corner + Alfie Allen Photo: Paul Blakemore

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6/21/13

Is this a hole new craze? Guerrilla artists 'yarn bomb' railway bridge with 12ft-high DOILY | Mail Online

Is this a hole new craze? 12fthigh DOILY appears under railway bridge By Simon Tomlinson PUBLISHED: 16:26, 14 June 2013 | UPDATED: 17:19, 14 June 2013

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It was the enigmatic Banksy who brought guerrilla art to the world's attention with his iconic style of political graffiti. Now a group of socalled 'yarn bombers' have come up with their own genre that would make the Women's Institute proud. For they are suspected of being behind a 12fthigh doily that mysteriously appeared under a railway bridge in Bristol this morning, much to the bemusement of passersby.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341725/Is-hole-new-craze-Guerrilla-artists-yarn-bomb-railway-bridge-12ft-high-DOILY.html

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Is this a hole new craze? Guerrilla artists 'yarn bomb' railway bridge with 12ft-high DOILY | Mail Online

Vandalism at its wooliest: This 12fthigh doily has mysteriously appeared under a bridge in Bristol

'They are proper crochet stitches': The doily is believed to be the work of yarn bombers or guerrilla knitters street artists who make decorations by knitting or crocheting wool

Eyecatching: The doily was noticed by motorist Gail Boyle who was very impressed by the skill involved www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341725/Is-hole-new-craze-Guerrilla-artists-yarn-bomb-railway-bridge-12ft-high-DOILY.html

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Is this a hole new craze? Guerrilla artists 'yarn bomb' railway bridge with 12ft-high DOILY | Mail Online

The huge doily was spotted by Gail Boyle as she drove into work. 'I've no idea who is responsible, it might be "yarn bombing", but I crochet and I know that they are proper crochet stitches,' she said. 'It's a massive piece of crochet and the nylon cord must be up to an inch thick.' It is believed to be the work of yarn bombers or guerrilla knitters street artists who make decorations by knitting or crocheting wool or turning yarn into pompoms. Last year, guerrilla knitters in Bristol made a huge cloak for a Queen Victoria statue in College Green. 'This latest piece of guerrilla crochet is beautiful it shines like a little white beacon,' added Gail. It is believed 'yarnbombing' originated in Texas, America, with knitters trying to find a creative way to use their leftover and unfinished projects, but it has since spread worldwide.

Work of art: The doily has been made from what appears to be nylon cord crocheted into an inticate pattern

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341725/Is-hole-new-craze-Guerrilla-artists-yarn-bomb-railway-bridge-12ft-high-DOILY.html

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Is this a hole new craze? Guerrilla artists 'yarn bomb' railway bridge with 12ft-high DOILY | Mail Online

Growing trend: 'Yarn bombing' is believed to have originated in Texas, with knitters trying to find a creative way to use their leftover and unfinished projects, but it has since spread worldwide

While the installations may last for years, they are considered nonpermanent, and, unlike graffiti, can be easily removed if necessary. The craze is becoming so popular it has a fan page on Facebook, where guerilla knitters share their creations by posting pictures online. A doily is an ornamental mat, originally named after the fabric made by the 17thcentury London draper Doiley. They are crocheted and sometimes knitted out of cotton or linen in such a way to allow the surface of the underlying object to show through. As well as their aesthetic qualities, they have a practical function of protecting furniture from scratches from crockery or ornaments. By the 20th century, many patterns were being published by thread manufacturers, including oval or circular designs working from the centre out. In recent years, doilies have been made out of disposable paper. by Taboola

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6/24/13

Mayfest, May 16 to 26 | Ephemeral Digest

Ephemeral Digest Fleeting thoughts from Bristol on films, books and other social things

Mayfest, May 16 to 26 Posted on May 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

Here’s one of my favourite things to do with Mayfest shows: pretend that they apply to people from various parts of Bristol. For example, while walking down East Street the other week I wondered how the people walking through there would react to Hook, Skip, Repeat: being invited to use brightly coloured rope and a giant crochet needle, to help weave eye-catching spider’s web-like creations. It’s free. How about Turning the Page, to who would this be most suited? Imagine if your wellthumbed, outdated guidebook could talk. Think of the stories it would tell about the places it’s been, the characters encountered and narrow escapes along the way. Through this intimate installation you are invited to investigate a series of clues hidden within a guidebook that magically come to life as you turn the pages. How do books act as repositories of treasures and triggers of memories? When we read a book, do we leave something of ourselves in and on its pages? I imagine that it would be magical for everyone although I may be a little biased as it is taking place in the library. There’s something about some art installations or plays that make me think that it’s all designed for white middle-class audiences and then I read their program and realise that I am more than white and middle class. Without trying to sound pompous (and failing), the human experience beyond labels is what the artists find as well and it was Brand New Ancients I thought of I as walked passed betting shops The gods are in the betting shops, the gods are in the café, The gods can’t afford the deposit on their flat … Winged sandals tearing up the pavement, Me, you, everyone, Brand New Ancients. (Kate Tempest Friday 17 – Saturday 18)

www.ephemeraldigest.co.uk/2013/05/mayfest-may-16-to-26/

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Mayfest, May 16 to 26 | Ephemeral Digest

There’s also one where you are advised to only sign up if you are not afraid of heights and don’t have a heart condition. Goodness.

Mayfest runs from May 16 to 26 and there are many things to do – see Programme. Like

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Adventurous Theatre for Playful People: May Fest 13 | Epigram - Bristol University's Independent Student Newspaper

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Author: Annie Bell May 20th, 2013

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@EpigramPaper http://t.co/xReh6MzlmU http://t.co/ybwjmk1Vkm about 23 hours ago

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Mayfest Bristol, says Lyn Gardner of The Guardian ‘demonstrates the city’s vibrancy, and its willingness to experiment and play’. This sentence fills me with a strange sense of pride. I say strange because I have only lived in Bristol for three years, and in that time I have to admit that the majority of my ‘playing’ has taken place in sweaty clubs on the triangle, which, while I’m sure Lyn has no objection to Lounge et al, is probably not what she was thinking about when she mentioned Bristol’s playfulness.

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Nonetheless, it is nice to feel that, even if only by virtue of living here, I am part of a city which seems to be

Popular widely regarded as fun. 1. Hear’Say – Where Are They It is unsurprising really that Gardner chose Mayfest as the prime example of Bristol’s communal ‘fun-ness’. Of course, Bristol plays host to a huge range of festivals – In Between Time, Love Saves The Day and Upfest to name

Now? 2. Joyce Vincent: the woman who wasn’t there

but a few (in fact, a few years ago there was a twitter campaign for a ‘festival’ called Brisfest: a weekend when Bristol would NOT play host to any festivals), but Mayfest is, perhaps, the one which most fully envelops the

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entire city.

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It is a contemporary theatre festival that goes out of its way not exclude those outside of the theatrical

5. Every dogger has its day: Is crossing the Downs at

community. The festival takes place in locations in literally every corner of the city, from a gym in Hartcliffe, to Bristol Old Vic, to The Tobacco Factory, to a garden shed in Redland. Their marketing campaign involves sending individual emails to over four hundred organisations in the Bristol area, from schools to sports clubs,

night really that dodgy?

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alerting them to shows from the years programme which may be of particular interest to them. Everything about this festival is designed to involve as wide a range of the Bristol public as possible. In fact, we may even be

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unwittingly involved as one of this year’s pieces hilariously involves knitting giant doilies in public spaces such as Cabot Circus. Pretty hard not to notice. Every time you walk past one you can glow with pride at being part of

a city that is willing to ‘experiment’. It’s a beautiful thing.

The programme itself is equally fun. Mayfest’s tagline is ‘adventurous theatre for playful people’. Artistic directors Matthew Austin and Kate Yedigaroff have committed themselves to programming theatre which plays with form in some way. What this does not mean is performances which even drama students would struggle to describe as unpretentious, or ‘experimental’ live art in which naked actors draw penises on each other in their own blood while chanting unintelligibly.

What it does mean is a delicate combination of feel good and thought provoking theatre, involving awesome live music, breath taking circus acts, a healthy dose of poetry and a cat. Highlights of this year’s programme include:

UBU elections: Inside the candidates’ bedrooms – Sport & Health and President 6 people recommend this. Review of Honeymoon Suite 25 people recommend this. Tiger temple in Thailand: How we’re funding abuse 178 people recommend this.

Total Football, from Riculusmus, a hugely respected comedy duo who are literally doctors of comedy (no really, they have PhDs); Herald Award Winning Beowulf , from American Company Banana Bag and Bodice, a maverick

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take on the Beowulf legend, involving a lot of punk rock; and Trash Cuisine, from Belarus Free Theatre, possibly the most inspiring theatre company in the world right now, a number of whom have been exiled from Belarus for making theatre which speaks out against the country’s dictatorial regime. Kevin Spacey is a big fan.

Even if you can’t afford to go to any of the shows (and lets face it, a lot of us can barely afford free range eggs),

Epigram 1. Live: Toro Y Moi at Thekla 2. Preview: Interpretations on FC Judd album launch

Mayfest still want to wrap you in their loving, playful, arms. On the 16

of May, they will be celebrating their

tenth birthday at Bristol Old Vic with a free party involving, among other things, an interpretive dance competition. You could also drop in to their bar ‘The Blind Tiger’, in the Old Vic Basement, where you can go to

3. The Forest and The Field at the Bristol Arnolfini 4. Small Natures & Meaner Minds – Flâneurs at The

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drink, dance, and rub shoulders with the Mayfest artists. Or there is the Mayfest Café, at The Parlour on Park Street, which, if you are wont to study in coffee shops, is definitely both cheaper than Boston Tea Party/ Starbucks, and more filled with creative energy. Even failing all that, there is just no escaping those giant doilies.

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Like it or not, you are living in a ‘vibrant’ city that likes to ‘experiment and play’. Embrace it.

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The Forest and The Field at the Bristol Arnolfini | Epigram - Bristol University's Independent Student Newspaper

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When you walk through the gates of hell, the final words of warning you will read counsel the abandonment of hope. Nothing so dramatic graces the exterior of theatres. Nonetheless, a play may occasion “advisory information”, prominently displayed beforehand, to extenuate objection from sensitive audiences.

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Chris Goode’s The Forest and The Field necessitates explicit deference to four very different sensibilities. Our attendance is dissuaded – or perhaps encouraged – by the knowledge that we are to bear witness to flashing lights, strong language, nudity, and a live cat.

Bristol uni 5. Every dogger has its day: Is crossing the Downs at night really that dodgy?

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With the exception of the cat, this is probably as comprehensive an overview of the three apparent evils of the modern theatrical experience we should ever likely require. Would that these were but a fraction of such

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warnings. The possibility of compulsory, individual audience participation is far more fearful than small words beginning with C and F. The previous night I attended another Mayfest show that gently but determinedly

dragged a clearly reluctant woman on stage to participate in an apple-eating contest. Two nights before that, I muttered prayers to avoid selection for throwing a tomato at the performer.

Immersive theatre, of which The Forest and The Field is characterised in its promotional blurb, had me preseething at some Ontoerend Goed-esque violation. In the history of the theatre, most of the power has resided with the audience. Perhaps we cannot begrudge certain amongst the theatrical community for seeking to reverse that. Yet in the long run, audiences will only turn out if they want to, and for all that most recognise the need for needling, we audience do also want to be entertained. Like salt, a dash of provocation improves a meal,

but too much and it becomes impossible to swallow anything.

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Epigram Goode, humanely, opened with a declaration of what he humbly asked of his audience: our attention for some of the evening. And he was as good as his word. Thematically, his project is anything but safe, and part of how I know that is that I felt enveloped in a haze of soft, accommodating gentleness. When my mind is relaxed, I

1. Live: Toro Y Moi at Thekla 2. Preview: Interpretations on FC Judd album launch

concentrate and am far more amenable to challenge my preconceptions. Rereading their promotional prose the clues are all there. The vocabulary favours reflection and questioning, rather than, say, didacticism and

3. The Forest and The Field at the Bristol Arnolfini

revolutionising. The femininity of this language is conveyed by Goode himself, an entirely benign presence 4. Small Natures & Meaner whose considerable heft is more likely to cloak you in a hug rather than deliver you a jaw-shattering sucker

www.epigram.org.uk/2013/06/the-forest-and-the-field-at-the-bristol-arnolfini/

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punch.

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Which made mock of the advisory age rating of eighteen years. Profanity and nakedness were not used aggressively or shockingly. There is nothing scary about the entire performance, save, significantly perhaps, from the philosophical questions Goode rhetorically poses. That the sound of words known to us from school-age should be deemed a risk, or the sight of flesh which we all encounter, or should hope to encounter, as part of our daily lives, is quite ludicrous.

Nudity in a theatre can deliberately discomfit an audience. The rules on how we are supposed to behave are not at all clear – are we permitted to look, to stare, to desire, may we laugh, what should we be seen to do? This tension is often used in a counter-intuitive way. The seeming vulnerability of an actor appearing naked can suddenly transform into the uneasiness of everyone except the actor. Carefully managing this can become an instrument of directorial power. In The Forest and The Field, the nudity coincided with Goode asking us questions about how we as an audience felt, tacitly permitting any response as valid provided it was truthful. There was nothing aggressive about this, the social risk dispersed into insignificance, and certainly there was nothing I felt I needed to be protected from, or that would justify the exclusion of those younger than me.

Earlier in the week, some Mayfest shows had genuinely upset me. Not by recourse to shock-tactics (although some were guilty of this), but for their implied conception of humanity. Some truths adults are better equipped to handle than children, yet we only demand forewarning if such truths are delivered with profanity, violence, or sex. A detailed description of an actual act of violence is potentially far more distressing than a simulated act of violence. And whilst the festival concurrently ran to news headlines far more horrifying than fiction, I wonder whether it is absurd to advise an audience about swear words, yet not disclose that a particular play may leave them demoralised or aesthetically violated.

Chris Goode successfully puts on a play about theatre that, miraculously, is neither self-indulgent nor exclusive. One reading of it is that this, by rights, ought to be the last play you ever see, or the play to end all plays. If you can distil the reason for going to theatre down to an essential, then why continue to go if that same essential can be achieved elsewhere? For once, such speculations seem unforced and actually interesting.

Compared to a whole life, theatre is strictly time-limited. If we pass through the gates of a theatrical hell, the very worst that is likely asked of us is an interval of three hours before we ascend back to the purgatory of everyday life – or perhaps better: the socioeconomic background of the average British theatregoer is as close to inhabiting one of the nine celestial spheres as one could hope in this life. Goode’s questions were ineffably welljudged, timely, and the hour spent in his company was thrilling. It seems a shame they don’t stick warnings like that above the door.

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Review: Ridiculusmus present Total Football, Bristol Old Vic Studio, Gerry Parker - 7/10 | Bristol Post PLACE AN ADVERT

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Review: Ridiculusmus present Total Football, Bristol Old Vic Studio, Gerry Parker - 7/10 By The Bristol Post Tuesday, May 21, 2013

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WRITTEN and Performed by David Woods and Jon Haynes for London’s Barbican, where it premiered in 2011, this show sets out, through the country’s national obsession with football, to examine the age old questions of mortality and happiness, plus a great many other important life-changing issues.

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By rights, following the football motif, the show should have had two 45 minute halves, with a fifteen minute break in he middle, but instead this highly talented duo opted to explore all their themes in one hour, ten minutes without a half-time interval. The principal target was the bureaucratic busybodies who mishandled the selection and management of the Great Britain football side which, compared to other sports, failed so miserably at the London Olympics. Using an overlapping throwaway style of delivery, the duo raised plenty of satirical laughs and in the collapsing building, cribbed from Buster Keaton’s famous silent film routine that left him safe in the middle of a disaster area thanks to an open window, one wonderful piece of visual humour.

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REVIEW: Yes Prime Minister at the Bristol Hippodrome 8/10

Review: Ridiculusmus present Total Football, Bristol Old Vic Studio, Gerry Parker - 7/10 | Bristol Post

The style of presentation meant that often we had a lengthy wait between bursts of humour and with so many other themes to examine, it also led at times to an unclear verbal picture.

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At the final whistle it was 8 as performers for Woods and Haynes, 6 for the writing and creation.

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May the fest be with you The Bristol Post

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

MAYFEST, Bristol's annual programme of unique contemporary theatre, returns tomorrow with more playful and ambitious work to celebrate its tenth anniversary. From a virtual trapeze ride and a large-scale immersive gig in a nightclub, to a rock version of a classical myth in a converted church and giant multi-coloured doilies in public spaces around the city, Mayfest 2013 celebrates theatre from across the globe that is political, funny, moving, provocative and exciting.

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Mayfest and Bristol Old Vic's Collaboration Mayfest and Bristol Old Vic have announced details of their programme for Mayfest 2013, which marks the tenth anniversary of the festival.

Highlights include the smash New York hit Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage, an exhilarating song play based on the 9th century epic. Beowulf will be staged at the Trinity Centre in Bristol’s Old Market area, the venue where the two organisations collaborated in 2012 on National Theatre of Scotland’s The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart. Backed by an explosive, blaring seven-piece band, the show swells into a jubilant celebration of Beowulf. Battles emerge in the aisles and on top of tables, plunging the audience into the middle of the experience while enjoying a beer from the bar. Back at Bristol Old Vic, Clod Ensemble, who were part of the very first festival in 2003, bring their new large-scale dance piece Zero to the Theatre. Featuring a cast of twenty and a live band, Zero is the latest work from the acclaimed company and comes to Mayfest following dates at Brighton Festival and Sadler’s Wells. Also in the Theatre is one of the hits of 2012, Kate Tempest’s award-winning spoken word show Brand New Ancients, which recently enjoyed a sold-out run at BAC in London and comes to Mayfest for two specially-staged performances only. Kate Tempest was recently nominated for the Ted Hughes Poetry Award. In the Studio, Kieran Hurley returns to Mayfest with BEATS, his compelling dissection of 1990s rave culture. Hurley is followed by another Mayfest veteran company Ridiculusmus, who try to solve the big questions in life – immortality, happiness and why England always lose - with Total Football, described ‘more Beckett than Beckham’. Rounding off the programme in the Studio is the Edinburgh 2012 hit Bigmouth, by Belgian company Skagen, a tour-de-force solo performance about politics, speech-making and rhetoric. To mark the tenth anniversary of the festival, MAYK has teamed up with Bristol Ferment to commission ten Bristol-based artists to make a new piece of work in response to one of the senses. Running throughout the festival in tandem with the festival programme, SENSE offers ten new perspectives on the way we experience the world around us. The commissioned artists are: Richard Allen, Jo Bannon, Benji Bower, Lucy Cassidy, Laura Dannequin, Sam Halmarack, Kathy Hinde, Sleepdogs, Tom Marshman and Tom Wainright. The festival kicks off with the now legendary opening party on Thursday 16 May, featuring Australia’s Suitcase Royale with their tongue-in-cheek dance competition So You Think You Can Interpretive Dance. And throughout the festival The Blind Tiger, Mayfest’s late night bar, will be open for music, cabaret and all manner of surprises. Mayfest’s Artistic Directors Kate Yedigaroff and Matthew Austin said: “Bristol Old Vic is where it all began way back in 2003. Over ten years, the festival has grown into a cross-city, multi-venue festival with international reach. We’re thrilled to be working with Bristol Old Vic once again on our tenth anniversary programme.” Tom Morris said: “In ten years, Mayfest has grown from an experimental season at Bristol Old Vic, to a city-wide Festival which is emblematic of the spirit of creative adventure which characterises the city.

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Kate and Matthew have developed a distinctive, mind-stretching aesthetic which constantly challenges and delights their rapidly growing audience – which now extends far beyond Bristol and the region – and have become cultural connoisseurs of National significance. Bristol Old Vic is thrilled to be co-producing with Mayfest again this year, and I personally look forward impatiently to the mouth-watering 2013 festival and the extraordinary places where MAYK might lead us over the next 10 or 20 years.”

Mayfest runs from 16-26 May. Alongside Bristol Old Vic, the festival will be staging work at Arnolfini, Tobacco Factory Theatre, Circomedia, Wardrobe, Cube and other sites and venues across the city. The full programme is online at www.mayfestbristol.co.uk For further information, please contact Amanda Adams at Bristol Old Vic on 0117 949 4901 / aadams@bristololdvic.org.uk matthew@mayk.org.uk

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6/24/13

Mayfest celebrates 10th anniversary - What's on - North Somerset Times

[/polopoly_fs/2009_party_1_1879422!image/1811393377.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/1811393377.jpg] Mayfest.

Mayfest celebrates 10th anniversary Bethan Evans, Reporter [Mailto:bethan.Evans@Archant.Co.Uk] Friday, February 8, 2013 12:30 PM Recommend

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Produced by MAYK and in collaboration with Bristol Old Vic and organisations across the city the festival will bring a host of productions from some outstanding artists and theatre makers. [] Comments [#articlecomments] Email [#sharinganchor] Print [#none]

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The full Mayfest programme will be announced in March but there are already plans in the pipeline to make this year’s show the best yet. Haunting shows such as Magna Mysteria, a playful romance entitled Two Women in Western and rock sensations The Furies will be storming the stages of Citywide, The Bristol Old Vic and The Wardrobe Theatre. The theatre and Mayfest are also joining forces to present a week of performances from upandcoming companies and artists. Organisers are also inviting submissions for fulllength shows to be presented at The Wardrobe Theatre from May 2024 as part of the festival. There is also a chance for artists to propose ideas for a commissioned work to be presented at the 2013 event, which will take place in a nontheatrebased location – indoors or outdoors – in Bristol. Updates on the line up will be added to its website www.mayfestbristol.co.uk and the festival will run from May 1626.

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Mayfest in Bristol - What's on - North Somerset Times

[/polopoly_fs/mayfest_flaneurs_1_2194063!image/3384771577.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/3384771577.jpg] Flaneurs will be performed during Mayfest.

Mayfest in Bristol Sarah Robinson [Mailto:sarah.Robinson@Archant.Co.Uk] Wednesday, May 15, 2013 9:14 AM Recommend

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MAYFEST, Bristol’s annual festival of contemporary theatre, is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and the Tobacco Factory Theatre is hosting an exciting programme across its theatre spaces. [] Comments [#articlecomments] Email [#sharinganchor] Print [#none]

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[/polopoly_fs/mayfest_gym_party_1_2194064!image/220068997.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_490/220068997.jpg] Gym Party is one of the plays performed as part of Mayfest. Among the productions is Cooking Ghosts, a brand new show from Total Theatre awardwinners Beady Eye Theatre. It tells the moving story of a woman who has no choice but to leave her children, fusing visual storytelling, puppetry, achieve film footage and a specially composed score. Trash Cuisine is an innovative and moving drama where food becomes a metaphor for life, death, morality and human endurance. The production uses live music, choreography and stunning visual imagery to explore the issues behind imprisonment and torture.

[/polopoly_fs/mayfest_goodbye_thailand_1_2194065!image/1246777396.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_490/1246777396.jpg] Goodbye Thailand is performed as part of Mayfest. Jenna Watt’s Flâneurs is a new piece of theatre that attempts to explore why people choose to intervene or not when someone is attacked. And John Moran’s play Goodbye Thailand (Portrait Of Eye) presents the story of Eye who struggles to find a safe place for herself in Bangkok. Moran is know for creating theatre performances fusing precise choreography and sound and on this occasion he is accompanied by live composer and electronic musician Daniel Williams.

www.northsomersettimes.co.uk/what-s-on/mayfest_in_bristol_1_2194066

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6/24/13

Mayfest in Bristol - What's on - North Somerset Times

Made In China present a new production called Gym Party, exploring the psychology of winning and the nature of pride. The plays run at the Tobacco Factory Theatre, Raleigh Road, between May 1626. For more information or to book tickets visit http://www.tobaccofactorytheatre.com/ or call the box office on 01179 020344.

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3/25/13

Poet rapper Kate Tempest to perform at Bristol Old Vic - 23 March 2013 - Guide2Bristol News Email:

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Poet rapper Kate Tempest to perform at Bristol Old Vic

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Poet rapper Kate Tempest to perform at Bristol Old Vic 23 March 2013

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Poet rapper Kate Tempest to perform at Bristol Old Vic Poet and rapper Kate Tempest is to present Brand New Ancients at the Bristol Old Vic on Friday 17 and Saturday 17 May as part of Mayfest 2013 tickets go on sale today (Tuesday 12 March). Brand New Ancients was commissioned by the Albany with the support of Arts Council England and is coproduced by Kate Tempest and Battersea Arts Centre where it took London by storm last year. Tempest has reworked the show especially for Mayfest and will perform it in the main auditorium at the Bristol Old Vic. The show features a live score played by tuba, cello, violin, drums and electronics and is an everyday epic set on the edges of the city, discovering modern day myths as the lives of two families collide, connect and come apart. The audience will find that the gods of today are all around us and that our true heroes are often much closer than we think. A violent conclusion is promised. The show will be performed at 8PM on Friday 17 May and at 2PM on Saturday 18 May. Tickets are priced at £13 with concessions available. For further information about Brand New Ancients and other Mayfest shows taking place at the Bristol Old Vic visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk. Click here for Bristol Accommodation

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Preview: Mayfest 04/05/2013 |

Filed under: Latest Reviews,Reviews |

Posted by: Jenny Burton

The daffodils are in bloom, the sun seems to be making an effort at last, and the boy pigeons are strutting around after the girl pigeons like thirteen year olds at a school disco. Spring in Bristol has finally sprung. This means that in a tiny office on College Green, ten people and a dog called Arthur are working very hard to deliver Mayfest: Bristol’s unique annual festival of contemporary theatre. Described by the Guardian as, ‘a mix of work so tasty it makes you want to up sticks and move to Bristol permanently’ and featuring big names like Kate Tempest and Belarus Free Theatre, the festival is undoubtedly something of a big deal. It surprises me, therefore, when I mention Mayfest to a fellow student, that the reaction is nought but the vaguest flicker of recognition. At least, it surprises me until I remember that a year ago my reaction would have been the same; that the festival falls during exam period, that it costs more than £4 and that a lot of it takes place in areas of the city that many Bristol students probably aren’t aware exist, not exactly ideal for a student audience. However, as this year’s offering from the Bristol Drama department to the festival, I am coming to realise that despite these things, Mayfest ought to be very attractive to students. It’s just fun. The theatre it features is new and exciting and involves awesome music, animals and dancing. A trip to see a Mayfest show has got to be a more stimulating revision break than an eternally buffering episode of Family Guy or pictures of cats in people clothes. So, in an attempt to save you all from the mysterious, brainwashing power of Project Free TV and Buzzfeed (other time wasting/ strangely compelling sites are available), I give you the student’s guide to Mayfest. The Convenient option Mayfest at the Wardrobe, 20th – 24th May, 6pm, The Wardrobe Theatre: The Wardrobe Theatre is upstairs in The White Bear on St. Michaels Hill. It is approximately two and a half minutes walk away from the ASS library, so if you have spent all day in there and need a break from the nervous silence and intense lighting, this is ideal. Every show costs £5, and on the 21st and 23rd there will be a double bill so two shows for £5, better value than your standard student production! You can see full show details at thewardrobe.com The Financially viable option The 4for3 offer: Mayfest are running a 4for3 offer on most of their shows. The four I have chosen below are £7 for students, so £21 for the four. Nice. Gym Party, Made in China, 24th25th May, 6pm, The Brewery Theatre Described as Charlie Brookeresque in their ability to bring together politics and popular culture, Made In China are known for their playful, fierce and intelligent theatre. Gym Party promises to be raucous and thought provoking in equal measures. The Great Spavaldos, Il Pixel Rosso, 20th 26th May, The Island You and a friend will get your own half hour slot, during which time you are fitted with video goggles and headphones. You then BECOME the lead act in a circus. Apparently not suitable for people with a fear of heights, which just makes it sound all the more appealing.

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Flaneurs, Jenna Watt, 17th18th May, 6pm, The Brewery Theatre An award winning piece exploring the bystander effect, “the larger the crowd, the less likely it is that anyone will intervene.” I am deeply intrigued by this piece, not least because it manages to be chilling and thoughtful, while also involving a plastic giraffe. The Oh Fuck Moment, Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe, 21st23rd May 7pm & 9pm, Arnolfini Another award winning show. I’m a sucker for spoken word poetry, and this Flaneurs sounds like a particularly good example of 18th19th why. Billed as ‘a conversation around a desk for brave souls to hold their hands up and admit they fucked up, or for people to laugh at us because we did’, the piece will be beautiful and hilarious. Ones to splash out on Bigmouth, SkaGeN, 24th – 26th May, 8pm, Bristol Old Vic Studio Bigmouth is universally ravereviewed. No one has been able to fault it. It is a one man show, recreating a series of history’s most famous and controversial speeches. The trailer alone will give you chills. Also, at only £8 it probably won’t break the bank. Trash Cuisine, Belarus Free Theatre, 24th 25th May, 6pm, Tobacco Factory Theatre Belarus Free Theatre are a company from Belarus, the last country in Europe still under a dictatorship. Many of BFT’s company are banned from Belarus for making theatre which opposes the government regime. Trash Cuisine is an incredible and frightening piece of theatre which explores the death penalty. This show is important.

Trash Cuisine 24th25th

Annie Bell For more information on all these shows, and for the full programme, visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk

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Preview: Mayfest: Not Until We Are Lost 13/05/2013 |

Filed under: Latest Reviews,Reviews,Theatre |

Posted by: Jenny Burton

In the run up to Mayfest, Bristol’s theatre scene is hustling and bustling with rehearsals as shows are really coming together and sets are being set up. No exception is Circomedia Graduates, Ockham’s Razor who are returning to the city for Mayfest 2013 in a mindblowing aerial theatre performance. The performance is not like your normal show, they include a mixture of circus, physical theatre, narrative storytelling and distorted perspectives to create a memorable performance. Set to be like nothing you’ve ever seen before, expect actors to be hanging off bars and swinging each other across the room. Their monkey business is accompanied by a beautiful score that is performed by a choir of twenty from the Bristol local community. The company formed in 2004, when Alex Harvey, Charlotte Mooney, and Tina Koch met at the Circomedia Academy of Contemporary Circus and Physical Theatre in Bristol. Their love of aerial theatre brought them together and following their graduation they firmly established themselves as the UKs premier aerial theatre company. It is their combination of circus and visual theatre that really brings the show alive. From creating arresting, physical works on original pieces of equipment, to telling stories through the vulnerability, trust and reliance that exists between people in the air, Not Until We Are Lost challenges an audience’s perception of theatre as they know it. The show is inspired by the Henry David Thoreau quote “Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves” and the interactive performance plays with proximity to create feelings of claustrophobia, interchanged with large sweeping images and theatrical illusions, all created through constantly evolving surroundings. The audience are invited on to the stage to view the action in new, innovative ways from within a unique set of bespoke aerial structures, led from one viewing position to another by the performers and the narrative. At times, the audience surrounds the performers in a Perspex tower, or peer from below at the performers above – always being drawn into new and unknown perspectives. If you’re not sure what to go and see out of the 50 shows on offer during Mayfest, Not Until We Are Lost could be the perfect show to open your eyes to a new form of physical theatre and hopefully they won’t drop anyone! Jenny Burton, Theatre Editor. Not Until We Are Lost will be performed in Circomedia, St Paul’s Church, Portland Square, Bristol, BS2 8SJ on 17th May at 7:30pm, 18th, 19th, & 21st May at 2:00pm & 7:30pm and tickets

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6/24/13

Review: Mayfest: BEATS | Inter:Mission

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Review: Mayfest: BEATS 20/05/2013 | Filed under: Latest Reviews,Reviews,Theatre | Posted by: Jessica McKay

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Zero is not necessarily concerned with creating a wholly coherent narrative and relatable characters, rather it's a play that explores ideas and evokes mood. Subtitled "A Tragedy in Five Acts," it looks at the way people interact with one another, sometimes with joy, but mostly fruitlessly and emotionally damaging, ultimately damned to carry the injuries from the failed attempts at achieving a genuine connection.

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/REVIEW-Zero-Bristol-Old-Vic-9-10/story-19088730-detail/story.html[28/05/2013 11:40:10]

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See band on YouTube, then watch them live Post war village life on stage REVIEW: Love Saves The Day at Castle Park 9/10

REVIEW: Zero, part of Mayfest at Bristol Old Vic, 9/10 | Bristol Post

Entirely conveyed through dance and with little attempt to make its concerns explicit, it's through the performers that Zero's goals are made clearer, with halting, frustrated movements, sometimes mechanical in nature, almost geometric, before mutating into angry, perhaps even bestial displays of emotion.

REVIEW: Jack Dee at the Hippodrome 9/10

Fantastic Savings on New Fuseboards, £28-00... View details The entire production is backed by a live band, who accompany the dancers with southern blues music Zero opens quite evocatively with a spotlight on a lone harmonica player - which may seem like an unusual combination but nevertheless fits the production's exploration of theme with surprising congruity. Moreover, the music is often interrupted by audio clips that also seem to revolve around the idea of damaging relationships and damaged people, along with blasts of a repeating single musical note, that seems to be an alarm or a warning that signals the people that seem already doomed. Disregarding any analysis at all, which may or may not be accurate, Zero is, at the very least, a superficial pleasure. The dancers are all excellent, stylishly adorned in pin-stripe suits or flowing silk gowns, and the music is frequently terrific, performed with genuine soul and an appropriately bluesy thump.

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A complicated, cerebral experience that's nevertheless both great to look at and to listen to, Zero works brilliantly on different levels and is a credit to Mayfest.

9/10. Lee Callaway.

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Review: Not Until We Are Lost – Ockham’s Razor | Shane Morgan

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Review: Not Until We Are Lost – Ockham’s Razor BY SHANE MORGAN MAY 21, 2013

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BRISTOL BRISTOL OLD VIC CIRCOMEDIA MAYFEST OCKHAM'S RAZOR SHANE MORGAN

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When going to the theatre, more often than not I find myself going through my mental (some say psychotic) check list of what I hope for with the show I am just about to see. This organic and ever-changing checklist often includes:

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http://shanemorgan.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/review-not-until-we-are-lost-ockhams-razor/[23/05/2013 10:57:03]

Review: Not Until We Are Lost – Ockham’s Razor | Shane Morgan

Running time – Please let it be swift and to the point. Enter your email address

Engaging – Please let them have made this with us (the people in the darkness) in mind. Sign me up

Empowering – I want to be moved, entertained, challenged, driven into action (or any of combination thereof) Terrific – This is what I hope it will be. If it isn’t, then what’s the point? I open with this because often, shows I see have elements of some of the above. Sometimes most of the above. All too often very little of the above. Ockham’s Razor have produced a show that has all the above in bucket loads. The company chose David Henry Thoreau’s quote, “Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves” as a place upon which they could start building the show. As a piece of theatre, you could call it episodic. Moments in time that capture what it is like to feel lost or to look lost. More often than not, these moments led to beautifully captured discoveries that built upon themselves and led to a sense of peace. Whilst lost is in the title and is the essence of Thoreau’s quote, for me this show was about one thing: Joy. Each discovery, each section and physical moment was joyful. Not Until We Are Lost is possibly the most fun I’ve had in a theatre. A child like sense of joy and play was inherent throughout. To add to the experience, it was hosted by one of Bristol’s most exciting and truly breathtaking venues: Circomedia’s St. Paul’s Church in Portland Square. This is not just a highlight of Mayfest’s 2013 calendar but will surely be one of this year’s most striking creations. Ockham’s Razor have played a blinder and for those who got to see it, witnessed a theatrical gem. About these ads

http://shanemorgan.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/review-not-until-we-are-lost-ockhams-razor/[23/05/2013 10:57:03]

6/24/13

Mayfest | SkyLightRain

SkyLightRain For writers, thinkers and daydreamers

T A G A RCHI VES: M A YF EST

Cooking Ghosts review Posted on May 25, 2013

On Thursday night I had the chance to see Cooking Ghosts at the Tobacco Factory Theatre, part of Mayfestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extraordinary offerings. Using genuine vintage footage from Beady Eye Theatre founder Kristin Fredrickssonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s childhood, the show blends this with audio-snippets, props, puppetry and some truly exuberant dancing. This is a tragedy tenderly told with grace, generous abandon and moments of utterly raucous laughter. It is a noisy, chaotic, poetic, beautiful and sometimes painful portrayal of childhood bewilderment as Kristin and her twin sisters cope with the uncertainty of a mentally unwell www.skylightrain.com/tag/mayfest/

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Mayfest | SkyLightRain

mother. I left feeling both emotionally drained and emotionally enriched, resisting the urge to hug everyone involved. If it comes anywhere near you, go and see it. Posted in Reviews | Tagged Cooking Ghosts, Mayfest, theatre review | Leave a reply

Audience + theatre = Mayfest magic Posted on May 1, 2013

Mayfest kicks off this month (as you might expect) in Bristol, with the tagline â&#x20AC;&#x153;Adventurous theatre for playful peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; I have a feeling that the main challenge will be choosing what NOT to go to. The line up is experimental, extraordinary and, quite frankly, exciting.

Top of my wish-list are Cooking Ghosts (Tue 21-Thu 23 May at Tobacco Factory Theatre, www.skylightrain.com/tag/mayfest/

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Super Furry Animals singer brings Praxis Makes Perfect to Motion Bristol

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Super Furry Animals singer brings Praxis Makes Perfect to Motion Bristol 18 May 2013

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Super Furry Animals singer brings Praxis Makes Perfect to Motion Bristol Motion, the vast nightclub at the heart of Bristol’s Enterprise Zone, is to be the venue this May for Praxis Makes Perfect, a collaboration created by Neon Neon (led by Gruff Rhys, Super Furry Animals) and National Theatre Wales, presented in Bristol by Mayfest. Praxis Makes Perfect, which will be performed in the city and stages theatre at Motion, is an immersive gig exploring the life of Italian Communist politician Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. He was born into one of Italy’s wealthiest families, a lifelong leftwing political activist and the founder of the publishing house Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore. The Leopard and Dr Zhivago were among some of the great literary works of the last century that he discovered and published, the latter after lengthy battles with Soviet censors. Feltrinelli died in suspicious circumstances in 1972. Written by Tim Price and directed by Wils Wilson, Praxis Makes Perfect brings together the experiences of a live gig and site specific theatre. Neon Neon and their band will be joined by a cast of professional actors and there will be some unexpected interactions with the audience. The event coincides with the release of Neon Neon’s second album, also called Praxis Makes Perfect, which was released on 29 April. The performances form part of the Bristol Temple Commissions, a series of events coordinated by Watershed, Knowle West Media Centre and MAYK with support from Bristol City Council and Arts Council England. Praxis Makes Perfect can be seen at Motion at 8PM on Thursday 23 May. Tickets, priced at £15, are available from www.mayfestbristol.co.uk. Mayfest is Bristol’s festival of contemporary theatre, coordinated by Art Directors Matthew Austin and Kate Yedigaroff; it celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with its biggest programme to date featuring more than 50 performances taking place at 20 venues around the city between Thursday 16 and Sunday 26 May. Further information, including the full festival programme, can be found at the above website. Click here for Bristol Accommodation

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6/21/13

These Shining Lives, Knee Deep, Mayfest: what to see at the theatre this week | Stage | The Guardian

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Photograph: David Jensen

To Kill A Mockingbird, London In 2011, the Open Air Theatre season in Regent's Park looked to books rather than Shakespeare for inspiration with a staging of William Golding's Lord Of The Flies. This year, the run opens with another adaptation of a GCSE set text: Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird (Thu to 15 Jun). A classic from English literature follows with the muchloved Pride And Prejudice, while Shakespeare gets a brief look-in with a version of The Winter's Tale for the over-6s. Musicals are now the big thing there, with an auspicious record to live up to; this summer's big show is the family favourite The Sound Of Music. Watch out for fake nuns in the audience.

www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/may/11/this-weeks-new-theatre

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6/21/13

These Shining Lives, Knee Deep, Mayfest: what to see at the theatre this week | Stage | The Guardian

Open Air Theatre, NW1, Thu to 7 Sep MC

Knee Deep, Brighton There are some circus shows that get you where it hurts, and this four-hander by Brisbane company Casus is one such project. A massive hit at last year's Edinburgh fringe, this quietly unassuming event eschews the big tricks and showmanship of many circus pieces, placing all its focus on putting maximum effort into doing the trick. As a result, it feels invested and risky; you can see the sweat on the performers' brows and feel the pain. Quite how it will work in the less intimate space of the Theatre Royal remains to be seen, but it's a cracker, and a highlight in a Brighton festival programme which this week also includes Angela Clerkin's The Bear and a wonderfully witty and irreverent take on Beowulf. Theatre Royal, Tue to 18 May LG

These Shining Lives, London It says something about the robust state of London theatre in these straitened times that new venues are still opening. Following the St James Theatre in Victoria late last year comes the Park Theatre near Finsbury Park tube station, with a 200-seat auditorium as well as a smaller, 90-seat space. It opens with These Shining Lives by Melanie Marnich, a play originally premiered in Baltimore five years ago. Set in Chicago in the roaring 20s, it finds a young woman starting her first job at the Radium Dial Company. She becomes an unlikely pioneer, fighting for the endangered health of her female co-workers. Foyle's War's Honeysuckle Weeks stars in a production directed by Loveday Ingram. Park200, Park Theatre, N4, to 9 Jun MC

Live Witness, Newcastle upon Tyne The backstage areas of theatres are mysterious and magical places to a public who never see them. Shows that allow us to peep behind the curtain are rare but often pay dividends. The Bush's final work in its old building took audiences on a merry dance through the corridors and dressing rooms, and now Live Theatre is opening up its secret places and telling some of its unheard stories in this promenade performance, www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/may/11/this-weeks-new-theatre

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These Shining Lives, Knee Deep, Mayfest: what to see at the theatre this week | Stage | The Guardian

created by Annie Rigby and Amy Golding from an idea by Stella Duffy. Rigby of Unfolding Theatre and Golding of Theatre Auracaria are rising stars in the region, and the show should offer a unique and fitting celebration of Live's 40th birthday. Live Theatre, Tue to 25 May LG

Mayfest, Bristol It's a decade since Mayfest first began with a modest programme, and over the past 10 years it has grown massively. It is now the place to go to see work that pushes hard at what theatre can be. To celebrate its birthday there are 10 commissions from Bristolbased artists responding to the theme of "the senses", but there is also a chance for those in the south-west to see some seriously good work that has already played elsewhere. This week, you should check out Kieran Hurley's Beats, which explores the effects of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, Jenna Watt's exploration of bystander theory, Flâneurs, and Ockham's Razor's delicate and playful Not Until We Are Lost, Later on, there's Belarus Free Theatre's examination of the death penalty, Trash Cuisine (24 & 25 May. Various venues, Thu to 26 May LG

Say It With Flowers, Cardiff Who remembers Dorothy Squires? Probably not many people under the age of 40. But in her heyday Squires, who was born in the shadow of the Llanelli tin works, was one of the UK's most successful performers and the highest-paid postwar entertainer. She was a real celebrity, with her marriage to the future James Bond, Roger Moore, in 1953 a media jamboree, not least because he was 12 years younger than her. Her attempts at a comeback in the 1960s won her new fans and she sold out the London Palladium, but she became a vexatious litigant and died bankrupt back in the Rhondda. Meic Povey and Johnny Tudor tell a rags-to-riches-and-back-to-rags-again story, which features some of Squires's greatest hits. Sherman Cymru, Wed to 25 May LG

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What’s on in Bristol this weekend City events 1719 May

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What’s on in Bristol this weekend City events 1719 May 17 May 2013

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What’s on in Bristol this weekend City events 1719 May As the weekend approaches Guide2Bristol has been taking a look at what’s going on in the city this Friday, Saturday and Sunday to come up with a few suggestions for you to consider. Mayfest, Bristol’s annual festival of contemporary theatre opened on Thursday 16 May and has a packed programme for its first weekend. Highlights include Kate Tempest’s Brand New Ancients at Bristol Old Vic; Banana Bag & Bodice’s presentation of Beowulf A Thousand Years of Baggage at the Trinity Centre; and Circomediatrained Ockham’s Razor’s Not Until We Are Lost at Circomedia. For further information, including the full programme, visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk. WonkaVision will be hosting a special party at Motion on Friday night, to herald the start of the festival season. The lineup of DJs and live acts includes Jack Beats; Hot Cakes Live; DC Breaks; Rack N Ruin; Reso; Slamboree; and many more. Tickets are priced from £15 to £18 and are available from Resident Advisor, Motion, Bristol Ticket Shop and local shops. For further information visit www.motionbristol.com. MoveGB, a new Bathbased company offering its subscribers a passport scheme that allows them to access a wide variety of fitness venues, will be hosting a free fitness taster day in Millennium Square on Saturday. Visitors to the event, which runs from 10AM until 4PM, will be able to take part in a range of activities including pole dancing, Zumba, MMA, Watt Bike fitness tests, Salsa and more. To find out more visit www.movegb.wordpress.com. A B Careers are running a careers workshop at The Coach House in Upper York Street on Saturday. Visitors will be able to build a structured career plan, have their CV reviewed by a recruitment professional, obtain interview tips and advice, and share their ideas and experiences regarding the Bristol job market. The event will run from 9.30AM until 12.30PM and will cost £20 per person. For more information email info@abcareers.co.uk. The Refectory at City of Bristol College, off Ashley Road, will be the venue on Saturday for an Antiques and Vintage Craft Fair. Visitors will find around 30 stalls selling antiques and collectibles, vintage clothing and accessories, retro items and homeware, jewellery, arts and handmade crafts, upcycled furniture, and more. Snacks and light refreshments will be available. Admission costs £1 for adults and there is free car parking for up to 200 cars. Hot Buttered Soul will be joined by Stevie Bear and Lee Jones for Force Plus Four at The Bank in Stokes Croft on Saturday night. The event will run from 10.30PM until 4AM and admission costs £2 to £3. To find out more visit www.taskandbear.com. Visitors to the University of Bristol Botanic Garden at The Holmes, Stoke Bishop on Sunday will be able to discover the secrets of their garden at its Fascination of Plants Day when the garden becomes a living science lab for the day to explore the hidden world of plants. The garden will be open from 10AM until 4.30PM. For further information, including admission charges, visit www.bristol.ac.uk/botanicgarden. This weekend’s theatrical offerings in the city include One Night of Elvis with Lee ‘Memphis’ King at the Bristol Hippodrome on Friday night; Rolf Harris Live at the same venue on Saturday night; Tosca at the Tobacco Factory Theatre; How to Curse at Alma Tavern Theatre; and Westenders, a musical extravaganza celebrating 80 years of musical theatre presented by BLOC Productions at the Colston Hall on Saturday and Sunday. These are just a few suggestions for things to do in the city over the next few days, for further information and more ideas visit the events pages at www.guide2bristol.com and however you choose to spend your weekend in Bristol we hope you have a fantastic time.

Kate Tempest

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6/21/13

'Yarn bombers' hit Bristol as bizarre 12ft knitted spider's web appears beneath underpass - Yahoo! News UK

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'Yarn bombers' hit Bristol as bizarre 12ft knitted spider's web appears beneath underpass The huge spider web under Stapleton Road railway bridge in Bristol is believed to be the work of 'yarn bombers' or 'guerrilla knitters' - street artists who make decorations by knitting or crocheting wool, or turning yarn into pom-poms. Yahoo! News – Fri, Jun 14, 2013

To some it's a giant nylon spider's web, to others it's a 12ft doily. Whatever the bizarre art statement is, bemused motorists have no idea how the rogue knitting project turned up beneath an underpass in Bristol. The huge spider web under Stapleton Road railway bridge in Bristol is believed to be the work of 'yarn bombers' or 'guerrilla knitters' - street artists who make decorations by knitting or crocheting wool, or turning yarn into pom-poms. The huge doily was spotted by Gail Boyle as she drove into work on Thursday morning. 'I've no idea who is responsible, it might be 'yarn bombing', but I crochet and I know that they are proper crochet stitches,' she said.

The intricately put-together web project (SWNS)

uk.news.yahoo.com/yarn-bombing-bristol--nylon-spiders-web-doily-stapleton-road-railway-bridge-bristol-152953375.html#1HLvWs6

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6/21/13

'Yarn bombers' hit Bristol as bizarre 12ft knitted spider's web appears beneath underpass - Yahoo! News UK

Spider's web or giant doily? The inspiration for the project is unclear (SWNS)

'It's a massive piece of crochet and the nylon cord must be up to an inch thick.' Last year guerrilla knitters in Bristol made a huge cloak for a Queen Victoria statue in College Green. 'This latest piece of guerrilla crochet is beautiful - it shines like a little white beacon,' added Gail. More pictures of the week:

Lightning strikes the Willis Tower in Chicago during extreme weather earlier this week (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) 1 / 12

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uk.news.yahoo.com/yarn-bombing-bristol--nylon-spiders-web-doily-stapleton-road-railway-bridge-bristol-152953375.html#1HLvWs6

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