Author Archives: Hannah Sullivan

About Hannah Sullivan

Hannah is a performance maker and freelance producer based in Bristol.

Ridiculusmus: Total Football

The stage is bordered by the three high walls of a grimy, empty office, cut each side with bright yellow doors. As we settle down a tall bald man in a dark grey suit walks in and out, looking like he’s rehearsing for a speech. He yawns, mumbles to himself. A flipchart stands in the centre of the room with a poster saying ‘Celebrating Great Britain Today’. A well-to-do voice from the audience asks when the talk is going to begin; he is the only person to attend. He explains that he is a Pakistani man; his family originates from Britain, but he lives in Pakistan and is now considering moving to the UK. Subverting what we know and assume of a Pakistani man and the usual flow of immigration, the show starts on a knife-edge. Presenting ideas that are funny as well as intelligent and interesting, Ridiculusmus overturn assumptions of race, origin and immigration as they begin a fast-paced, witty and wonderfully performed saga on the formation of Great Britain’s Olympic football team.

The two performers, David Wood and John Haynes, morph and swap characters in the blink of an eye. Suddenly they are a political team that has had the idea that the way to boost Britain’s happiness is to win the Olympic football league. The man in charge of putting the team together has no knowledge or interest in football, and so is now faced with the horrific mission of trying to muster up the same passion for the sport found in a huge mass of the British populace.

Will winning really bring happiness? Who is Britain anyway? An insightful Algerian character is taking his ‘Citizen-shit test’ and reads a Winston Churchill speech from his notebook. He is learning hard to become a British Citizen, but he doesn’t support the English football team.

As the lights fade out and house music is pumped up, David and John’s football moves turn into a dance sequence, graceful and hilarious. This is welcome break in a text heavy show, but Riduculsmus are always playful with their material, constantly throwing out expertly crafted lines. The description of football as ’22 millionaires fucking up the lawn’ is my favorite, and like all good political satire Total Football occupies the space between mockery and honesty.

Masculinity, rage, ignorance, intolerance – a vein of the dangerous racism that dwells in football is present within the text. But is it balanced by passion and a love of the game? As the show itself asks, have we asked any of the countries who have won the Olympic football if it made their country happy? Does it really achieve anything?

In a press conference to discuss the failure of the GB football team the speaker awkwardly reveals his own infertility. He seems to drift off into a desire to express his own feelings, to talk about a current problem in his life, not football. It’s a moment that encapsulates the spirit of the show: Total Football generally says the unsaid. At first it strikes you a little off guard but then the moment settles and is understood to be true.

I am completely disinterested in football as a sport, but was interested in Total Football as the show talks more broadly about Britain, about collective passion and pride in a complex society, about politics, happiness, nationality, ridiculous ideas, pressure and failure. Total Football is a joy to watch, an achievement of magnificent writing, and a true demonstration of Britain today.

Il Pixel Rosso: The Great Spavaldos

Kitted out in headphones, I am lead through the corridors of The Island, an old police station at the centre of Bristol now used for circus training. I am listening to typical circus music, and feel like I am approaching the ring, like I am about to perform. I am with one other audience member and a blonde-haired woman with a hat that reads FOLLOW ME on the back. As we walk, she holds up pictures that punctuate a short introduction in my headphones to Vito and Tito, circus children apparently born with moustaches who grew up to be daredevil trapeze artists. We are, in fact, being given our own backstory, as we two, me and my fellow participant, are about to step into the shoes of Vito and Tito.

We are left in a small tent, with a mirror; it feels like a dressing room. We are asked to wear a moustache and cape. We don our clumsy costumes and are directed to find and read a letter on the table; I think it’s to do with Vito and Tito’s mother, but the content washes over me. I am too preoccupied with the instructions, with this new environment and the knowledge that I’m going to be asked to do more. I am anxious and excited about what’s going to happen next.

People with video goggles ambush us. This technology is wrapped around my head and my vision is completely absorbed into a video screen. It all happens relatively painlessly, and as my eyes adjust to the screen I am asked to look back in the mirror. As I direct my body to the mirror my reflection is now that of a man, with a moustache, bare-chested in a silver and blue cape. I copy his actions to become synchronised, to sink into the idea that this is my reflection, this is me. Cora, a woman dressed as a circus performer, then appears to lead us out of the tent. I experience a strange meeting of virtual space and reality as I reach out to take Cora’s hand and touch a real one.

Wandering in space, guided by a hand and completely immersed into a video reality, it is difficult to overcome a sense of danger and allow yourself to let go. But the video plays through a series of encounters in the corridor, and the time this takes allows you to process the idea of moving through the virtual world and being dependent on these anonymous guiding hands.

Bits of narrative brush past me; this is Cora, and my brother and I are both in love with her. Something tragic happened to us; there are speculations that we were drunk and swinging from the chandeliers. I am hoisted into the air. It is exciting. I hold onto the rope for dear life. In my eyes are bright lights and my brother up ahead. I watch him swing. I take my own ropes and sit back on the trapeze. The floor is taken from my feet and I swing out into the air.

It is a blissful moment and after being so terrified I am ecstatically happy. In my ears birds are tweeting and before my eyes the clouds engulf me. Someone grabs my feet; it’s my brother Vito, catching me as we perform for a huge crowd.

I am hoisted back down to the ground. And take a bow.

The orchestration of this whole experience is complex and difficult to deliver. The need for us as audience members to give in to the virtual reality is also hard to come around to – but the reward when you swing out is so beautiful that you find yourself very forgiving.

I feel that the video experience is so full-on that less is more. The experiential aspects linger more than the costume, the history and the story – yet all these details do frame the experience in a context that allows suspense to build.

Once we’d de-goggled my partner and I were somewhat disorientated but chatted all the way downstairs about what we had experienced. My new brother, Vito. The Great Spavaldos engineers a meeting between you and a stranger as you wander blind into something magical for 25 minutes, experiencing the adrenaline and then the wonderful release of trapeze.

Andy Field: Zilla Part 1

Zilla Part 1 opens the doors to a huge empty warehouse in which an impressive amount of tiny Lego people are lined up in a miniature installation. We have been brought here, to Bristol’s Old Mills Industrial Estate and to the venue Unit 15, to contemplate the movie Godzilla. Casting my eye across the tiny Lego figures, I imagine them to be characters in a film. A small card lies next to each one with a description: ‘A woman preparing for an impossibly romantic picnic’, ‘An ordinary person who is unfortunately named David Cameron’, ‘An impersonator of a dead celebrity’. The titles are humorous and remarkably apt. We all spend time spread out amongst the figures, in rows, bending down to read and gaze at their painted facial expressions. Giggles and small conversations bubble around them. A sound track of old disaster movies hovers about relatively unnoticed.

We are asked to start to decide which of these figures we would like to be – who we want to be in the movie. We don’t know what will happen in the movie. This task is fun and people start to discuss their choices before finally picking up their figure and its card, toying with the limited limbs in their hands.

We take a seat for the next phase of the piece, and two performers enter and sit at a desk all the way over the other side of the warehouse, a good 10m away. The desk has two mics and two scripts upon it. Here begins a long monologue delivered by two people: when one is reading the other takes a marker pen and draws a map of a city on the floor, the performers alternating between these two tasks. The text is hard to stay with as it is delivered in a flat fashion, emotionless and far away; there’s humour, but it’s dry. A city is described; people are wandering around with nothing to do, so they pretend to wait at bus stops. The city is described as made, as formed; we are the ones who have constructed it in this way. A whole list of high street shops is reeled off. There is a general sense of the mundane and an unsettling idea that we are all existing with little to do and so waiting for something to happen, waiting for a disaster.

We are invited to come towards the city map, now complete on the floor, and place our Lego selves somewhere on the map. The map becomes populated and one performer wearing large furry gorilla-like slippers is blindfolded. A camera is set up on the floor by the map, which is then projected onto the wall of the warehouse. In the film we can see two huge furry monster feet and our tiny Lego figures standing vulnerable in front of them. In a hilariously crude fashion the performer stumbles through the map and through the Lego characters, crushing those in her path. I become incredibly worried for my Lego person; I gasp each time she steps over me, and there are sighs as each figure is crushed. It is funny, really funny, but with a simmering sense of tragedy as we act the destruction of a town and its people. We name all those who have been mangled by the trampling monster – ‘a failed magician’, ‘a man who has lost his memory of the last 5 years’. I am a survivor, so I pick up my Lego woman and take her home, relieved.

The piece moves somewhat confusedly between reality and fiction, between fact and film. 1930s Godzilla is described as existing within a New York in huge recession, reframing the movie as a portrait of a city that is destroying itself. I am made to reflect on the aftermath of a disaster, a real one, and then pulled back into the world of film as they performer’s tell us that the survivor’s make up is still perfectly done.

Zilla Part 1’s text and form plays with perception, with being small, big, up high or down low, altered visions of a city. My mind starts to view my own city with huge scaly feet swooping down into it. I leave ultimately a little disorientated with some fleeting feelings about disasters, holding onto what is now a mini-me, feeling protective but also concerned that we begin talking about disasters, straying into sensitive territory, but then are quickly scooped up by film and fiction and by the silly, the surreal and the artificial. But what are we really talking about here? An urge for destruction and disaster? This is a potentially explosive topic that could really go somewhere.

The story continued in Zilla Part 2 and Zilla Part 3, which also played at Bristol Mayfest.

People Show: People Show 121: The Detective Show

People Show formed in 1966 and The Detective Show is their 121st production. This was my first encounter with People Show, and it won’t be my last – the show was absolutely hilarious.

To begin with, Gareth Brierley takes us through the copy on our flyers to explain that this was written six months before the show was made, so to avoid any disappointment or confusion there are some edits to be made. Gareth throws out most of the copy, leaving us with ‘He is in love with a tour guide’. This has made it into the show, but (he explains) the rest is not particularly relevant, as after many conversations in the pub the idea that the lead character would be ‘a fictional character in a novel’ was considered too difficult, too ‘meta’.

The performers introduce themselves, and so Fiona Creese and Mark Long shake hands: ‘Hello, my name’s Fiona, nice to meet you.’ Mark Long starts to tell us that he has been a member of People Show since it was founded in 1966, but is quickly shushed by Gareth – this mock-bullying continues throughout the show, the legendary Mark Long’s presence dealt with in a comic manner by Gareth’s consistent belittling (although Mark comes out on top in the end).

The performers step in and out of the action (in a way that is relatively normal in contemporary performance, but which was pioneered by the company back in the 1960s) and the ins and outs of the performance experiment are explained to us with great precision throughout. For example, onstage is a furry table – a small table with fun-fur stapled around it – and this, Gareth explains, is the narrator’s table. When he is at this table, he is a ‘real’ person and can talk to us directly.

So, the next thought is: what do you need for a detective show? A murder, clues, detectives, the forensic scientist, a love story and a twist! People Show 121: The Detective Show includes: the murder of an Agatha Christie tour guide, some tangible clues (one of which is a fly), three colourful character detectives, a forensic science teacher, a love story that spends most of its time in a bad Italian restaurant, a few outrageous twists, and a seagull salad!

The show revels in the ridiculous and the action is stopped repeatedly by Gareth who apologises for the awful accents or for the mime scenes, which he feels very uncomfortable about. The constant self-referential quality of the work makes the shammy props and off-kilter acting all the more entertaining. The show celebrates the joy of the detective story, and its the fast wit and close attention to what really makes a detective story work that keeps us involved throughout, the company starting the story near the end and unravelling the mystery through a series of flashbacks. It is full of side steps, bad jokes and the occasional abstract movement section, and a whole lot of cultural references are thrown in for good measure (the Arts Council, post-modernism, the relevance or not of the fourth wall).

Apart from any other reasons, People Show 121 is a must-see for Mark Long’s Italian accent, Fiona Creese’s paper bag, the Poirot routine, and Gareth Brierley’s masterdom of the furry table. It’s a fact-packed and fancy-free show, exposing the technique of making theatre whilst remaining consistently funny and entertaining.

www.peopleshow.co.uk

Unfinished Business: Only Wolves and Lions

Unfinished Business’ Only Wolves and Lions was inspired by a quote from the Greek philosopher Epicurus: ‘Only wolves and lions eat alone, you should not eat, not even a snack, on your own.’ The show’s creator, Leo Kay, has brought together research into community, isolation, crisis and happiness to create this immersive experience. The event is produced by Anna Smith (the other half of Unfinished Business) and performed by Leo and co-deviser Unai Lopez de Armentia, and takes the form of an evening of cooking together, eating together, and talking together – a natural-enough situation (for those of us who still meet together to eat together, anyway!) with some performance provocations mixed in.

We gather around the tables and have all brought an ingredient. These are presented and a list is written on the blackboard: greens, peppers, lentils, mangoes, garlic. We also have some staple ingredients on the side: herbs, spices, rice, flour, potatoes. Leo and Unai sit at each end of the table and with cue-cards begin the conversation. They propose a toast to crisis, to danger and to opportunity, the first of many toasts. Leo and Unai talk about the chimpanzee society, which is patriarchal and aggressive, and the bonobo monkey community, which has a strict social structure that is matriarchal with a free love vibe, the contrast between these two monkey societies making for an interesting study to reflect on our own society. We perform the Bonobo shake down, howling and screaming the mating call at each other. This is the icebreaker, the warm-up, and strips us back to our animal selves.

After another philosophical reflection on instant gratification versus biding time, we toast to ‘not having everything we love, but loving everything we have’, and in pairs we plan three recipes with the ingredients we have before us – we don’t have long so the creative ideas flow quickly and in an energetic panic. Next, we collectively decide as a group which recipes to go with.

Around us are stoves, pans and utensils, on our chairs are cotton aprons that we are encouraged to wear, and we have 45 minutes to cook our imagined delicacies. Anna, Unai and Leo are on hand to boil water, peel vegetables and watch over bubbling pots. The 45 minutes fly past as everyone is completely engrossed in their dish. Some people are making something they know well, some are cooking simple dishes, some (like myself) are completely making it up as they go along. As the time approaches the dishes make there way to the tables and a terrific spread is before us.

Our midnight feast is wonderful, as everyone asks about each other’s dishes and people take pride in successfully delivering a luxurious meal. During dinner Unai has a story to tell us; it is about being a child in his native Basque country, and about a traditional day when all the women in his family cook up a meal while the men are out drinking. He tells this story with nostalgic happiness and tells us that this doesn’t happen any more. Why is this? Is it because the women are fed up of doing all the work? Is it because when our grandparents die the solidity of tradition dies with them? Why is dining together important? How can we make it work in the modern world? The conversation floats around the table as everyone uses their own personal histories to contemplate the question. There is a realisation that there comes a point in everyone’s life when you unerstand that you have to be the one to carry on a tradition – or begin a new one. We have a three-minute silence for old traditions, and in this silence I made a promise to myself.

Only Wolves and Lions is a very personal piece, experienced within a community that is formed very quickly through cooking and eating and talking. Each person leaves with their own revelation of how to do something different, or appreciation for what they already have. The work ends with an Afro-Brazilian song, each of us with a handful of salt, flour or rice, stamping in rhythm and singing loudly. We get faster and faster and faster and then throw our handfuls into the air – and they scatter over the dinner table to signify the end of the show.

The immediacy of having to cook up something, and eating wonderful food makes for a pleasant evening – but the show is more than just fun. It is thought-provoking and gets to the heart of questions of community and tradition key to our lives as human beings.

Total Theatre