Excitement! I’m producing and presenting a new quarterly cabaret night for Chelsea Theatre, starting on April 11! The event link is here. We’ve made a press release so I’m just going to paste it in here and let it speak for itself. Oh, also thanks to Adrian Kinloch for the amazing background photo (which will be decorated with each show’s stars in turn), Holly Revel for the David Hoyle pic, and Tom Frederic for coming up with the title when looking at the photo.
Ben Walters and Chelsea Theatre
Present
Come With Me If You Want To Live
Friday April 11, 9pm
Chelsea Theatre, Worlds End Place, London SW10 0DR
www.chelseatheatre.org.uk Box office: 0207 352 1967 : £8 (£4 concession)
Got those end-of-the-world blues? Don’t panic! Join us for Chelsea Theatre’s new quarterly cabaret – an evening of songs, laughs, heart and spunk programmed by Ben Walters – and we might just get out of this in one piece!
Everyone knows things are going down the pan. The weather’s going doolally, the economy is still in the toilet, politicians are nasty or useless and pop culture is grotesque or inane. But there are other ways to live – and cabaret just might be the getaway car to a better world!
Pulling together an eclectic array of the most talented and audacious performers from across the cabaret spectrum, Come With Me If You Want To Live is first and foremost a cracking night out, with roof-raising tunes, side-splitting laughs, jaw-dropping surprises and eye-moistening moments of unexpected emotion.
But it’s also rooted in the sincere belief that the things that make great cabaret – eye contact, conversation, curiosity, improvisation and irreverence – are exactly the things we could all do with a bit more of these days. That’s why we’re also delighted to be linking up with some of the brilliant people involved in Chelsea Theatre’s huge array of community activities, from fashion to filmmaking.
And boy, are we spoiling you with the line-up for Come With Me…’s debut on Friday April 11…
David Hoyle
Avant-guardian angel of the north and performance artiste extraordinaire David Hoyle demands you collaborate with him in a fiercely political, scandalisingly entertaining, thrillingly improvised performance experience likely to end with the stage smeared in glitter, paint, bodily fluids and the remnants of a herd of sacred cows. May include Judy Garland songs and abstract shapes.
Eve Ferret
London nightlife legend Eve Ferret graduated from the seminal Blitz nightclub to appear in everything from Bowie videos to Hollywood movies. She has now returned to her first love, cabaret, combining her rollicking yet tender voice with bursts of surreal humour and infectious joie de vivre. This Is Cabaret called her an ‘overflowing toybox of ideas’ and she’s nabbed several awards.
Dickie Beau
This ain’t your momma’s lip synch. Miming to spoken-word material with uncanny precision and to hilarious, sometimes devastating effect, Dickie Beau channels icons and the overlooked alike. Following runs at Soho Theatre and Southbank Centre, Dickie is producing an ensemble piece for the Barbican in his capacity as winner of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award 2014.
Figs in Wigs
A five-strong, all-female performance troupe with a passion for fashionable fruit and deadpan dance moves, Figs in Wigs deliver a unique mix of theatre, dance, comedy, wordplay. Bumbags, party games and monobrows are mere launchpads for their flights of figgy fancy.
About Ben Walters
Ben Walters blogs about cabaret, moving image, queer and DIY culture at nottelevision.net and tweets at @not_television. He was Time Out London’s cabaret editor from 2009 to 2013, and co-directed the cabaret documentaries This Is Not a Dream and Vinegar to Jam. In 2010, Ben created BURN, the platform for moving images by cabaret artists, which currently runs at Hackney Attic on the first Sunday of the month.
About Chelsea Theatre
Chelsea Theatre is a contemporary performance space and community hub which combines artistic excellence and community participation. As a performance space they are dedicated to commissioning, producing and presenting the freshest and most innovative artists, both nationally and internationally. Chelsea Theatre is a member of Live Art UK
PRESS ENQUIRIES:
Anna Goodman at Abstrakt 0207 834 0440 / 07976 247 026 abstrakt@abstraktpublicity.co.uk
