High on the hill was a lonely spymonkey...

Monday saw the opening of the new exhibition, 'Looking Aside' in the Peter Scott gallery, featuring an oversized deck of tarot cards made by several artists around the world, some a little cheekier than others, and an ongoing photographic project documenting various Empty Stages, by Forced Entertainment's Tim Etchells and Hugo Glendinning, and more! It's definitely worth a look, I was busy serving free bubbly so I will be going back to check it out again - until the 11th December.
After that excitement The Nuffield hosted A Family double bill - starting with Michael Pinchbeck and his ma and pa's 'The Post Show Party Show', a piece exploring his parent's first meeting at an after show party for their amateur production of The Sound of Music, where his mum was a nun and his dad was a Nazi. Obviously. The soundtrack to the show was the soundtrack to the musical, and each song was a scene, with Michael and his dad playing themselves and each other at various times of their lives.
This piece was fairly poignant, as at the party, a man called Arthur had been playing the guitar, when he suddenly collapsed, and later died. This cut the party short but brought Michael's parents together, so Michael mentioned that if Arthur hadn't died, he himself wouldn't have been born.

I enjoyed this play and 'the songs we wrote backstage' - 'Ill Advice' made more sense than 'Eidelweiss' ever did let's be honest!! ;) and hearing High on the Hill in the Nuffield was a great moment, what a tune! However, I was absolutely gutted for Vivian, Michael's mother. She just sat and operated the lighting board, and said a few words once, I would have liked to see her with more of a role, but maybe playing a singing nun all those years ago was enough limelight for Vivian!

The next piece was 'Where we live and what we live for' by Kings of England's Simon Bowes and his parents. Again I'm feeling the mother was a bit left out, she put things up on the projector. This performance was possibly too personal to the performers to connect with the audience, but maybe that's what they were going for... it wasn't my thing but I admire them for attempting to bring their story to life - of how Simon's dad lost his memory after a bicycle accident.
Next up at the Nuffield will be Quarantine's 'Make-believe' on November 24th but next week the first year theatre students present the show they have been working on this term.

Last week I was lucky enough to get involved in Spymonkey's performances of 'Moby Dick' at the Dukes Theatre in town. This absolutely hilarious show was a mistelling of Melville's novel, and I did not meet anyone who didn't absolutely love it! My role was part of a choir at the end, we sang Bright Eyes (Watership Down) wearing little white sailor hats and red scarves, carrying candles and being generally very earnest and Julie Andrews style... obviously this generated much laughter from the audience (except on one night when a few people were genuinely emotionally moved!) I loved being a part of this, I really admire Spymonkey as a company, and getting to know the other women involved was good fun. But I don't think I will ever see Moby Dick, or Watership Down, or sailors, in the same way again!!

So if I hear of anything exciting coming up at the Dukes I will post on here or the facebook site, it's worth checking out if you have the chance.

NUFF SAID!
Katie x