Prague Fringe

The 11th Prague Fringe Festival  – 1st to 9th June 2012

The annual extravaganza that is Fringe Festival Praha once more promises its heady mix of theatre, comedy, music and good times across the Malá Strana district of the city. Join the Fringe jamboree and create your own unforgettable festival from this year’s programme – with hundreds of performers from across the globe, in 42 shows over 9 days in 8 venues.

Festival assistants, both English and Czech speaking, will be on hand at venues to help with everyone’s Fringe experience from the first to the last show of the day.

www.praguefringe.com

 

Sex, war, comedy, flamenco – Coming up at the New Cross Theatre

Sat  19th  & Sunday 20th May, 8pm
AWKWARD  by Richard Oliver

Family secrets and illicit relationships spill out when Greg and his girlfriend Tilly arrive at their grotty second home, abetted by quirky Lola, her brother Nathan and toy-boy Baz. Tempers flare when Nathan uncovers a disturbing truth about Greg – the ramifications of which revise the course of the friends’ lives forever. Awkward! Suitable for adults only with strong language and themes of sex and violence.

Tues 22nd  & Sunday 27th May
LIONS & DONKEYS

A story set in the trenches that includes comedy. September 1918 on the Western Front. Tommy and Dave receive an unexpected visit from Lieutenant Hargreaves who announces that Tommy is to be awarded a medal for his courage in combat. Why then are Tommy and Dave so keen to see the back of him? And who is the strange Icelandic character that enters the scene brandishing a sausage?

A second play called ‘THE LONG RETREAT TO MONS’ by Stacey Williams will be performed after the interval.

Sat 2nd June, 8pm
NEW CROSS COMEDY CLUB

A regular night of top class stand up comedy with 5 acts and Tony Marresse

Sun 3rd June, 8pm
FLAMENCO EXPRESS

Raw, flamenco ‘puro’ from the purest band in town. Flamenco is Music, Sex and History all rolled into one. The fiercest expression of the human spirit ever devised. The Flamenco Express policy is simply to hire the best flamenco performers, give them total artistic freedom and let them do the rest.

www.thelondontheatre.com

 

 

What could be more topical? Jubilee, at the Tabard

13 June to 21 July

The poster from the original Broadway production

Almost-normal presents Jubilee, with music and lyrics By Cole Porter, book by Moss Hart, at the Tabard Theatre, a fringe venue in Chiswick, west London.

Directed by Neil Bull, choreography by James Houlbrooke, the cast includes Amy Cooke-Hodgson, Adam Dutton, Barry Joseph Keenan, Catherine Nicole, Robert Paul, Adam Pendrich, Hannah Powell, George Reeve, Holly Tyler, Emma Williamson.

Jubilee takes you on a royal 1930’s romp through early celebrity culture. The story is of a fictional royal family who, when an immanent revolution threatens their throne, decide to relinquish their responsibilities and pursue their dreams: the King sets off and meets socialite Eva Standing; the Queen becomes infatuated by the swimmer-come-actor Charles Rausmiller; the Prince pursues singer Karen O’Kane; and the Princess is charmed by playwright, composer and actor Eric Dare.

When it becomes clear that the impending uprising is nothing more than a hoax, the royals are presented with a problem, do they succumb to duty or continue to pursue passion and freedom?

www.tabardtheatre.co.uk

Museums at Night. This weekend – 18/19 May

Returning once again for 2012, the Museums at Night London events feature nocturnal activities in museums and galleries throughout the city. An extended programme of events in the Lates series will be taking place at both large, national institutions and smaller, more specialist venues. Evenings feature art, live music and performances as some of London’s most famous institutions open their doors in the evening.

Among the Museums in London taking part are Somerset House, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the Petrie Museum and Apsley House.

Museums at Night London events coincide with special activities across the UK, and is tied to the European wide campaign, La Nuit de Musees.

Get the latest at www.museumsatnight.wordpress.com

Arnold Wesker’s Denial, at the King’s Head, Islington

Directed by Fringe Report Award-Winner, Adam Spreadbury-Mather. On now

Arnold Wesker

Arnold Wesker, playwright, says this about the 2012 production of Denial at the King’s Head Theatre:

“One day someone from my past rang to tell me he had a story which he thought would made a good play: Something awful that had happened to his friends. I sighed. But within minutes of hearing what had happened to his friends I knew that this story was ‘speaking’ to me.”

“This material, about his friends’ daughter who had turned on them with dreadful, unfounded accusations of sexual abuse when she was a child was more than a story about a painful, domestic injustice; it was about the theme of manipulation – the therapist as manipulator.”

“I met the couple – a middleclass couple from North London – and taped many hours of their story. I never met ‘Valerie’, the therapist, but I read documents she’d written, and documents about her.  She is still practicing, and organises weekend conferences on the dubious topic of ‘recovered memories of child abuse’.”

More at www.kingsheadtheatre.com

Young deaf or disabled filmmakers: bursary available

USHOOT:USCREEN are looking for inspiring ideas for short films on the theme of “Values”.

The best six will be given a Filmmaking Bursary and Mentor Award. The deadline for applications is 15th June 2012. Bursary Winners must make their film by the end of September 2012.

Schools, Youth Groups, Colleges and Communities are invited to encourage any deaf and disabled aspiring filmmakers, aged 14 to 25, from across the South East, to apply for the opportunity to win a £1500 film bursary to make a film with expert advice from a Professional Film Mentor.

For more information see: www.uscreen.co.uk

Apply online at: www.uscreen.co.uk/how-to/view/ushoot-uscreen-filmmaking-competition

Warehouse Theatre, Croydon launches appeal

The Warehouse Theatre in Croydon, which celebrates its 35th birthday this year, is launching an appeal to safeguard its future.

Croydon council last month withdrew £30,000 of funding, while the venue was also hit by the loss of money from the Arts Council four years ago.

Officials say the loss of public funding and a downturn in box office revenue has put it in jeopardy. Insolvency firm Frost Business Recovery has now been called in to act as interim administrator.

Cate Blanchett made her London stage debut at the venue in Sweet Phoebe in 1995.

For more details of the fundraising appeal visit www.warehousetheatre.co.uk.

 

The Pirate Project. Lucy Foster with Improbable, at the Oval House next week.

Fanciful stagings of the escapades of Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Ching Shih – swashbuckling female pirates of the past – combine with intimate stories of personal piracy in the performers’ own lives. See these bloodthirsty damsels out-sail, out-think, and out-fight every man on the high seas.

How did they do it? How does a slip of a girl subdue a ship of salty sea dogs? Could she still do it today? Has her 21st century counterpart got the guts to stick a dagger between her teeth, fire a broadside and make off with the booty?

In The Pirate Project three women set sail in search of their inner pirate. Expect sword fights, theatrical storms, cross dressing, and a certain amount of swagger.

Tue 15 May – Sat 2 Jun, 7:45pm
www.ovalhouse.com

Aspiring writer? Q+A with David Eldridge

BBC Writersroom are holding a special Q&A with writer David Eldridge at the Broadway Barking at 6:30pm on Thursday 24th May 2012.

David’s work includes Under the Blue Sky, Market Boy, The Knot of the Heart, The Stock Da’wa, In Basildon and the upcoming adaptation of Miss Julie for The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.

David will be in conversation with Kate Rowland, BBC Creative Director of New Writing, about his writing career, and he will also answer questions from the audience.

Thursday 24th May 2012 6:30pm
The Broadway, Barking, IG11 7LS

Tickets are free. Please reserve your place by emailing writersroom.events@bbc.co.uk with ‘David Eldridge Q&A’ in the subject title and your full name in the email.

 

 

Ray Lee’s Ethometric Museum at Battersea Arts

May 18 – May 26, 2012
18 – 19 & 25 – 26 May
7:30pm & 9pm

Have you ever wondered how electricity could make you feel happy? This may not be quite like anything you will have heard (or seen) before. You are going to be taken into the Ethometric Museum, a gallery of amazing electrical curiosities.

Inside you will bathe in the resonant Ethometric waves of the ‘Sonionic Analyser’, watch as the ‘Multiwave Oscillethergraph Generator’ begins to spin, and contemplate the mysteries of the ‘Ethomagnetrons’. Each machine emits specific harmonic frequencies and through their precise manipulation the skilled operator will realign your ‘super-electrical field’. You will feel happy.

Ethometric Museum is an immersive journey into a hypnotic and mesmerising world.

http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/ethometric-museum/