Free For All

Birmingham-based Haunted House Theatre will be touring the Midlands with a new verse play about free schools.

Free for All, written in iambic pentameter, is a play by University of Birmingham PhD student Richard O'Brien, a prize-winning poet who is researching if poetry can still work in the theatre for modern audiences.

Following a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe, the show tours to Nottingham Contemporary (Jan 27th), Hansom Hall, Leicester (Jan 28th) and mac Birmingham (Jan 29th). Actors have been cast from the finest of the region's professionally-trained talent.

Richard said: “I'm especially excited to come to Leicester, the birthplace of Joe Orton and resting place of Richard III, with a show mixing Shakespearean and modern theatrical traditions. With King Charles III playing at the Curve, Leicester is getting two modern verse plays in one week!”

“For a long time, it would be unusual to go to the theatre and not hear poetry. Even today, Shakespeare is the world's most performed playwright, but I think poetry in the theatre is something we've become very suspicious of. Free for All is an attempt to show that verse on stage can still speak to people now.”

Director Rebecca Martin expects the play to ruffle a few feathers: “Free schools are one of the most controversial topics of the day. Since the General Election, all parties and voters have been asking tough questions about privilege. How can education give every child an equal chance? Free for All doesn't offer one answer, but Richard's characters have very strong opinions on both sides.”

Martin was a co-founder of pantsguys productions, an Australian company which won multiple Sydney Theatre Awards. She said her first UK company was created with one thing in mind: “We set up Haunted House Theatre to revive a kind of theatre where the power of language can make anything happen.”

Richard O’Brien was a winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award in 2006 and 2007, and the 2015 London Book Fair Poetry Prize. Andrew McMillan describes him as ‘one of the strongest poets of his generation’. He is working on a practice-led PhD on Shakespeare and the development of verse drama, funded by the Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership, and lives in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter.

 The show is coming to Nottingham Contemporary on Jan 27th (free – book here), Leicester's Hansom Hall on Jan 28th (tickets here), and Birmingham mac on Jan 29th (tickets here). Alongside the production, Haunted House will offer talkback sessions and workshops on this little-known field for actors, writers and directors. Further discussion of the ideas behind the production can be found here.

For more information see https://hauntedhousetheatre.wordpress.com, go to https://www.facebook.com/hauntedhousetheatre, and follow @hauntedhousetc / @notrockyhorror

Being Human

Not the TV show, though. Let's get that straight right from the outset. Anyone who's landed here expecting discussion of that, you'd best bail out here and now.

No, I'm talking about the theatrical production based on the Bloodaxe anthology. I haven't seen it yet, but over at Gists & Piths, George Ttoouli has posted this excellent review of the show, which makes me want to make sure that I do, and soon.

I know the anthologies - Staying Alive, Being Alive and now Being Human - have divided opinion in poetryworld at times, but then so does pretty much every anthology that comes along. I'm not mad about the packaging, I suppose, and I can take or leave the division of them into chapters, with little essays introducing each one. When all's said and done, though, all three have contained plenty of poetry that I'm glad to have encountered, and which I might well not have done otherwise. George has a point about some of the more non-mainstream voices generally being represented by their least left-field work, but even so, it puts them in front of a potential new audience.

There's more about the show, including dates and venues, here. I think I'll probably catch it at Uppingham School in October (who thought it would be a good idea to call a festival Up The Arts, though?)

Whistle

Martin Figura's poetic coming-of-age tale, Whistle, is on at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, Camden, London, from May 22nd-26th at 8pm each day. There are clips and previews here, and booking information here. David Morley, writing in Magma, described it as "magnificent and genuinely haunting", while Jackie Kay called it "moving, brave and unsentimental" - I certainly couldn't say it any better.

If you'd like to get familiar with the extraordinary story behind the show beforehand, or if you're unable to get to the show, the Arrowhead collection Whistle is available here.

A journey on the Nene

As I've mentioned on here before, last April I joined poet Jo Bell, storyteller Jo Blake Cave and visual artist Jo Dacombe for a dawn chorus walk along the River Nene at Wadenhoe in Northamptonshire, following in the footsteps of nature writer BB. We walked, we heard the birds sing, and we talked poetry over tea on Jo's boat. 

Now the Three Jos In A Boat project has borne fruit in the form of Riverlands – a journey on the Nene, the national premiere of which is being staged at All Saints Church, Thorpe Road, Aldwincle, NN14 3EA, this Saturday, April 21, and Sunday, April 22, from 7.30pm. The hour-long performance promises atmosphere, mesmerising stories, humour and humanity. The evening will also see the first availability of Alwalton-Wollaston, a visual response to the journey on the Nene by Jo Dacombe and Kate Dyer. A limited edtion will be for sale at the performances.

Tickets are £10, or £8 for senior citizens, students and the unemployed, and include a £2 donation to The Churches Conservation Trust. If the event is not sold out, tickets will be available on the door.

For further information, you can contact Rosalind Stoddart, tel: 01536 370 108, email: ros@rosalindstoddart.co.uk; website: www.rosalindstoddart.co.uk