Bristol Jam finale to be right royal showdown…
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Ok guys, some news re: Bristol Jam at Bristol Old Vic…
For those who haven’t been hounded by me yet, this is Bristol Jam, the first ever British Festival of Improvised Performance. We been enjoying some ridiculously good improvised performance in drama, dance, comedy, blank verse, storytelling, guided tours, tragedy, painting, origami, even musicals. In all these forms, virtuoso artists havel created extraordinary work on the spur of the moment. Last night saw an unbelievable show by Beardyman, the UK’s best beatboxer, along with Showstopper The Musical, an entirely improvised musical…
We’ve had a resident writer in the building all week (Stephen Brown) who has been blogging out of control, a 20-hour draw which looks astoundingly vibrant on the walls of Cooper’s Gallery and a selection of musicians jamming on a gorgeously cute makeshift stage in the bar downstairs. We’ve had improvised Shakespeare, made up Chekhov, we’ve had movement and sound, piano players and singers…and an improvised show named Oogly Boogly for babies aged 12 - 18 months, which evoked tears of joy and pride from every adult entering the inflatable in which they crawled, dribbled and grinned (the babies, not the adults…in most cases).
So, let’s take a moment to look forward to the final three days which will be a bloody special extravaganza of events.
We’ve got ‘Ken Campbell’s School of Night’ tonight at 9.45pm following on from ‘Showstopper The Musical’ (which, take a deep breath, is nearly sold out)… We’ve got the funny as f…Phil Kay who will take you on a hilarious journey of comedic discovery which only he understands…and we’ve got the 29 hour improvised soap opera - yes, 29 hours of fun and frolics in a non-stop, big brother kind of styley. Get in there!
Plus we’ve got Angela DeCastro’s ‘Laughing Matters’ (Guess what? It’s funny!), we’ve got a beautiful rendition of improvised Beethoven’s Quartet in C Sharp Minor opus 131 by the Sacconi Quartet and we’ve got ‘Gimme Your Left Shoe’ - an improvised show for children.
Full details can be found on the Bristol Jam website here…
Come on, let’s get off our sofas and enjoy some improvised craziness, with a sense of quality you won’t believe.
That’s Bristol Jam. We love it. We’re all mad.
Dartington - eat your heart out.