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future events tagged spoken word
The Vinyl Frontier: Your Best of… Abba
Hosted by Jeff Lloyd.
Join Jeff and 11 other ABBA champions and find out what their favourite ABBA tracks are. An evening of guaranteed classics and hidden gems. Mamma Mia!
Studio
£10
Other Vinyl Frontier Events This Season
Your Best of Abba
Lucky Dip
Battle of the Bands
Your Favourite Vs My Favourite
- 7 Oct SOLD OUT
Conception: Mary Shelley - The Making of a Monster
Presented by CLAIR/OBSCUR Theatre.
This event marks the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Frankenstein to bear Mary Shelley’s name.
Conception charts a profound voyage of self -discovery for this exceptional writer in her maturity. A journey that trips through the Romantic poetry of Mary Shelley’s contemporaries – P B Shelley, Byron, Keats - soaring like the Skylark and pummelling the depths of Darkness to a final, bare and brutal confrontation with her creation on the Mer de Glace.
October 1840: Gothic writer, Mary Shelley’s first pilgrimage back to Europe in twenty years in defiance of her father - in - law’s express wishes.
Does Mary have the courage to confront the past as she returns to Lake Geneva, her birthplace as a writer and of her most famous novel Frankenstein? Will she find the solace she seeks among Villa Diodati’s rooms, terraces and vineyards where herself, Percy Shelley and Byron spent that unforgettable summer…
Was she the same person who had lived there, the companion of the dead?
More powerful and essential storytelling from Clair Obscur (S.O.E, a necessary woman) celebrating another glorious female icon…
Studio
£16
Candlelit Macbeth
Presented by Bart Lee Theatre.
In the darkness something stirs
Visceral
Witches gather and spin their words
Soundscapes clatter
Screams are heard
Whispers of murder
Lurk in the shade
Ambition
Power
Love betrayed
Something wicked this way comes set in the 11th century and faithful to Shakespeare’s text this retelling centres on the witches and their thirst for revenge. They choose a champion to challenge the Christian kings and Macbeth answers the call.
Is this a dagger I see before me Murder, poetry and sword fighting combine as the tale unfolds using candle light to ignite the imagination and chill the soul. Things are about to get very dark indeed.
Macbeth is brought to life by this talented and enthralling story-telling company, igniting the imagination with poetry, sound-scapes, shadows and movement. Faithful to the text and famous Shakespeare characters. Suitable for those studying the play at GCSE as well as lovers of the Bard. Not to be missed.
Creatives
Ann Ogden, movement director, graduate of The Dance School of Scotland and London Studio Centre. Trained in classical ballet, contemporary dance and pilates.
Patsy Fraser, costume and set designer, graduate of Epsom School of Art and Design, Birmingham City University and The Slade School, London. Trained in theatre design and PGCE.
Bart Lee, writer and director, graduate of Rose Bruford Drama School, NYMT, Welfare State Theatre and Community placement, ACE NPO company director, Drama HOD and Art Centre Management. Trained in acting and QTS.
Courtyard Theatre
£16 I £14 Supporters
The Vinyl Frontier: Lucky Dip
Hosted by Jeff Lloyd.
This is a brand new format where you, the audience, can bring ANY vinyl record you would like to hear played on our wonderful hi-fi system.
10 lucky people who have their number drawn out will get the chance to play the song they've always wanted everyone else to hear. In the time they have to introduce it, Jeff will attempt to find a suitable video to accompany it!
Studio
£10
Other Vinyl Frontier Events This Season
Your Best of Abba
Lucky Dip
Battle of the Bands
Your Favourite Vs My Favourite
Hauntings
Performed by Gerard Logan | Directed by Gareth Armstrong | Music by Simon Slater
Hauntings is a spellbinding evening of three tales of the supernatural from two of the world’s greatest writers of ghost stories, E.F. Benson and M.R. James.
From E.F. BENSON comes:
Naboth’s Vineyard - in which just desserts are meted out to an unscrupulous lawyer,
and The Hanging of Alfred Wadham - in which the forces of the devil test a man of faith to his limits.
From the acknowledged master of the ghost story genre, M.R. JAMES, comes:
Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad - in which a medieval spirit strikes terrorizes an arrogant professor.
With masterful storytelling from the award-winning actor Gerard Logan, Hauntings will transport you to a world of invisible, but terrifyingly present, spirits.
'Logan is astounding....He takes a strong script and flies it to the stars' Edinburgh Festival 2016 ★★★★★
'Watching Logan work is like being privy to a wonder of nature and remains with you... A true masterpiece of solo performance' The Edinburgh Guide - Edinburgh Festival 2015 ★★★★★
Gerard Logan won The Stage Best Solo Performer of the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Award for his acclaimed performance in Gareth Armstrong’s production of Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece.
He won the Best Actor award at the 2014 Buxton Fringe Festival and was nominated for the Michael MacLiammoir Award for Best Male Performance at the 2016 International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival for his performance in Wilde Without the Boy.
Gareth Armstrong has developed and directed many successful solo shows, including his own award-winning Shylock.
Hauntings is also underscored by a beautiful, original and specially commissioned score by the award-winning RSC composer, Simon Slater.
Studio
£16 I £14 conc
Keith James - The Music of Yusuf Cat Stevens
Keith James presents an honest and loving reflection of the timeless and insightful music of Yusuf Cat Stevens.
Keith James is a long standing, well-respected and inventive concert performer. He specialises in playing intimate, carefully researched biographic style concerts of those he has studied and revered as writers over the years.
He weaves the story of Cat Stevens’ life from his early pop career, life threatening illness and spiritual journey around a performance of his beautifully crafted and memorable songs. Keith has performed well over 100 of these concerts since 2017, all of which have been incredibly well received, with many sold out.
It is hardly surprising that to mark its 50th anniversary Yusuf has entirely re-recorded and re-released his remarkable Album Tea for the Tillerman. Each of the unforgettable 11 songs re-conceptualized and re-imagined and gifted back to us among all the uncertainties of 2020 - 2023.
This concert will give you far more than just the music itself. There is a huge amount of insight into the history and the spirit of Cat Stevens and his early pop career. From his illness that changed him existentially and spiritually into an incredibly thoughtful to the loving singer songwriter. With songs that are remembered instantly for their uplifting sense of vision, truth and human fragility.
Talk about the background and embryo of each song. Some of which will be performed as all of us remember and some carefully and intuitively re-voiced and respectfully re-interpreted with rich, balanced guitar arrangements and a more personal vocal approach.
Yusuf campaigns on many educational and humanitarian issues, he was awarded the Man of Peace award by the Nobel Peace Laureates. In 2015 and he received the Lifetime achievement award from BBC Radio 2 and the Ivor Novello Award for outstanding song collection. He has received two honorary doctorates and awards for promoting peace from two organisations founded by Mikhail Gorbachev.
‘Keith James’ Concert was truly memorable. My tears started as soon as he introduced the first song, and I came away thinking the human spirit will not be defeated. Currently on tour across the UK. Catch him if you can. He is such a lovely human being and so talented’ The Hay Festival
‘Some of the most atmospheric and emotive music you will ever hear’ The Independent
‘Thank you for a fantastic concert last night at the Kenton Theatre. You sang so well and the way you told the stories about the songs and sang them so clearly made us see them in a whole new light, it was beautiful' Henley Festival
‘Keith James has become a pillar of trust. A sublimely intimate and engaging voice' Sunday Times
Studio
£18.50
Mig Kimpton In Floral Pantoland!
The floral entertainer returns with his brand of floral panto fun!
Watch Mig create some floral designs from scratch (which you can win to take home) as he finds himself in a Floral Pantoland!
It’s an evening of stories, flowers and fragrant festive designs. Mig brings another of his fabulous floral shows to provide an evening of unique unmissable fun with flowers.
Studio
£17
The Vinyl Frontier: Battle of the Bands
Hosted by Jeff Lloyd.
Another new format where 5 people champion one artist by playing 3 tracks from 3 different LPs in three rounds.
The audience votes for the best one each time and the winner is the most with the most votes in total.
Studio
£10
Other Vinyl Frontier Events This Season
Your Best of Abba
Lucky Dip
Battle of the Bands
Your Favourite Vs My Favourite
The Vinyl Frontier: Your Favourite vs My Favourite
Hosted by Jeff Lloyd.
Seven challengers choose a song from a category of their choosing (e.g. country, classic rock, novelty, 80s synth pop etc) and challenge Jeff to a battle of taste with the audience voting for their favourite.
Other Vinyl Frontier Events This Season
Your Best of Abba
Lucky Dip
Battle of the Bands
Your Favourite Vs My Favourite
Studio
£10
Dom Joly - Conspiracy Tourist
Dom Joly has been off travelling the globe again. This time, he’s been looking into some of the strangest and weirdest conspiracy theories in existence.
'Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean you’re not being followed!'
Now, he’s now set to embark on a rather unique theatre tour, where Dom will be providing a hilarious, fascinating, and slightly anarchic guide to the wacky world of conspiracies.
1. Is the earth flat?
2. Does Finland exist?
3. Did JFK commit suicide?
4. Are Q Anon mentally ill?
5. Is Bill Gates using vaccines to take control of your mind?
6. Is Denver Airport a massive panic room for the Illuminati?
7. Are UFO’s piloted by lizards?
In the spirt of fairness, Dom will also be inviting a well-known and highly respected conspiracy theorist, Dr Julian Northcote, to take the stage and defend the alternate view.
Due to the extremely controversial views aired in the show, security will be at an optimum and audiences are warned that angry demonstrations are very likely – or is that just another conspiracy?!
Courtyard Theatre
£25