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

The Dog

"This dog…" she muttered.

The man waited patiently for her to proceed.

"This dog, wouldn't do a thing like that." She finally concluded.

The man looked down at the dog and saw a part of the tattered remains of the red y-fronts dangling from the dogs tiny mouth. He looked back up at the woman, peering over the top of his glasses, now half way down his nose.

"This dog was in hold this whole time." She lied.

The man lifted his left arm at a perfect right angle, and with his right hand pulled his grey tweed suit jacket sleeve right back to his elbow, revealing his pale purple shirt and his watch. He squinted at his watch.

"Well maybe not the whole time." She suggested.

Releasing his tweed-sleeve and placing his arm back down by his side, he took a deep breath in and said.

"Fail."

"Fail?" She repeated as though it would somehow change the meaning of the word.

"Fail."

"Look" She pleads, "I know he's 'ruff' around the edges, but surely something can be done." Her quip quickly whisped away and disappeared on an invisible breeze faster than the time it had taken her to utter it.

"There's nothing that can be done." He said like he was only following the rules to spite her.

"He's a good dog, he's not usually this boisterous. I'm sure with a little more…"

"No-thing-can-be-done." He separated each syllable so the sentence lost all impetuous and meaning.

"Please Mr Samuels…" (so that was his name) "He is a lovely dog".

After a brief pause, Mr Samuels looked down at the dog for one last time. He felt that perhaps it just winked at him, a simple knowing wink. The little bastard.

"Mrs Davis. You're dog has not only managed to remove my trousers, but eat my entire underwear. To be entirely honest with you, it is only because of my strict professionalism that I have continued judging the North Devon Doggy Dress Show wearing nothing but my shoes, shirt, tie, sock-suspenders and jacket. Your dog is Satan. I award you no points."

Bottled, TigerFace, Pollinate, Other Stuff - 15/10/14

What's it all about?

I don't know.

This week I've had plenty of time to sit and stew and do and not do. It's not only been really nice, but in direct contrast with last week where I moved around more than a hamster at night.

Last week Tin Shed Theatre Co. hosted three nights of funny stuff at a self-made-pop-up-venue in the upstairs of The Project Space, Newport. It was an exhausting, smile inducing, hoot.

So this week I've been on a bit of an inspired and lazy come down from that, poking old projects back into life, playing with plasticine, drinking tea and looking ahead to next week when I start a new project in Cardiff with Matt Ball and Tracy Harris.

Bottled was a work in progress and originally a collaboration between Matt, Tracy and London based Texas born performing artist, Greg Wohead. I'm a huge fan of Greg and his work, and so was dubious about stepping into his shoes, but two meetings in and I've been assured by Matt and Tracy that we're remaking not replicating this work. I'm excited to be working on this in the lead up for it's first performance as part of Experimentica 2014 at Chapter Arts in November.

Looking at life events, occasions, formal-conventions, best man speeches, eulogies, words spoken and words never spoken, bottling things up and perhaps the consequences of not letting them out.

You can see more here: CHAPTER ARTS

Bottled - Press Photograph

Having met both Matt and Tracy (and Greg) at National Theatre Wales Summer Camp/Pollinate in2012, as well as having formed strong friendships with other people who ventured into the wilderness with us that summer, it seems the repercussions of this NTW ran Performance Development scheme are deeper and more unknown than they're initially thought to be.

It was also at Summer Camp that I first tuned into my initial ideas for TigerFace, even though I wasn't their to work on that project. A dude called Simon handed out clown noses and I was immediately inspired to follow my instincts in the making of an anti-clown.

It seems that, that 'pollination' has well and truly been successful and last week I performed TigerFace (aka The Anti-Clown) at Tin Shed Theatre's TRASH, part of ComedyPort 2014.

You can read more about TigerFace in blogs of past: SCRATCH THAT ITCH AT THE SHERMAN

TigerFace at TRASH

Thanks for reading,

Mucho

Justin