Especially if she’s Dame June Bloom, “Australia’s favourite ukulele playing Shakespearean grandma”!
After the success of our mini-tour to Scotland last month, we’ve been offered a spot at the cornerHOUSE Theatre, Surbiton in Surrey, on 23rd November.
Here’s what our Scottish audiences thought:
Edinburgh, 21st September…
“Congratulations, Flloyd on your great show in Edinburgh. Such a fine variety of voices packed into one hour of pure entertainment! ”
Westruther, Scottish Borders, on 20th September…
“Fabby!”
“U know when you’ve been ‘uked’ – straight to the quick and straight from the heart – incisive, heartfelt, and tingly fun.”
“It was a great night and we really enjoyed ourselves – power to your elbow””Very enlightening”
“Great show – good variety”
‘Very entertaining – lots of variety to the show – it made me both laugh and cry and was very honest too. Would highly recommend Yes! Because… to anyone with a love of music, Shakespeare or the brutal honesty of life in general.’
My tiny home with its two huge windows is providing me with some fabulous theatre of life. I’ve chosen one window in particular to feature under the hashtag #LoveMyWindow, and so far, over the past three months, I’ve found something different to capture every single day.
Since moving to Liverpool last year, I’ve been able to present my solo show, “Yes! Because…” (directed by Ira Seidenstein) as part of the Liverpool Fringe Festival, but there haven’t been opportunities to produce new work – so far.
Then there was the fabulous play Reality – The Final, by Brazilian playwright Michelle Ferreira, translated by Suzannah Finzi, presented as a staged reading in London as part of the Out of the Wings Festival, directed by Ramiro Silveira. I was fortunate enough to play the lead role of Eva Lo Brac, “a once-celebrated soap opera actress with cancer who is persuaded to participate in a reality TV show”.
Otherwise, I’ve been keeping myself occupied in the local Open Mic scene, writing and performing poetry and songs and enjoying the vast range and excellent quality of local performers’ work. There has also been the wonderful opportunity to train with Angela de Castro in Glasgow, and Ira Seidenstein in London. Ira’s book, “Clown Secret” is now available in the Amazon store and I HIGHLY recommend it.
The poetry is proving a rich and varied source of creativity, along the lines of TMT’s mission statement “poetry, passion and philosophy”. Here’s a wee sample:
Live in the Moment (September 2018) Live in the moment That’s what we’re told Enjoy what’s around you The past will confound you The future astound you. It will be what you hoped for Or not.
What’s gone won’t be changed Though it might be forgotten No use to exchange it, Or rearrange it What’s to come is no less Than a gift you can’t guess It will be what you hoped for Or it’s not.
Why not make the most of what’s you’ve got? Stay in the here and now? That tightrope that you’re walking Might be fun or terrifying If you think you’re really flying Use your toes to get a grip To remind you, if you slip That you’re only meant to be here Until your final bow
Don’t hold on too tightly Don’t be frightened to let go Your future is already here – And it’s either what you hoped for Or it’s not.
In other news, I am in discussions with a fellow independent company, with a view to a possible co-production some time next year. And I have a sneaking suspicion there may be a new verse play slowly coming to a simmer, possibly to emerge fully brewed within a year or so.
Thus says Berenger at the end of Eugène Ionesco‘s play Rhinoceros, written in 1959. This was Ionesco’s creative response to the kind of ideological fundamentalism that results in Fascism and Nazism, with its themes of conformity, culture, mass movements, mob mentality, philosophy and morality.
http://www.bioexpedition.com/rhinoceros/
If it is the responsibility of artists to “hold the mirror up to nature” as Shakespeare suggests, or just to examine everyday society and provoke discussion (while providing entertainment) then I believe this particular play is a play for now, for our times, richly deserving of revival and re-staging all over the country – if not the world.
So Thunder’s Mouth Theatre is organising a rehearsed (staged) reading of Rhinoceros, (#RhinoRead) to take place (provisionally) at the Bread and Roses Theatre in South Clapham, London on Tuesday 14th February. What a Valentine’s Day gift that will be!
Please get in touch if you’d like to be involved in any way. We still need readers, musicians, technicians and of course, audience.
And if you’d like help in organising a reading for your community, TMT will help in any way we can. Let’s speak truth to ourselves, whether power is listening or not. After all, the TMT motto is “O that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth…”
“In a time of terror – such as our time – the theatre’s promotion of ideas and feelings takes on a significant extra social valence.The terrorist’s ambition is not just to kill people but to kill thought, to divide the society against itself, and, in doing so, force it to implode from within.As the general mood of retreat and the many political false steps of Western democracies indicate, the strategy of terrorism is working better than we like to admit.Terrorism makes a spectacle of absurdity, in which pain unmakes the world.Theatre, which attempts to understand our pain, makes a spectacle of meaning and coherence.Now, more than ever, theatre is not only a demonstration of courage but an engineer of it.” John Lahr. Joy Ride.
