More Storm Festival

More Storm Festival takes over the Ravensfield Theatre at Middlesex University from 2-3 October, filling every nook and cranny with exciting new performances and works-in-progress from an incredibly diverse and dynamic lineup of artists and theatre companies. In the Blackbox, our gorgeous main space, we’re presenting the same bold, visual and eclectic new theatre which audiences have come to expect from More Storm, this time accompanied by comedy, storytelling and spoken word in the Bluebox – our brand new intimate studio space! Upstairs in the Minibox audiences can encounter special free performances specifically designed for just one audience member, while there’ll be plenty more performances, installations and surprises popping up elsewhere in and around the building! This is the third in the series of Thrust’s groundbreaking scratch format. The previous events, in June 2014 and February 2015, both sold out and featured contributions from Janice Perry (“the world’s most respected performance artist” BBC), Black Shoe, PurpleGibbon and FATLiP.

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Lineup

Thursday 1 October

BLUEBOX: 6pm: Panel talk: Scratching the surface

Friday 2 October

BLACKBOX: 7.30pm: Bad Elvis / Vice Device

BLUEBOX: 8pm: I never did like the sound of bagpipes / Are we writing or are we falling in love? / Exactly like you

MINIBOX: Performance B, Bespoken Moments

Saturday 3 October

BLACKBOX: 2.30pm: Milking It #2: FILM / House of Persephone / Thanks but no thanks 7.30pm: Don’t Turn The Lights On / The Homonazie Effect / Napoleon’s Messenger

BLUEBOX: 1pm: The Devil and the Three Golden Hairs / East of the Sun, West of the Moon 5pm: papercut– 7pm: More Storm Comedy Scratch

MINIBOX: Tea Towel Reading

OTHER SPACES: Chokolatl The Queen’s Speech

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Thanks but no thanks

Lesley Lightfoot 2.30pm, Saturday 3 October Blackbox

A satirical observation of the human condition - “hope springs eternal”...

Lesley Lightfoot has extensive experience as a costume supervisor including Wardrobe Mistress on the original London production and film of Cats. Lesley has costume assisted on many West End shows: The Producers, Les Miserables, Jerry Springer: The Opera (plus BBC film), Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, Phantom of the Opera, Barnum. Lesley has supervised Middlesex University collaborations with the Pascal Theatre Company and The Arts Cross dance project with dance academies in Beijing and Taiwan. She has assisted as a costume maker for Phil Reynolds and Amanda Barrow on costumes for the Royal Opera House, Ballet Rambert and many West End Shows. Lesley also freelance costume supervises at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. As a performer Lesley has trained as a dancer and actress: http://www.castingcallpro.com/uk/actor/profile/lesley-lightfoot Her interests include creative writing, she participates in Joanna Josefina Thomas’ writer/performance poet workshops.

Also in the lineup: Milking It #2: FILM; House of Persephone

BOOK TICKETS

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I never did like the sound of bagpipes

Sean Urquhart 8pm, Friday 2 October Bluebox

A spoken word extract from a novel that trawls familiar aspects of austerity through the eyes of a demobbed soldier living on the margins of society. It captures the unremitting greyness and gnawing boredom of this life in all its rawness.

Sean Urquhart is a writer and spoken word performer based in London. His worked has been performed in locations including E17 Art Trail, Walthamstow Garden Party and Newcastle Culture Lab. Sean is a widely published and experienced practitioner.

Also in the lineup: Are we writing or are we falling in love?; Exactly like you

BOOK TICKETS

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Panel talk: Scratching the surface

6pm, Thursday 1 October Bluebox

Ahead of the start of the festival, a panel of theatre makers and thinkers discuss the very beginning of the creative process - from the moment an idea appears to the first steps towards making it happen.

Panel includes Melissa Dunne (writer/director, artistic director of Papercut Theatre), Bruce Adams (artistic director of Thrust and creator/curator of More Storm Festival), Prof. Carole-Anne Upton (Dean of Media and Performing Arts at Middlesex University) and is chaired by Dr. Josephine Machon (writer/researcher, author of the award-winning Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance).

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More Storm Comedy Scratch

7pm, Saturday 3 October Bluebox

We’re rounding off the festival with a glittering (if you squint) line up of fab comedians old and new, hand picked and fully vetted, with new material to delight and, occasionally, disgust.

Huw Thomas (Compere): Huw trained at Central School of Speech and Drama in 1965-68 and taught at Middlesex University, East 15 and National Student Drama Festival. He worked extensively as a cabaret performer and compere at the London Palladium, The Kings Head Downstairs, Soho Theatre, Comedy Store, Kilkenny Festival and Edinburgh Festival where he has directed shows including Abnormally Funny People, Mozart and Poof Loose.

Jacob Hawley: After graduating a year ago, hundreds of gigs around the UK and reaching the final of Comedy Knight’s Fresh Comedian 2014, he presents 20 minutes of introspection, stories and nonsense. Topics include patriotism, identity, and crack.

Rosie Martin: www.twitter.com/rosiethecomedy

Mawwwog: Happynow?Happynow!Happynow. Autobiographical narrative of a loud mouth introvert. Using stand-up, poetry and storytelling to drop you in the gutter and scoop you out again. Sarahslater! as a single white woman with no parents, no partner, no kids and no pets, is in the perfect position to tell everyone else what to do - rebirthed as an Agony Aunt!

Andy J. Wilson: 20 minutes of Andy J. Wilson's unique and thought provoking stand-up. A show that will explore some of the darkest edges of the human psyche. Self deprecating and angry. Tragic and hilarious in one foul swoop “Very f**king funny” (Mark Dolan).

More acts to be announced.

BOOK TICKETS

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Chokolatl

Sebastian Hau-Walker Saturday 3 October TTA2

Chokolatl is an immersive live art performance with live cooking. Sebastian draws upon his dual heritage as a Mayan-Mexican and British-English artist to explore the pre- and post-colonial legacy of chocolate between Mexico and the UK.

Sebastian Hau-Walker (MX/UK) is a performer, maker and project coordinator based in London. He is a founding member and project coordinator of CLUSTER BOMB [collective], associate artist at ]performance s p a c e [, an ACME studio artist, and mentored by Geraldine Pilgrim.

BOOK TICKETS: 13:00 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:00 17:30 This is an intimate performance with a small audience, performed every half hour.

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Performance B, Bespoken Moments

BARK Friday 2 October Minibox

It’s not every day that you might be swept away on the wings of reverie. Share yourself in a moment with BARK and, around you, we’ll construct your mirage - vanishing like dreams and appearing like reality.

BARK is a company of five international artists, all with different specialisms. We describe our work as a mash-up of devised and improvised performance that puts the audience at the centre of the experience. Exploring what we call live-construction, we have a theory that a live event is only truly alive if performers and audience alike are teetering on the same precipice.

BOOK TICKETS: 16:00 16:30 17:00 17:30 18:00 18:30 19:00 19:30 20:00 20:30 21:00 21:30 This is a one-to-one encounter, performed every half hour.

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The Queen’s Speech

Gameshow Saturday 3 October Bar (all day)

A chair. A microphone. An audience. The Queen. What happens next is up to whoever is in the room.

The Queen’s Speech is a performance for two people created in a room by an audience.

We’ll say whatever you want. Honest.

Gameshow is run by Matthew Evans and Matt Ryan. We produce plays and experimental performance. We’ve created performances in theatres and disused buildings, on the street, in the woods, and in people’s homes. We make work that excites, challenges and invigorates audiences.

No booking required - just head to the bar!

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Tea Towel Reading

Mardy Arts Saturday 3 October Minibox

Queenie Tea wishes to share a cup of tea and a gossip, during which you will observe her routine of applying makeup. You will wipe her face clean with a tea towel, revealing hidden symbols that she will decipher, thereby predicting your future.

Sally Boon graduated from Dartington College of Arts and has been teaching drama for 20 years, performing as her alter-ego Queenie Tea for four years.

BOOK TICKETS: 17:30 18:00 18:30 19:00 19:30 20:00 20:30 21:00 This is a one-to-one encounter, performed every half hour.

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House of Persephone

Queens of the Underworld 2.30pm, Saturday 3 October Blackbox

The smell of soil, a taste of red, the table laid and bleeding bed. Join Hades and Persephone for dinner in the underworld and a taste of death and domesticity. Equal parts cabaret, live art and ritual, fusing music, poetry and sound art in a modern look at this seminal myth.

Queens of the Underworld are a multidisciplinary collective formed by Oberon White and Laura Gwen Miles. Unsettling, entertaining and unapologetically surreal, their work incorporates cabaret, music and live art, creating strange new worlds for audiences to explore.

Also in the lineup: Milking It #2: FILM; Thanks but no thanks

BOOK TICKETS

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Napoleon’s Messenger

Undone Collective 7.30pm, Saturday 3 October Blackbox

An old radio. White noise. A man and woman struggling to connect in a world somewhere between virtual and real. This is a play about afterlife in social media: an exploration of loneliness in a virtually connected world - how new media changes our perception of what is real.

Undone Collective are artists from various backgrounds combining theatre, video art, film, writing, poetry, sound, psychotherapy, language and academia. We constantly re-define how we create, finding tension within a subject and placing that at the centre of everything we do.

Also in the lineup: Don’t Turn The Lights On; The Homonazie Effect (TBC)

BOOK TICKETS

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Don’t Turn The Lights On: A Work on Bach’s Fugue No.2 in C minor

Theatre Counterpoint 7.30pm, Saturday 3 October Blackbox

A collage of teenage memories shared between you and me are intertwined as a piece of music.

Theatre Counterpoint are a group of young performing artists enthusiastic about theatre and music. Sharing an international heritage including artists from Taiwan, USA, Estonia, Bulgaria and Switzerland, the group explores interdisciplinary and intercultural themes utilising the analysis of musical structures as dramaturgy for the composition of devised theatre.

Also in the lineup: The Homonazie Effect (TBC); Napoleon’s Messenger

BOOK TICKETS

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Milking It #2: FILM

Hunt and Mosinski 2.30pm, Saturday 3 October Blackbox

Out of the dark comes the words you love and the machines you need... Hunt and Mosinski offer a seductive ritual of textual play, surprising eroticisms, the fetishisation of sound and the persuasive power of plastic...

Daniel Hunt and Selina Mosinski’s work explores the boundaries between popular and experimental performance, and is dedicated to the playful theft, manipulation and exploitation of existing forms and materials.

Also in the lineup: House of Persephone; Thanks but no thanks

BOOK TICKETS

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The Devil and The Three Golden Hairs / East of the Sun, West of the Moon

The Wild Tapestry 1pm, Saturday 3 October Bluebox

The Wild Tapestry are a storytelling performance company based in East Sussex. Telling stories old and new, they capture the imaginations of audiences of all ages through spellbinding performance.

The Devil and The Three Golden Hairs is a Brothers Grimm tale told in a simple setting by Harriet Wakefield to capture the imagination of adults and children alike.

East of the Sun, West of the Moon is a traditional Nordic tale, blending traditional storytelling performance techniques with contemporary approaches, told by high-energy performer Edward Layer.

BOOK TICKETS

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Vice Device

Filippo Romanello 7.30pm, Friday 2 October Blackbox

Vice Device is a playful exploration of the blurred boundaries between reality and imagination. It is the “real story” of two characters who - once created in the imagination of two unreliable narrators - try to discover what it means to exist in a world they cannot be-leave.

Filippo Romanello works in theatre as a writer, performer and dramaturg. His writing for performance aims at creating open yet cohesive dramaturgies that stimulate the actors’ spontaneous reaction to the text beyond conventions of psychological interpretation.

Also in the lineup: Bad Elvis

BOOK TICKETS

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Bad Elvis

SignDance Collective 7.30pm, Friday 2 October Blackbox

In an obscure and surreal hotel somewhere on the UK coast, a deaf man is plagued by his guilty conscience as he is disturbed by the sounds of a Bad Elvis karaoke night that’s happening at the wedding in the bar below...

SignDance Collective International was established in 2001 as a platform to further the artform of Signdance through national and international collaborations. SDCI exists to develop innovative performances working with deaf, hearing, disabled and non-disabled artists.

Bad Elvis will be performed in full at the Iris Theatre, 13-17 October.

Also in the lineup: Vice Device

BOOK TICKETS

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Exactly like you

Papercut Theatre 8pm, Friday 2 October Bluebox

Written and performed by Lotte Rice, Exactly like you is a one-hander homage to Nina Simone. It’s an uplifting mixture of spoken word poetry and live music.

Lotte Rice trained at RADA. Her theatre credits include work at Chichester Festival Theatre. TV includes Lewis and Holby City. Lotte has worked extensively for BBC Radio 4 drama.

Papercut Theatre supports new writers with a view to developing them as artists rather than expecting them to deliver a product. They are committed to enhancing and developing the process by which plays are created, directed and produced and actively interrogate the writer/director relationship, valuing work at all stages of the creative process not just fully-realised productions

Also in the lineup: I never did like the sound of bagpipes; Are we writing or are we falling in love?

BOOK TICKETS