Word Command Winter Panto!

Time for Christmas shows and the Epicentre Book Cafe had a special Word Command last Thursday - the the Word Command Winter Panto! Hosted by and starring Bryce Dumont (as Bing Crosby, he was modelling it on past television specials!), Lucy Lepchani, Chris Brooks, Robert Garnham, ourselves Widsith and Deor Storytelling Theatre and others. Everyone had a Christmas twist, often comical, (Chris's classic audience-join-in rhyming was extended to bring in the festive season!) often thought-provoking (Lucy reminded everyone that the elderly are simply folks like everybody else who have lived longer - and had some asking for drugs of the illegal variety as a present!), and sometimes outre (Robert's surreal 'Wardrobe Man' and flashing-lights-with-antlers hat!). It all made for a delightfully seasonal mixture, as Bryce read out apologies of various Hollywood folks of the 'Golden Age of Cinema' to add to the fun.
   We did our new adaptation of Charles Dickens' 'The Chimes', one of his Christmas stories (but one which is told less often than 'A Christmas Carol', with some of our latest bodymasks. (Deor has been busy the last two months!). So Mint the Mouse Troll was Chief Goblin, Nosferatu acted as the Prime Minister, the King of the World played a merchant banker, and so on. I just played the one character - Toby, the poor message runner whom the story circles around. It was about fifteen minutes long, but due to those who unfortunately couldn't make it (the weather wasn't pleasant, with a lot of spray, rain and sleet on unlit roads), we did have time for it. And it went down very well! Folks were extremely kind about it, and we were very pleased with how it went. It's always so nice to have the opinions of fellow professionals who see a lot of acts and performances! So it really means something when they give praise. Big thanks to Bryce for having us, organizing it, hosting it all and making great coffee! And to Lucy, Chris and Robert for being so great to watch and saying such nice things! A Merry Christmas One and All!

Word Command at Epicentre Book Cafe

It was a really good night at the Word Command spoken word evening held at the Epicentre Book Cafe, hosted by Bryce Dumont. We were headlining, and so did something ambitious - i.e. tried to showcase a whole range of different genres and styles that we did. Well, when Bryce chose publicity images, he chose one of each! So we started off with storytelling, doing one of our trademark tales for an adult audience, with cloaks, helm, staff, tricorn hat etc., and then followed with a narrative poem of mine. For our second set, we mixed contemporary American fiction as monologue, Stand Up Philosophy and performance poetry. The Stand Up Philosopher doing Marx, followed by a new piece from the forthcoming 'Book of Convictions' (by me) then an early geometric poem (both referring obliquely to the pieces before and after - as the first Philosophy piece referred to Martin Luther, and the poem to Martin Luther King, and the second piece was from Spinoza, and so written as geometric proofs!). And finally condensed axioms from Ethics by the said Spinoza. Having started off with a contemporary American story (see a previous blog on 'Performing Contemporary American Fiction') performed by myself as a monologue, to begin with. So were showcasing; storytelling, stand up philosophy, monologue, and three types of poetry - narrative/monologue/confessional (though I don't exactly like that term, but it conveys something) speech style, satire/declamatory and literary/geometric. All performed, the last with movement as part of the poem. Several different 'heads' were involved! which I always find strangely difficult, but it paid off, they all went down well, and we got a lot of laughs for the storytelling and prose fiction, and many kind compliments. 'Beautiful', 'wonderful', 'fantastic' and 'brilliant' mainly, which made it feel definitely worth the effort!

   Also performing were the excellent Susan Taylor with a new collection concerning Pixies! Simon Williams being very witty, and the fluid Jennie Osborne with a mixture of compelling words and movement, among others. Bryce served hot soup, coffee and cakes, and the Epicentre Book Cafe is a lovely venue - full of books of course, knitted cakes (!), pictures, it's bright, airy and friendly. Bryce got everyone to contribute to a group sound poem, which once finished, he performed really well to both laughter and acclaim. Also tributes to poets whom he had admired and who had recently passed away.
   I had to buy a lovely travel journal with a cover of antique maps, and all in all it was a really good night.
   Huge thanks to Bryce, for inviting us and hosting the evening with such aplomb, and cooking for everyone! and to Susan, Simon and Jennie for being so good to perform with - long live the Epicentre Book Cafe! It deserves the rave reviews which its gathering.

Check out the website at;
http://www.epicentrebookcafe.org.uk/books.htm

Hectic End of the Season

Chaos! Trying to rehearse for a headline spot at Epicentre Book Cafe's spoken word evening Word Command next week, hosted by the cultured and intrepid Bryce Dumont, sorting out next week's radio show, the Storyclub tonight (which we'll be trying to record some of), preparing for the writing and sound workshops the week after next, trying to get the next Edition of Spoken/Written off by the end of the week, attending the Apples & Snakes / Cyprus Well hosted network meeting this weekend, and hosting Spoken/Written stalls before some of the evening events at the Exeter Poetry Festival this week and weekend...! Plus it happens to be the time of year when all the props and gear needs sorting out and mending after a full summer of hard use, and then of course the fact that the garden needs attention and things could be tidier in general having hardly been here until this last week and a half! All this and 'The Book of Convictions', the fourth in The Books of...Trilogy of serial poem chapbooks is being put together even as I type! When will I get a moment to e-mail the friend I most want to catch up with, finish making the Cabinet of Curiosities and continue with the other craft projects in hand? As for sitting in the garden to eat a meal - in this amazing late summery weather too! but there's just not the time... Writing more of 'The History of this House in Twenty Objects' will just have to be squeezed in at random stolen moments...isn't most writing?

II

This is the time of year when Majical Youth (theatre and production company who work at many festivals including organizing areas in the Kidz Field at Glastonbury, the craft area at the Beautiful Days, the Kid's Field at the Buddhafield Festival, stuff for Tewkesbury Medieval Festival, and others) invite all their crew and others who have worked with or for them over the season to come to their base in West Wales for a big party/small festival, which also involves renovating their kit from carnival stuff and costumes to craft gear and vehicles... What a great idea. I sometimes wish I could arrange the Collective to all come and spend a weekend at HQ doing the same! But as we're a rather smaller operation, guess who most of the clearing up and clearing out falls to? Yep....

III

But at least the storytelling van is now emptied and swept (ready for wood collecting duty and tip runs - if you share space with artists there's ALWAYS more stuff to throw away!), and most of the props are about where they should be or will live until needed...most of the craft gear sorted...still some of the fabric and leather to go...garden mostly cleared of random willow annoyingly lashing you as you try to get to the compost bin...most of the costumes put away, homes still needing to be found for the new things... And there's a pterodactyl covered in red wax standing outside waiting to be let in...(the less said about the goblin falling asleep against the wings of a green demon, the better...)