Ovalhouse offers a walk on the wilder side as they invite you to share their new season with a dark autumnal edge, continuing to demonstrate their passion for discovering and supporting imaginative and innovative voices. This season presents a powerful collection of new shows; from Christopher Brett Bailey’s neonoir howl against humanity, to the haunting world of Theatre Témoin’s homelessness London, the sinister rise of online surveillance in The Future is Unwritten’s Still, to Xavier de Sousa’s exploration of living the loneliness of national limbo. Alongside Accidental Collective’s defiant call for hope in a seemingly hopeless world, the season closes with Why The Whales Came – an enchanting tale by one of the UK’s best-loved storytellers Michael Morpurgo.
Owen Calvert-Lyon, Ovalhouse’s Head of Theatre & Artists’ Development, comments, This season we have some great home-grown productions with Ovalhouse’s signature blend of innovation and anarchy. Alongside these we have hand-picked some of the best touring shows around in order to bring them to South East London.
The diverse Autumn/Winter Season 2016 is as follows:
KISSING THE SHOTGUN GOODNIGHT
Thurs 6 – Tues 11 October, 7.30pm (no performance Sun)
Written by Christopher Brett Bailey, Kissing The Shotgun Goodnight is a linguistic kaleidoscope of the hallucinogenic and the hardboiled, all set to a pulverising live musical score of dark psychedelia. It takes the audience on a journey through the multiverse and into the afterlife, inviting them to consider their own relationship to food, capitalism and the right to kill yourself.
THE MARKED by Theatre Témoin
Thurs 13 – Sat 22 October, 7.30pm; Matinees on Sat 15 and 22 October, 2pm (no performance Sun or Mon)
As a boy, Jack was surrounded by monsters and invisible guardians, as he fought to protect the people he was destined to rule. Now grown up, his life on the streets of London is less fantastical. But when a ghost from his past turns up, Jack must harness the power of forgotten myths to defeat her. Theatre Témoin spin together mask, puppetry and physical theatre to navigate a haunting, mystical wonderland inspired by real-life stories of homelessness.
HERE’S HOPING by Accidental Collective
Wed 26 – Sat 29 October, 7.30pm
Times are tough and the news is grim. Daisy and Pablo were in need of some hope, so they thought they should make a show about it. They wanted it to be a show about the triumph of love, but it turned out that things are not as simple as that. They are knotted and complex. Hope and hopelessness hold hands.
STILL by The Future is Unwritten
Tues 22 – Sat 26 November, 7.30pm; Matinee on Sat 26 November, 3pm
‘H’ hacks data and parties obsessively. She’s fast approaching the edge. Vivian Maier was the reclusive street photographer whose exceptional talent only came to light after her death. On one final binge H stumbles into the gallery and across the work of Maier. Placing the audience in a gallery space, with a specially designed App available to download on their phones to intensify the action, Still asks, “is there any privacy left?”.
POST by Xavier de Sousa
Wed 30 November – Sat 3 December, 7.30pm
As a generation that grew up in an open-doors Europe in the internet age, we’ve been accustomed to travel, to exchange, engage with and collaborate with people with different nationalities. Freedom of movement has allowed us to expand our knowledge of what ‘place’ and ‘borders’ mean. But if borders are protective systems, who are they protecting us from? Post is an exploration of what it means to be a migrant, constantly inhabiting a ‘national limbo’.
WHY THE WHALES CAME by Michael Morpurgo
Thurs 22 – Sat 31 December, 11am and 2pm; BSL interpreted performance Tues 27 December, 2pm (no performances on Christmas Day or Boxing Day)
Children Gracie and Daniel have been forbidden to go near the mysterious and seemingly dangerous Birdman. But messages and clues intrigue them and, after being lost at sea in the fog and stranded on his tiny island, they begin to unravel the Birdman’s secrets, the villagers’ fears and superstitions and learn why the whales came to the island. With Wizard Presents, multiaward winning performer and storyteller Danyah Miller vividly brings to life this enchanting tale by Michael Morpurgo
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