#london bubble

[hattydaze]

London Bubble is currently presenting a season of promenade theatre in the park, a part of its output which it has sadly not done in the last seven years due to funding. Promenade necessarily depends on a dry evening, and sadly our first planned visit was cancelled due to rain. However we were very lucky to enjoy a beautiful pink-tinged August evening a week or so ago, when we got to watch Tales from the Arabian Nights at Southwark Park.

Photos by me – click to enlarge

The meeting point is at the bandstand which was decorated beautifully but simply with white lights. We collected a chair or a blanket to sit on which we had to take around with us. Different stories happen at different locations throughout the park, which you are led to by the actors as well as the stewards. Seven actors play the parts of multiple characters who tell symbolic tales about kings and peasants, princesses and fishermen, and using only a few minimal props which have to be carried around with them too. The fantasy world which they create has everyone charmed.

Some of the tales are familiar, particular the one of Shaharazade whose tales have to be addictive enough to her evil husband, the King, that he will save her life to hear the ending. Others are new to us, some were adult and went over the heads of my kids, but they still enjoyed them all, and especially the thrill of being allowed in the park after dusk.  My stand out actor was Russeni Fisher, who has you hooked from his introduction, and every one of his characters has comedy, passion and empathy (I especially enjoyed him as one of the sisters, with a flower in his hair). The funniest story was the one about the he-goat and the jousting stranger, both of which are played by Nicholas Goode with a charming glee.

My one criticism is the length of the show. Fewer stories would have been just as entertaining, but they might have kept the attention of some of the younger children. It is pretty much dark by the end of the promenade and a couple of extra lights might have improved the walk to the location of the final story.  At 10 and 12, my children coped fine with this, but it could have been trickier for much younger ones.

London Bubble has finished its shows at Southwark Park for this year, but the performances carry on at Greenwich Park this week until 19th August.  I have seen some photographs and the park setting there looks wonderful, looking out from the top of the park onto the skyline of the city and the river Thames. Please do check out the website for tickets for this recommended evening of storytelling which has some quite magical moments.

hattydaze rating: ***/*****

We attended Tales from the Arabian Nights courtesy of press tickets. It plays until 19th August 2017.  See the London Bubble website for booking details.

Tales from the Arabian Nights, by London Bubble, at Southwark Park (review) London Bubble is currently presenting a season of promenade theatre in the park, a part of its output which it has sadly not done in the last seven years due to funding.

[synonymsforchurlish]

Destroyer of worlds Sometimes you sit down in a show and, within about five minutes, you can tell it's going to be a bit of a weepy one. Your best bet is just to give in and start leaking it all out there and then, try to avoid a juddering, snorting emotion explosion. If you don't know anything about the work of London Bubble, they're an organisation that make community theatre with participants of all ages, backgrounds, and experiences. A sample cast might include actors aged 7 and 70, actors with disabilities, actors learning English for the very first time, all alongside classically trained singers and retired teachers who can command a room with nothing but an intake of breath. They often make work about London's history: projects that investigate the changing dynamic of areas like Docklands, with interviews and testimonies from people who have witnessed those changes as they happened. Tonight's show was called After Hiroshima, and was marketed as an exploration of Londoners' reactions to the atomic bombings that ended the war with Japan in August 1945. It was deeply and personally political, big and small Ps. In an hour, they covered: the story of the officers visiting Hiroshima a month after the bombings; the first tests in the Pacific; the discovery of radiation sickness and its media cover-up; 1950s B-movies; the formation of CND; the discovery of Strontium 90 in milk; which of our homes would survive a blast; which of our loved ones would be left alive; marches and sit-ins and police brutality; the church's blessing of Britain's first nuclear missile programme; the priest who objected to it; Japan's pacifist constitution; the folding of 1000 paper cranes. The soldier who visited a POW camp church service and cried, uninterrupted, for fifty minutes. The illegitimacy of indiscriminate warfare. Trident, and the number of hospitals we could build (and staff) if we didn't have it. The varying strengths of Bubble's performers means lines are short and pass quickly between the cast. They make every word count, and the show bounces along, with images created out of nothing for only seconds at a time. Some of these are no-brainers, such as the line of men in radiation suits who must turn their backs on the detonation, but some are ingenious, the kind of ideas that would stand out on a pro stage. Those white radiation suits were removed and balled up on the floor, before becoming injured birds found within a blast radius, their necks wrung on military orders. I don't want to privilege After Hiroshima purely for its inclusivity, nor for its weighty subject matter, a particular interest of mine; I want to acknowledge its success in telling an important story with care and rigour. (Gimme another few hours and I'll manage to say all this without weeping.) SCRAP TRIDENT

[crosseyedandpainless]

I've been trying for a while to adequately sum up how I feel about gender binary in clothing. Talking with Georgina, there's obviously a lot to be said for removal of a "men's clothes/women's clothes" divide, and the transgression of obliquely wearing a garment from the "other" gender only serves to reinforce the binary we know. A man wearing a skirt may change ones opinion of the wearer, but the garment itself is still resolutely feminine.

So by stepping away from a binary, clothes adopt the power of being genderless and they are understood as nothing overtly feminine or masculine. Clothes become a non-issue with no barriers to expression through social stigma. Wearing what was once understood as clothing for the "other" gender is no more or less appealing than any other choice to be made.

But with the binary in place, the act of the transgression is incredibly seductive. Personally, I know my choice to wear whatever clothing I want is fuelled by my want to feel comfortable/be visually appealing to myself, but it's also aided by the naughty child who wants to break the rules and go against established ideas. I've often said that I don't think western culture will ever adopt men wearing skirts en-masse, and I think that's because I don't want it to. 

Without that culture of "men's clothes/women's clothes" there's no non-compliant subculture that make communities out of those that toe the line. Through wearing all the shit that I do, I am sought out by other like-minded people and equally seek out those who dress in similar ways.

I love clothes, and part of me thinks that taking away a garment's ability to express gender is taking away a lot of it's power. To keep particular garments masculine or feminine isn't unreasonably sexist to me. Instead it gives one the power to embrace the gender attached to the clothes by wearing them.

Of course, the major flaw in my point is that I am only understanding a relationship to clothes through a contemporary (and quite personal) lens. There are countless benefits to those growing up (as I did) wearing clothing not assigned to their gender, and benefits to those in the workplace, where perhaps gender expression is given a lower priority than traditional formality etc.

[sociallyengagedarts]

Fin invited me to the In Battalions meeting last week to champion the idea that we ask ACE to ring-fence some Lottery money to support Community Residencies, e.g. playwrights, actors, puppeteers, spoken word artists etc to work part-time in a school, hospital, social services dept, community centre etc. This is what I said....

This post is by Jonathan Petherbridge, Creative Director at London Bubble.  Jonathan is looking for feedback and ideas for a really interesting idea for future small-scale Community Theatre Residencies.

londonbubble.org.uk

twitter.com/LBubble

I suspected that this would be the least popular of the 3 conversations going on this morning, as the other rooms are offering more dramatic debates either about recent NPO funding decisions, or the fallout from past NPO decisions. But let the few of us here console ourselves with the realisation that while they debate the world as it is, we are debating the world as it might be in the future. Well, to be more accurate if the Theatre Ecology is likened to a garden they are talking about trimming a hedge or moving a shrub, while we are talking about planting some genuinely new seeds.

The majority of tax payers do not attend the theatre. If they think about theatre they think of a building - A Theatre - probably with a stage, on which actors speak another person’s words, while people sit in the dark and listen. But that is not Theatre - what it is, is one way of delivering one type of theatre. But Theatre is in essence, something that is created between people, in many places and spaces, in many forms and for many reasons.

The real enjoyable thing about theatre, and I may be divulging a secret here, is the making of it. As well know, from the time we are children, the empowering, heady and collaborative act of theatre making is addictively exciting. And underpinning this proposal is the idea that perhaps more people would support theatre if more people were involved in making it.

So the idea I am championing is that ACE is asked to ring-fence some Lottery money to support Community Residencies. To allow theatre makers to work in settings over a period of time, to encourage and support people to make theatre.

I did some research on Artists in Residents, and it was interesting to compare Playwrights residencies to other art forms. Googling, I found Resident Playwrights at the Lyric Hammersmith, with Paines Plough and at the Soho Poly - all the Residencies seemed to be with theatre buildings or existing theatre companies. Poets on the other hand have been resident in a Church, at Glastonbuury Festival, on the Great North Run and at Bristol University. Googling artists you find (and these are all taken from the first page), an Artist in Residence at Claridges, another Artists at a shopping centre, and then there’s MI6. Yes, artists James Hart Dyke spent at year painting and drawing the goings on at MI6.

But what do they do ? Well, the Bristol University Poet, a man called Andrew Jamieson, runs student workshops from 4.30 to 7 on Wednesday, offers consultations between 4.15 and 6.15 on Fridays, gives Public Readings of his work and organises showcases for other poets to present their poetry.

Could this work for Theatre Makers ? Could a theatre makers run workshops, offer consultations, show their work and arrange sharings of other work ? Well I think we have the workforce - the writers guild/theatre writers union has 2,500 members. Equity has 36,000 members and emerging from the 204 drama courses in the country are at least 1,000 graduates a year who are going to try to make theatre, somewhere. And of course there are places - 146 prisons, 223 Hospices, 3,000 libraries, 33,000 schools - and then of course there’s MI6. I came across some visionary people who are involved in running sheltered housing schemes and care homes for the elderly and who are calling for an Artist in every setting - deploying art to make meaning of life and to nurture the wellbeing of both patients and staff. That door is ajar and waiting for us to push on it.

So what are the gains ? Well employment for artists obviously, but also the long term political effect - a good news narrative for politicians to deliver and a direct connection to people who might never otherwise encounter theatre. But also, and this is what interests me most, the opportunity to create new theatre, with new theatre makers with a new aesthetic.

And what might be the blocks ? There is a training and support requirement, but the knowledge and experience is already within the sector. Then there’s money obviously - and this shouldn’t only be for ACE to solve - I think ACE should require those who are interested in partnering with a resident artist to pay a small proportion of the costs - say 10%, to demonstrate their commitment. But this could be a low cost quick win for ACE - 700 residencies at 10k each, would cost £7 million. The Grants for the Arts budget is currently £70 million a year. Think of the impact of 700 residencies. Even half that would change perceptions.

But the other block is the sector itself - are we willing to give up our secret, are we willing to suspend quibbling and whispers of “it’s not art” ? Are we able to consider - no, to allow, other - non building, non script based forms of theatre ?

This proposal invites us to broad-cast some new seeds in the garden. Some will of course die, some will be eaten by slugs. But some will flourish.

Jonathan Petherbridge, Creative Director, London Bubble.

PS Please respond with questions, challenges and/or support for this idea. Fin and I are planning to meet with ACE in September.