Posted on 24 January 2012 by A Younger Theatre
Our friends over at the Accidental Festival are giving you an excellent opportunity to enter their competitions to perform during the Accidental Festival. Are youa budding Spoken Word Artist? How about a fresh new writing talent?
Accidental Festival Competitions
Win the invaluable opportunity to present your work at one of London’s top performance venues, the Roundhouse, amongst other cutting edge artists.
Spoken Word- We are searching for new and emerging spoken word artists to perform at this years Accidental Festival. Poems can be on any subject and should be between three- five minutes long.
Please send a video or written text to amy@accidentalfestival.co.uk
Submissions for this competition end 10 February 2012
Rehearsed Readings- Five winners will be selected for our Sunday Showcase, for new writing in development to be trialled and tested in front of an audience.
The evening will be relaxed and friendly, consisting of a 10-15 minute reading of each script followed by feedback from the audience.
The event will take place in the Studio, a conventional theatre space with raked seating, and a capacity of 96.
We will offer critical feedback for the best twenty submissions to help artists develop their work.
Please send five pages (three minute except) of your play to amy@accidentalfestival.co.uk.
Submissions for this competition end 10 February 2012.
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Posted on 09 January 2012 by Jake Orr
Accidentally Festival is back again for 2012 returning to The Roundhouse and presented by students of BATP Performance Arts at Central School of Speech and Drama between 31st May and 3rd June 2012.
This years team are looking for applications from a diverse set of communities to take risks, to create and collaborate with what they call an ‘explosive festival’. They’re looking for artists, theatre companies, performers and anyone who has work that they might like to show. Perhaps it’s Dance, Physical Theatre, Multi-Media, Fine Art, Photography, Fashion… the list goes on.
The Accidental Festival has always been a great way to get exposure and to do so in London’s top cool venue of The Roundhouse alongside established artists. There isn’t payment for this opportunity, but certain costs for taking part will be given through the Festival.
Applications close on 20th January.
Find out more on the Accidental Festival website.
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Posted on 24 May 2011 by Elinor Walpole
I was quite surprised to attend the Comedy Showcase and find not only that a fairly large section of the audience were of school age, but also that rather a lot of them knew one another. It turned out that I just hadn’t done my homework as the first act on the bill ‘School of Comedy’ were in fact just that (and it’s a programme on E4). However, regardless of their age, the routines were hilariously funny, relevant, well observed and timely. The School of Comedy was a mixed bag of solo acts, stand up and sketch pieces, with some stand-out moments – such as a news panel featuring David Cameron getting in touch with his feminine side by getting a boob job, and TV spoof ‘The Only Way is Gloucestershire’. The performers impressed me with their camaraderie with the audience (hardly any signs of nerves) and their sharp take on current affairs. Certainly ones to watch.
The School of Comedy was good enough to merit its own slot and in fact probably should have had it, as half the audience left when they’d finished up, having been warned by the excellent but saucy compere Monkey Poet that upcoming acts might have material in which ‘fisting’ would not have anything to do with playground fights – and so family audiences might be advised to make a swift exit. In fact there weren’t too many bawdy gags except those made by Monkey Poet himself.
Next on the bill was Battleacts, an improvised comedy troupe which comprised a compere who lorded it over two teams with the help of suggestions from the audience. We were treated to some fast-paced, witty and very imaginative comedy, enhanced by the excitable energy of the team members and their masochistic willingness to be physically tortured and contorted (at one point mousetraps appeared). While amusing, Battleacts was at times quite uncomfortable viewing (should I really be laughing at somebody who may be about to lose their toes?). However as their tagline is ‘comedy just got nasty’ they certainly lived up to it. I have a lot of respect for the performers and brave audience members who dared to get involved in a couple of the sketches. I believe everybody left with all body parts intact.
The final act, So On and So Forth, was sadly not as well received as it deserved. By this point in the evening only about a third of the original audience remained (perhaps they were emotionally drained after the terror of Battleacts), and as chemistry with the audience forms such an important factor in a good comedy gig I feel that So on and So Forth were left with rather a lean lot! In some ways it would have been brilliant if the School of Comedy troupe and their fans could have stayed as there were some remarkable parallels between their sketches and those of So On and So Forth, including a gag about scriptwriters pitching films that were world renowned blockbusters and a charity appeal sketch. So On and So Forth’s sketches were witty observations of popular culture reset in bizarre and wonderful contexts, creating a wonderfully familiar setting for the audience before pulling the rug out from under their feet. Although most of their material was more tongue-in-cheek than laugh-out-loud funny they were slick performers that held the audience’s attention.
The Comedy Showcase was a great introduction to some very varied acts, from surprisingly sharp material from the School of Comedy to lewd and punchy poetry from the Monkey Poet, sadomasochistic squeals from Battleacts and knowing chortles at So On and So Forth. Personal favourite? The Monkey Poet. Although only compering for brief interludes he had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand (…and roaring out “fucking wankers!” at the top of their lungs) and managed the daunting task of warming up the ever-dwindling audience admirably.
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Posted on 24 May 2011 by Francesca Beckett
It’s incredibly hard to review an excerpt from a work in progress. It seems wrong to be critical of something that’s not quite finished, and not quite whole. However sometimes all you need to see is a glimmer of brilliance to be confident that when complete, a show will be fantastic: that’s exactly what Milk Presents gave its audience on Friday.
As part of the Roundhouse’s ‘Accidental Festival’, Milk Presents gave us a taste of its new Edinburgh show, Bluebeard. Describing it as a fairytale for adults, the show was certainly not short of magical surprises.
The story concerns a nobleman with a bad habit of murdering his wives, and his new wife who is trying to escape the same fate. It doesn’t sound like much of a joyful romp, but by using clever staging and imaginative songs this piece becomes impossible not to enjoy.
There are a host of inventive staging ideas to keep the audience amused. The idea of using a tandem bicycle to generate electricity for an alternative set of lights is delightful in its simplicity; lowering a shirt on a coat hanger from the ceiling to provide the partner for a duet is both original and symbolic.
Battling on despite a keyboard broken in the first scene and more than a few mishaps, the cast show professionalism for such young performers. If this show is only in development, I really can’t wait to see the finished article. With such early promise, it ought to be a belter.
For more information visit www.milkpresents.com. The finished show will be performed at the Udderbelly venue in Edinburgh throughout August.
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