Bottled - Week 1

Ever been to a wedding where the best man’s speech went too far? 

A funeral where the eulogy told the truth, the whole truth or anything but the truth? 

Did you ever reply on twitter and regret it immediately. 

We've been collecting stories, writing eulogies, making speeches and not apologising. We've been getting competitive, drinking milk and dancing to Kelis.

 For the past week and a half I've been working with Performance Makers, Tracy Harris and Matt Ball on a new piece of theatre called Bottled. The piece was originally conceived by Tracy and London based performance maker Greg Wohead, and was Directed by Matt. They began developing the work last year and showed back a short version to an audience at Aberystwyth Art Centre.

 We've taken strands from the initial processes of this idea, but as to be expected when any new artist is involved in the making of something, it feels like it's become slightly something else. We've been exploring ideas, divulging secrets, bottling things up, telling poo-stories, baring our embarrassing, and exploring the ideas of risk, formality and speech making. What would happen if we could be honest when giving the Best Man speech? What's the purpose of the language we use? What are we hiding? What are we saying, whilst not saying? What we have at the moment is loose in form, with ideas of ideas and inklings being poured from bottle to bottle.

 The piece has been commissioned for Experimentica 2014 and funded by the Arts Council of Wales. Being performed as part of the Experimentica festival, taking place at Chapter Arts.

 If you want to catch Bottled and/or talk to Matt, Tracy or myself then please come along to Chapter Arts on Wednesday Nov 5th 6.00pm - Tickets £5.

Mucho,

Justin