Reviews - Flogging A Dead Horse and Tales From a Sea Journey

The first weekend of Mayfest is over and the reviews are starting to come in. Venue magazine has so far reviewed Flogging A Dead Horse and Tales From a Sea Journey, available to read here and here.

Venue's Top Mayfest Picks

Save Me - Harbourside (Thur 5-Sun 15)
• Every Mayfest boasts one or two stand-out, off-the-wall delights – shows boasting Herculean staging demands (like last year’s ‘Electric Hotel’) or promising to subtly alter the emotional co-ordinates of all who see it (see last year, again, and the emotional, intimate ‘Internal’). This year’s eye-catcher is ‘Save Me’, a semaphore soap opera performed, using giant flags, by Bristol performance duo Search Party. Performers Pete Phillips and Jodie Hawkes will converse over 11 days using the flag semaphore system, building up a narrative over time: audiences, bystanders, commuters and city strollers are invited to get involved and steer the story. “Often the audience try to manipulate the piece into a love story, offering advice on how we should make up or hold out for an apology,” says Pete, reflecting on past performances, including a session on London’s South Bank. “The mood is always very hopeful – the audience are willing the connection to succeed.” SP will spend Mayfest on the Floating Harbour – Pete at Cascade Steps, Jodie on Pero’s Bridge – and will invite audiences and passers-by to decode messages and send their own. “You can engage with the performance in various ways – visually it’s quite arresting, which makes a nice contrast with the often day-to-day nature of the conversation.” Pete recommends returning to the piece often over its 11-day run, to engage with its distinctive rolling narrative. Audiences are also invited to leave their own stories of when they have been apart from someone. “We provide tags and pens for people to leave their own stories as a memorial to the people they miss, which we’ll weave into the dialogue.”

Meet The Mayfest Crew: Arthur Tibbs

What is your job at Mayfest?
Canine Co-ordinator (aka Kate's pet and regular fixture of the Mayfest office)

Which 3 shows are you most looking forward to at this year’s Mayfest?
I am very excited about Astronaut by Sleepdogs, because I am: a) constantly inspired by the awesome vastness of outer space; and b) because I am often, myself, a very sleepy dog.
The Guild of Cheesemakers from has me salivating - I am something of a connoisseur of fine cheeses. Only the other day did I find a very fine morsel of Cheshire Blue behind the sofa.
I am barking mad about Faulty Optic and I'm sure that Flogging a Dead Horse will be right up my street. I have never flogged a dead horse. I did gnaw a dozing cat once, but that is another story entirely.

I love Mayfest because…
It is a fabulous and inspirational celebration of new modern theatre that I love more than my best squeaky chew toy.

Sum up Mayfest in 3 shiny words.
Big. Brash. Beautiful. Come on, what are you waiting for? Schnauzer chance!

Tom Morris’ Top Mayfest Picks

Tom Morris is a director, producer and the Artist Director of the Bristol Old Vic, Mayfest’s busiest venue with a wealth of shows in the Studio and Basement this year as well as the host of the Mayfest Opening Party.

Which 3 shows are you most looking forward to at this year’s Mayfest?
It’s very hard to make picks from a programme which is so beautifully balanced and which is characterised by a spirit of curiosity and exploration. Some of my all time favourite artists and companies are present in the programme – Faulty Optic, Guy Dartnell and Will Adamsdale to name but three. I know that their work will be astonishing, engaging, strange and (with luck) might even jog the goggles through which you view the world. That, after all, is the point of seeing any artist’s work: to see the world for a moment through their differently gifted eyes.

However, my recommendations are for the shows I know least about – where I can trust the curatorial instincts of Kate Yedigaroff and Matthew Austin to lead me on a journey of discovery which I never suspect. So book early and book often for The Guild of Cheesemakers by the Stand+Stare Collective (in fact I do know them having been startled out of my wits by SS Arcadia last year). On no account miss Music Circus by the strangely compelling clown-maestro Peter Swaffer-Reynolds, and in any free moment you have go to The Blind Tiger for unimaginable nightly japes and fandangles.

Whichever show you begin with, the chances are it will develop into a journey through the collective imaginations of an astonishing range of artists. Be sure to start your journey early, on 5th May, so it has time to unfold.

A Mad Australian Kangaroo Dentist and some Underwater Horse Sex

Amongst the ink blots, intercoms, coffee rings and pizza, there’s a little doorway down to the deepest ocean, where the seabed sludge has a similar chemistry to that of the human brain. The brain hosts trillions of neurons each playing an endless game of mental ping-pong. Of course no-one really knows any of this as fact, although someone bravely went in search and sent back reports, whilst others scrutinised and postulated and made lists.

Faulty Optic are world renowned for their haunting tales, visual theatre, strange animated figures and dark humour. This new show by Gavin Glover engages three amateur scientists to plumb the depths of the Moon, the legend of Salome and the consequences of over-thinking. Here Gavin Glover talks about Flogging a Dead Horse:

Sedated By A Brick’s Top Mayfest Picks

Gareth Mayer is one third of Bristol-based performance company Sedated By A Brick who recently presented their first full length work, If Destroyed Still True, at The Brewery theatre. He also works with Singaporean artist Tara Tan and is in the process of restaging their work, Imagined Future Benefit, in Singapore.

Which 3 shows are you most looking forward to at this year’s Mayfest?

Firstly I would definitely recommend going to see Sleepdogs' Astronaut. I am yet to see the full length version (which I believe is still very brief!) but this fragile tale, told through the medium of Dictaphone, was touching and mesmerising when I saw it as a work-in-progress at the Arnolfini. You also get to see Jo Bannon's Foley as part of a double bill of performances, which I have heard good things about.

Sam Halmarack and the Miserablites will be a joy to behold and experience. Everything I've seen this man do is nothing short of sublime.

My third choice is more tricky but I have opted for Gavin Glover and Faulty Optic's piece, Flogging a Dead Horse. I'm not normally a puppetry fan but the last show I saw by Faulty Optic was possibly one of the most Beckettian things I had seen outside of Beckett, which can only be a good thing.

Flogging a Dead Horse

Gavin Glover & Faulty Optic
8pm, Thursday 5th May 2011 @ Tobacco Factory Theatre

Amongst the ink blots, intercoms, coffee rings and pizza, there’s a little doorway down to the deepest, darkest ocean, where the seabed sludge has a similar chemistry to the chemistry of the human brain. Flogging a Dead Horse is a show which ponders those moments when the people around you are present, but just not quite there.

For over twenty years, Faulty Optic have been inspiring new audiences with their radical reinvention of puppetry. Their shows, which mix puppetry with animation, film and music, transport you to a dislocated reality, laced with dark, dark humour.

Following performances at London’s International Mime Festival earlier this year, we’re delighted that they’re opening Mayfest 2011 at the Tobacco Factory Theatre.