Wandsworth Arts Fringe 2020 will now take place as ‘WAF In Your Living Room’, an existing strand of the WAF programme that was introduced a couple of years ago as a provision for housebound audiences. This of course now includes us all, and it is from WAF’s longstanding commitment to champion artists and help make their work accessible to as many art-lovers as possible that the festival will continue. This year, your living room will become The Main Stage, and your sofa The Front Row!
Blackshaw’s entry to WAF In Your Living Room, is our catalogue of brilliant audio drama, and to you involved at home, we’re asking you to send in your own foley clips!
Try your hand at foley!
Radio plays need sound effects, and we like ours to be home made (just like Mama used to make). Do you want to try your hand at foley (creation of sound effects), and even have the chance for them to be featured in our upcoming live radio play?
It’s a perfect social distancing-friendly activity – just use household objects and your imagination. You can get some hints and tips from this interview we did with our head foley artist, Andy.
We’re looking for:
– ship engine
– seagulls
– man falls overboard
– train chugging along
– serving breakfast
– water splashes against the side of a boat
– someone shoo-ing at displeased chickens
– someone is hit on the head and slumps on a table
– a puck being hit, ricocheting around the ship, smashing a drinking glass, striking a seagull, and splashing into the sea (advanced level!)
I am reliably informed that love is, once again, all around us. The signs are all there. Personal, handwritten love letters…crudely printed onto cards with a picture of a teddy bear or a heart (which doesn’t even look like an actual heart; anatomically not even close). Love is stupid, apparently.
We are presented with modern tokens of love: chocolate to release endorphins in your partner that you can’t summon up yourself; flowers, an ominous metaphor for your fleeting happiness; a puppy…well that one is quite good actually. Now that those other 364 days are over and you need to prove to your other half that you have a modicum of care and respect for them, here are some cracking suggestions for things to do today, or sometime this week (it’s on a Tuesday this year. The. Worst. Day.):
1. Cirque du Soleil’s, Amaluna
If in doubt, throw some money at it. Cirque’s latest offering is based on The Tempest, that perfect Valentine’s tale. After all, what says love better than living alone on an island with your creepy dad for years, before ending up with Shakespeare’s second most boring lover (the first is Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice. Obvs.)? So remortgage your home and fork out for a spectacular reminder of all the bodies you will never look like and all the positions your other half will never contort themselves into. And they’re French. That’s romantic.
No this isn’t the title of Donald Trump’s guide to seducing your own daughter. Cicada Studios’ latest offering is a satirical puppetry show, as rude and irreverent as they come. Life isn’t Pixar and this ain’t a kids’ show. At fifty minutes long, that is all the foreplay you will need. Puppet sex is reportedly the latest aphrodisiac. I was going to make a puppet fisting joke here but decided against it; I figured I would be elbow deep in complaints.
Don’t think this needs a blurb really. A dystopian romance, sans the romance. To be fair, the word ‘romance’ is derived from ‘romant’ meaning ‘in the Roman manner.’ So in many ways this show does have romantic themes in it: violence, forward-thinking, sexual aggression, hard to understand language, and back-stabbing individuals. Action to the Word’s version is an all-male sweatfest of energy and pulsating choreography; a visceral and explosive production. Thankfully none of the guys in it are muscly and handsome. Well apart from Jonno Davies. Oh and Seb Charles. Tom Whitelock has a filthy glint in his eye. On second thoughts, for the sake of your relationship, maybe this show isn’t for you…
Now this is a risk for sure. It will require actual social interaction with your partner. I know. Scary. Hopefully you can distract them with the pretty lights and pictures, in this visual spectacular at Chiswick House and Gardens. The ice bar and ice rink will lower the temperature perfectly to the level of your ice-cold heart and frigid relations. Apparently there is also a burning rooster. Something to do with the Zodiac, but more fittingly a metaphor for the burning desolation of your love. But if they can’t appreciate you paying out £18.11 (bizarre pricing system…) to avoid doing any work towards the date yourself, then are they really worth bothering with anyway?
So there you have it, you lazy blighters. A selection of generic events that everyone else will be doing. The spark is alive! So go out there, book into one, and convince yourself you aren’t a terrible human being. Hurrah! My girlfriend is going to kill me for writing this.
We’ve had a corker of a year, and as we settle down in front of the fire with a mulled wine in hand and snazzy christmas jumper firmly on, we thought we’d take you through the highlights…
The Blackshaw Arts Hour on Wandsworth Radio (fortnightly from Jan 2015)
2-16th May 2015 – Alice in Wonderland by Richard Stratton, at the Battersea Library
A sell-out run, as part of the Wandsworth Arts Fringe.
“…creative, imaginative and seemingly effortless style…The whole performance buzzed with energy, fun and joy.” London Theatre 1
“The fun-filled show brims with chaos, madness and high jinks…the wild but classic tale of Alice in her fantastically retold Wonderland.” – A Younger Theatre
9-14th March 2015 – Character by Florence Vincent, at the Tristan Bates Theatre
“a delightful theatre production on in Covent Garden. Funny, nostalgic, well acted 2 hander” – London Culture Blog
“a witty play…reminiscent of Ab Fab’s Edina and Saffy” – In & Around Covent Garden magazine
Ellie (Blackshaw’s Managing & Artistic Director) & Vikki (Blackshaw’s Strategy & Planning Manager) spent a super duper 2 days (plus a Friday evening and a Monday morning) at Edinburgh Fringe. They saw 16 shows (yeah, I know!), and here are some brief reviews/recommendations for each…
No ‘Blackshaw Arts Hour’ this week due to team illness *germy cough* but here’s a cracking interview with the fabulous actors/producers of Pluck. Theatre’s ‘Clap Hands’ by Aaron Hubbard. This darkly funny piece of new writing is on at the Hackney Showroom til 25th July, so get tickets whilst you still can.
Streatham Festival kicks off on 4th July and we’re super excited to be a part of it. We’ll be performing Alice in Wonderland at the British Home on 4th and 5th July (tickets here), alongside a free Mad Hatter’s Tea Party themed fete in the grounds of the Home. It’s all set to be a terrific weekend and there’s plenty more on offer at Streatham Festival. Here are our top picks:
1. The Streatham Strut – Saturday 11th July
16 venues in the centre of Streatham hosting an exciting evening of live music, there’s bound to be something for everyone and a great atmosphere http://www.streathamfestival.com/node/122
2. Breaking the Code from Streatham Theatre Company – 4 performances
Two of our favourite things here – South London theatre companies (ho ho) and Alan Turing. Check this out to see another view on the story behind recent blockbuster The Imitation Game, taking a more personal view. http://www.streathamtheatre.org.uk/code
3. Shazia Mirza ‘A Work in Progress’ at the Laughing Pod – Wednesday 8th July
There’s loads of comedy at the festival, three different acts at this venue on this evening alone (phew!) but Shazia takes our fancy as it’s always good to see a comic who’s on the rise and rise in a small venue just before they get really popular. There, we called it. Also she says “There will be anger, confusion, some laughter and mostly danger” – how can you resist? http://www.thelaughingpod.com/#!/events/556cef5fa9d97e030006898e
4. The Breakfast Club free outdoor screening – Saturday 4th July
Has anything else on the programme particularly caught your eye? Let us know what you see during the festival on twitter or facebook and we might just feature your review on an upcoming Arts Hour!
On Sunday 7th June, we celebrated Blackshaw’s 5th Birthday in style! Guests included past cast, crew, patrons and associates. There was cake (totally on brand with an edible Blackshaw logo), bubbly, paper hats, and a speech from Director, Ellie.
We also enjoyed a slide show of past projects, as well as some special live performances.
Get a taste of the metaphorical birthday cake with a peep at the party.
My role at Blackshaw is to organise the content and produce our weekly radio show, The Blackshaw Arts Hour, on Wandsworth Radio.
What day to day tasks does that mean you do?
Generally my busiest day is a Sunday as that’s the day the show goes out live on the radio. I have to be at the studio about an hour before the show to load the clips we are playing and program all our content. The show goes out live on Wandsworth Radio from 6-7 and I am normally helped out by a co-host or two. I panel (press all the buttons), make sure the sound is going out at the right level and present the content while always keeping an eye on the time (and occasionally forgetting to turn the mics off!)
During the week I email a lot of writers, actors and theatre associated people in order to generate content for the show. I try and have a couple of recordings lined up for the week so that my sound man Andy can have them edited and ready to go out on air at the end of that week.
How do you think of ideas for the radio show?
Thinking about what is coming up for Blackshaw is always my first point of call when coming up with content. Interviews and promos for upcoming productions are really easy ways to generate quick radio content and are also great in prmoting Blackshaw to our listeners! The pieces performed at new writing nights are also guaranteed audio entertainment.
Ideas I have found also come from talking to people about the show. Some people have things they have written that they would like to record, and I have obtained a lot of contacts from the people we have had on the show in the past. It has been really nice to hear the positivity from people and their willingness to be involved is a huge bonus.
If you have anything you think would sound great on our radio show, get in touch! You can reach me at iasha@blackshawonline.com
Do you work particularly closely with anyone else on the Blackshaw team?
I work closely with Andy Crane, Blackshaw’s resident sound expert. He’s with me when we records radio plays and interviews and is the one that takes the audio we record away, makes it listenable with his editing prowess, and then sends it to me so I can program it into the show.
Matt Boothman has been with me live in the studio every week from the shows inception delighting us with his wonderfully worded film reviews. Director Ellie is my loyal co-presenter most weeks and Vikki has contributed content and co-presented too!
What do you enjoy most about your job?
I enjoy the on air presenting side of my job. I had a bit of a break from live presenting but getting back into it this year has been really fun. It’s fantastic working with such a great bunch of motivated and creative people and the support from all members of the Blackshaw team has been fantastic.
It’s also really fun! From hanging out and meeting new people and recording them to being in the studio every week, it has been an absolute pleasure to get this radio show off the ground. It also means I get to see way more theatre than I ever have, which is always nice!
Blackshaw Theatre 