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May
29thVoices of Dissent
Voices of Dissent was my first solo show, which I made in 2008 at Contact, Manchester. It was ‘an anarchic multi-character piece combining spoken word, dramatic monologue, movement, music and renewable energy’. Voices of Dissent began life during my At Home residency at Contact in 2006. I wanted to create a piece of work that explored the issue of sustainability, while being a sustainable product in its own right. The piece tells the story of Tali – an ancient trickster god from a forgotten pantheon who ‘in the beginning’ stole fire and gave it to humanity. For his crime, Tali was condemned by the other gods to live out his immortal days on earth, experiencing their pain and hunger forever. But now the gods are over-heating, and are forcing Tali to try and steal fire back from the humans. Realising the impossibility of his task, Tali sets out to try and prove to the gods that humans are worthy of the gift of fire, intervening in the lives of a host of characters to make them act more responsibly. Tali’s story and the stories of the characters he meets are told in a combination of dramatic monologue, dialogue and Ben Mellor’s trademark verse, full of imagery, wit and wordplay in this engaging new solo show. The production aimed itself to be sustainable, and as a result was necessarily participatory. A bicycle was used on stage, mounted on a pedal generator which powered the lights. The faster the pedals turned, the [...]
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May
15thEverything We Need
Sumit Sarkar, my go-to guy for everything of an art and design nature, has produced this beautiful artwork and graphic design for my new show, Everything We Need, which as you can see opens at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, on the 28th June. It’s only on for three short nights so it’d be lovely if you got along to see it, and bought a ticket soon to avoid disappointment. I also, shall attempt to avoid your disappointment by making a show at least half as good as the poster makes it look…
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May
15thA torturous poem
So, the other day I was invited to perform at a benefit for the charity Freedom from Torture. We were asked to read a poem of ours, and one from someone else, that fitted the theme of torture, or freedom from it. I thought the evening would be fairly sombre in tone so I wanted to write something amusing, but found the subject matter difficult to squeeze a laugh out of, as you may imagine. So I wrote this instead. (apologies for the lack of stanza breaks, I still haven’t got to grips with html) I wanted to write A funny poem About torture. But laughter Stuck In my throat Like splints Under fingernails; I opened my mouth To let it out But Torture Water-boarded its flight, And downed it With simulated drowning. Torture would not allow itself To be trivialised by Privileged Western woes, To be bathetically compared To ‘people talking on their phones In the quiet zone’ or ‘Being forced to watch The dancing worm of death While Iplayer buffers’ Torture remained mute In the face Of my attempts at humour, As silent as a secret cell In a private prison On the soil of a compliant, Client state. Even our universal suffering The Dharma seeks to end Seems trite when compared To the horror Of Barney the Dinosaur And Sesame Street Punch-fisting ear-drums For hours on end At volumes that blank out The strobe-etched screams ‘Some are calling it A cruel and unusual tool – And many [...]