It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)

I'm almost there. It's my last day of work for 2008 and I've reached the last few tasks on the to-do list. Phew!

It's been an incredibly busy year and now I'm totally looking forward to my two-week holiday. I fly off to New York on Monday - bizarrely its my third trip there this year - and the first where I won't be doing any form of work whatsoever!

Anyway, rather than bore you with the details of my Christmas plans, I thought I'd take this opportunity to look back at Hoipolloi's year...

It's incredible to think of everything we've achieved this year. One full new production, two further productions touring, two productions in development, and simultaneous performances in both the UK and Colombia!

So, here in photos and videos is Hoipolloi: 2008!

The first part of the year was dedicated to creating The Doubtful Guest. The creature itself ran wild around the Barbican Estate:


Before coming alive on stage for its first performance at Watford Palace Theatre where Lyn Gardner of the Guardian proclaimed the show was a:

"piece of visual theatre that captures all the Victorian pastiche, fantastical imagination and ominous air of Gorey's original"


And as soon as the show was on its feet, it was time for Hugh, Aled (and myself) to fly off to Bogota, Colombia with Story of a Rabbit for the XI Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro:


My favourite memory of this trip was being ambushed by the South American press in the hotel lobby!

Back in the UK, Story of a Rabbit went touring around the UK. Here's Hugh being interviewed on the radio whilst in Brighton:



And not content with the simple life, Hugh dashed off in the middle of the tour for some performances of Floating in Moscow.

But he was back in time for a two-week run of the show at London's Barbican Centre:


Once that was over, it was time for me to say goodbye to one intern and welcome another!

For the past two years, August has been a crazily busy month spent in Edinburgh for the Fringe. But this year we took it easy and instead popped over to Finland for a short run at the Helsinki Festival:



The autumn saw the Bishop's and their Doubtful Guest back on the road:



The tour started with our co-producing partners at the Theatre Royal Plymouth and reached Leeds' West Yorkshire Playhouse in time for Halloween:


Finally, the year ended with Hugh and his friends at the National Theatre Studio where they've been busy preparing a potential new show called Invisible Town:



Thank you again to everyone who's seen a show, read the blog, watched a video or commented on the wall of our Facebook groups.

So, it's time for me to officially sign-off for the year. We'll be back in January and can definitely guarantee that 2009 will be even more exciting than this! Best of all, we'll be reporting all of it right here on the blog. Come join us...

A note from our friends at... Told by an Idiot

Two intensive workshops led by Told by an Idiot Co-Artistic Director, Paul Hunter

BIGGER THAN LIFE:
The role of the performer in the theatre of Told by an Idiot
Dates: Monday 12th –Wednesday 14th January 2009
Venue: Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 6AB

I THINK I’M GOING TO BURST:
Exploring the spirit of Commedia dell’Arte. This workshop will be led by both Paul Hunter and Associate ‘Idiot’ Stephen Harper
Dates: Saturday 10th –Sunday 11th January 2009
Venue: Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 6AB

The exploration of the work will use mostly performance related exercises although both workshops will also be of interest to directors and designers who are genuinely interested in collaborative theatre.

Please call the office on 020 7407 4123 or email info@toldbyanidiot.org for further information.

All gone...

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)

A huge thank you to everyone who's booked in to see our Invisible Town preview performances at the Barbican. We have now completely filled all available places and I'm afraid that I won't be able to release any further space.

If you haven't managed to get hold of a ticket, you'll still be able to follow what's happening with the project as we'll be providing regular updates from the rehearsal room here on the blog.

I'm also pleased to announce another Hugh Hughes project which will be coming to fruition in January!

The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes is a brand new solo piece from Hugh. He's been working on various ideas for this over the past couple of months (in between working on Invisible Town) and the show will be premiered at The Junction, Cambridge from 29 to 31 January.

The show sees Hugh head off on a comic and compelling adventure into his fantastical world. A marvellous mixture of memories, random recollections and stories all told in his uniquely charming style.

At present, this is the ONLY opportunity to see this piece although the show might make the journey up to Edinburgh next summer.

Performances begin at 8pm and tickets cost just £5. To book yours, please visit The Junction's website by clicking here or call their Box Office on 01223 511511.

We look forward to welcoming you to the show!

Leaving the Invisible Town (for now)

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

It's Sunday evening and I've just about caught up on sleep, after spending a week cavorting round the National Theatre Studio with Hugh Hughes.

It was a real honour to watch Hugh working. I was a huge Hoipolloi fan and a devoted Hugh Hughes groupie well before I joined the company and I still have moments where I can't believe I'm on the inside, rather than in the audience.

The performers spent much of the week improvising for hours on end, which took us to some pretty strange places... The week's work threw up so many new ideas that it's hard to know where to begin sorting through them!

Here are some photos I took: in the first one Hugh is an IRA terrorist (obviously), in the second he's playing a magician who's just chopped his own hands off and the last one is Hugh sitting at the top of a hill with Wendy the aubergine (his girlfriend) showing her the town of Llangefni. Reality seems a little banal in comparison!

Extra tickets for Invisible Town

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)

It's Saturday night and in the Bedford household, we're glued to both Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor. I'm rooting for Alexandra in the X-Factor as I think she's by far the most talented performer and can't decide between Lisa and Rachel on Strictly. Mostly we're having fun counting the amount of times that Dermot says that this year's contest is "the closest yet".

Anyway, this is all totally beside the point of this blog entry. Apologies. I think I'm just trying to distract myself from the fact that I'm doing work on a Saturday night!

I'm pleased to announce that we've been able to make a further 80 places available for the preview performances of Invisible Town on 8 & 9 January. You'll be able to book these from Tuesday 16 December and a link to the booking site will appear here then.

Anyone who joined the waiting list for places over the past couple of days will shortly be receiving information on how to book.

Thanks again for all your interest in these performances. I popped into the rehearsal room a couple of times over the week and am very excited by what's being created.

Here one minute, gone the next...

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)

Wow, what an afternoon!

Story of a Rabbit's tagline, "Here one Minute, Gone the Next" became very pertinent today as I watched the free tickets for our scratch performances of Invisible Town at the Barbican disappear before my eyes.

After merrily disappearing to get my haircut over lunch, I returned to the office and checked to see whether anyone had decided to book in. I almost fell off my chair and couldn't believe that nearly all the spaces had gone!

A massive thank you for all your interest in the project. I know that Hugh will be delighted that so many of you would like to come along. My apologies to anyone who hasn't been able to get a place, particularly those that tried more than once to get one out of the website.

I thought that everything was running pretty smoothly but clearly the system wasn't clever enough to tell you that the tickets had all gone in the slight scramble that occured around 3pm this afternoon.

For the time being, I have a waiting list open as I hope to release a few more places nearer the time. We'll release them on a first-come, first served basis. Instructions on how to get on the list can be found by clicking the link below.

In the meantime, I'm sure that David will continue to post updates from the rehearsal room so keep coming back to hear the latest.

UPDATE!
Further places have been released for the Invisible Town performances. Capacity is still extremely limited but click on the link below to book.

Another day in Llangefni

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

Another fantastic day at the National Theatre Studio! We're doing loads of improvisations at the moment, for an hour or more at a time, moving from place to place and making up all sorts of stories and characters.

Today Hugh made an aubergine out of a glass bottle and a denim jacket. The aubergine was called Wendy and Hugh fell in love with her until his sister stole it off him. When we first met Tegin he was under the desk in the office of the lumber yard where he had a job, hiding so he wouldn't have to do any work. He was thinking about how much he loved Adam Ant and wondering why only girls could wear make-up. And at th end of the day, Hugh told us a very funny story about trying to chat up a girl who had an identical twin sister, and the sisters playing tricks on him.

Invisible Town: Exclusive Performances

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)


David's last couple of posts have been about what's currently happening over at the National Theatre Studio with Invisible Town. And a couple of weeks ago we hinted that you'd soon be able to get the chance to see for yourself what Hugh and his friends have been up to.

The wait is over and, to the accompaniment of a grand fanfare, I can now reveal the full details of how to catch an exclusive peak at this brand new material.

On Thursday 8 and Friday 9 January at 7pm, Hugh and his ensemble will be undertaking two free 'scratch' performances in The Pit at the Barbican Centre in London.

There are just 100 places available across both nights to see the work for FREE at this early stage and tickets can only be booked in advance by clicking on the link below.

Please note that tickets are NOT available through the Barbican's box office.

Please join us for what we hope will be an exciting part of the show's ongoing development. It's likely that this won't receive a full production until 2011 so you'll be one of the first to see what they've been up to. More information on the show can be found on various blog entries here.

Finally, thank you to the National Theatre Studio and Louise Jeffreys at the Barbican Centre for making this possible.

Linda the Laundry Lady

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

I had a great time at the National Theatre Studio today, working on Hugh Hughes' new show Invisible Town. Hugh introduced us to some new characters and I found myself having a wonderful conversation with Linda, who runs Llangefni's launderette. She was quick to notice that I had biro ink on my t-shirt and insisted that I took it off immediately so she could clean it for me. Linda's very good at spotting and identifying stains.

Can't wait to get back to the Studio tomorrow, I get more excited about the project every day I see Hugh and his wonderful collaborators working on it!

Back to the National Theatre Studio!

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

I wrote last July about our time at the National Theatre Studio, working on Hugh Hughes' new production Invisible Town. It was the first time Hugh had introduced us to the show and by the end of the week it had developed incredible momentum, branching off in all sorts of exciting directions, as Hugh and an ensemble of actors found different ways to share the stories Hugh told us about his childhood.

Next week, we'll be heading back to the Studio, to catch up with Hugh and spend five more days working on Invisible Town. Hugh's spent this week in one of the Studio's writing rooms, getting his thoughts in order before the rest of us arrive next week.

I'll be doing as much blogging as I can, and hopefully getting some video footage, so you can keep up to date with everything that's going on!

The National Theatre Studio is a wonderful space to work in and we're really grateful to have been invited to work there. This is a video taken the last time we were there, in which Hugh talks about Invisible Town and Sioned shows us the delights of the Studio's lighting facilities!

Help us with Wikipedia

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

I've just created a Hoipolloi Wikipedia page which, of course, isn't terribly good Wikipedia practice because it should really be written by YOU.

In fact, I've already attracted the wrath of one efficious wiki-lover (with too much time on their hands) who tried to delete my Story of a Rabbit entry within 10 seconds of me putting it up! We are currently arguing about it - rest assured, I will not be beaten.

But perhaps I'd get in less trouble if some people outside the company lent a hand and made their contributions to the page. That, after all, is how Wikipedia is supposed to work. So please, get cracking! If you've seen one of our shows, then write about. If you have more to say about Hugh Hughes, please speak up.

Together we'll beat the nerds!

Ten Days on the Island... hopefully not Floating away!

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)

As David's already mentioned, next year Hoipolloi and Hugh Hughes will be spreading their wings and going global! We've discussed before on this blog (in some detail, as we are stupidly excited about it!) our trip out to Sydney Opera House but that's not the only place we'll be visiting in Australia.

On Tuesday, the Ten Days on the Island festival had its official launch and so we're finally able to reveal to you some further performance dates. It's an honour to be part of this exciting event and Hugh is really hoping to make some fantastic new connections with another set of island dwellers - this time on the other side of the world in Tasmania.

So, here's the exact information on where we'll be:



Earl Arts Centre in Launceston, Tasmania
28 March 2009 at 2pm and 6pm
29 March 2009 at 6pm

Playhouse Theatre in Hobart, Tasmania
2 to 4 April 2009 at 8pm
5 April at 6pm

Tickets for both venues can be booked online here

That leaves just one more set of Australian dates to announce, over in Melbourne! Hopefully we'll be able to do this very soon, keep checking back here for the latest.

And thanks to Foraggio Fotographics for the image!

Exclusive UK performances by Hugh Hughes of brand new material for Invisible Town!

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant)

In my last entry, I explored Hugh Hughes’ globetrotting antics through the medium of Google Maps. But here’s some good news for those of you in the UK, who’ve been missing the award-winning Welshman. In January, you’ll be able to see Hugh performing brand new material for his new show Invisible Town!

Hugh Hughes and Hoipolloi are delighted to be returning to the National Theatre Studio, to continue working on Hugh’s new ensemble show Invisible Town. The National Theatre Studio provides writing rooms and state-of-the-art rehearsal spaces in which to develop brand new work for theatre. We spent a week there in July, which was my first experience of making professional theatre, and seeing Hugh at work was incredibly exciting!

Hugh and his collaborators will be spending a week at the Studio in December and another week there in January, with Hugh using the NTS’s writing rooms in the meantime. You can still watch Hugh and Sioned’s video diary entries from our last session at the Studio by clicking here; and here’s a video interview with Hugh where he talks about the Invisible Town project. When we head back to the Studio in December, I’ll carry on blogging from the rehearsal room and gathering more video footage to keep you up to date with everything that’s going on!

And now for the really exciting bit. At the end of the week’s work in January, Hugh will be presenting several work-in-progress performances in London, to share the work he’s done on Invisible Town with audiences for the very first time. The full-scale show isn’t expected to be ready for the stage for several years, and as Invisible Town develops, sharing the work with audiences will become an increasingly vital part of the creative process.

We’ll announce the final details of the performances very, very soon. Please do come along and support Hugh, and play a part in the shaping of his biggest, most ambitious production yet!

Hoipolloi's international touring map (calculated in smoots)

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)


View Larger Map

I admitted in a previous entry that I’m in the thrall of Google Analytics. Now Simon and I have found a new Google toy. This is a map showing all our recent international tour destinations, and where we’re going next.

It’s got all kinds of amazing features with which to wile away a Friday afternoon. I’ve discovered that Hugh Hughes’ journey from the Hoipolloi office to Singapore, and then around Australia will total 18470.1km: that’s 9973.04 nautical miles or the length of 369402 Olympic swimming pools.

Meanwhile, a USA tour of Story of a Rabbit, which we’re currently planning, could be as long as 377478 Ramsden’s chains or 6.76000e+6 smoots. (Click to find out what either of those things are. The story behind smoots is very entertaining!)

If you haven’t done so already, please have a quick look at my last blog entry about the WhatsOnStage Theatregoers’ Choice Awards. If you could spare two minutes to give us your vote, we’d be really grateful.

Have a great weekend!

Get out the vote!

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

November in Britain...

This delicately poised phrase evokes a cascade of picturesque images... of nights which begin at 4pm... of Christmas shopping... of seasonal depression... and, of course, the nominations for WhatsOnStage.com's Theatregoers' Choice Awards.

Can you guess where this post is going?

Yes, that's right, CLICK HERE (please) and vote for Hoipolloi!

Every November, What'sOnStage.com open nominations for their Theatregoers' Choice Awards. This is your opportunity to give your favourite shows the recognition they deserve.

Most of the awards only cover London theatre, so you'll obviously want to vote for Story of a Rabbit, which was staged at the Barbican's BITE Festival in June. Hugh Hughes is eligible for Best Actor, Best New Play and Best Solo Performance.

There's also an award for the best piece of regional theatre, so if you enjoyed The Doubtful Guest give us a thumbs up there too.

If you don't vote, you can't complain, so exercise your civic rights. Happy voting!

(Thanks to Pablo York for the photo!)

A Happy (Gorey) Hallowe'en

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

"He got more than the odd sideways glance and couple of strangled screams as he made his way into the busy market..."

Edward Gorey's mischievous creature has been on the loose in Leeds, as The Doubtful Guest continues to play to enthusiastic audiences at West Yorkshire Playhouse this week!

The Guest provoked a playful brand of havoc at Neil's Fruit Shop in Leeds' Kirkgate Market yesterday, helping itself to a pile of Hallowe'en pumpkins. The local press reported that "the creature speaks very little English but did explain that a lantern was all he needed to complete his crazy trick or treating costume".

They were also kind enough to point out that "Hoipolloi Theatre's The Doubtful Guest is the Hallowe'en treat for families at the Playhouse until 1 November".

The show will be staged at West Yorkshire Playhouse tonight (Friday) at 7pm and tomorrow at 1pm and 7pm, so if you're in the area, you still have a few chances to catch it! Then we'll be heading into the final week of the tour, at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff from 6 to 8 November.

In the meantime, have a very happy Hallowe'en and, wherever you are tonight, watch out for a Doubtful Guest lurking in the shadows...

A big Thank You to photographer James Hardisty for these great shots!

What a week...

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant. Hoipolloi)

Phew! Here at Hoipolloi headquarters, we’ve just about calmed down and caught up on sleep after our very busy week with The Doubtful Guest at Cambridge Arts Theatre. And what a week it was...

Six performances in just four days, and more than 1,700 people saw the show. That’s a Hoipolloi record for sure! It was wonderful to receive such great support in our home town. In the last twelve months we’ve staged Floating, Story of a Rabbit and The Doubtful Guest in Cambridge and our audiences have grown and grown. Hits from the Cambridge area on our website and this blog went through the roof last week, and we had some very favourable write-ups from the local press and the Cambridge University newspaper Varsity (articles are here and here). And The Doubtful Guest video trailer on YouTube has now been viewed over 1,000 times!

The company are enjoying a well-deserved week off at the moment, but The Doubtful Guest will be brooding in Leeds next week and Cardiff the week after that. Click here for the full tour schedule and, for good measure, here’s The Doubtful Guest video trailer one more time!

Gathering stars...

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)

Two lovely five-star reviews for The Doubtful Guest rolled in last week during our run at Cambridge Arts Theatre.

The first, from Varsity (a Cambridge University student paper) had this to say:

"Hoipolloi’s Artistic Director writes ‘we hope that age won’t matter when watching The Doubtful Guest’, and the first thing you notice in the auditorium (which you are encouraged by the cast to consider) is that all sorts of people are there. This production has something to offer each one of them, and in that single, glorious idea lies Hoipolloi’s greatest strengths – the excitement to leave no stone unturned and the ability to lever them up from every angle."

Click here for the full review!

The second, from Whatsonstage.com, was equally complimentary:

"Edward Gorey was someone about whom I knew very little; this production sends me straight to the library to find out more. Which is probably as high an accolade as you can bestow on a stage adaptation of a written work... Like all good folk legends and fairy stories, it’s for adults just as much as for youngsters. Gorey illustrated Edward Lear, and one can sense the affinity. Catch it if you can."

Click here for the full review!

Become a groupie!

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing and Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)

Good evening, ladies and gentleman blog readers. It's been a little while since I posted on here as I've handed you over to the very capable hands of my assistant David (and as he's got a first in English from Cambridge University he's far more qualified to entertain you with witty wordplay than I am!).

It's been a hectic week for everyone here at Hoipolloi.

The Doubtful Guest has been running at Cambridge Arts Theatre since Wednesday (and with three performances left, you haven't missed your opportunity to see it here just yet!). And as its our home town, we've been busy making new friends and entertaining guests.

Anyway, my reason for posting is to alert you to a brand new tool on the blog - your opportunity to become a Hoipolloi groupie! By signing up (using the link on the right-hand side), you'll be able to follow this blog closely and be automatically updated when we put up a new posting.

And this isn't the only way you can follow our activites! Why not click here to sign-up to the free Hoipolloi mailing list to receive regular emails from us or join either the Hoipolloi facebook group or the Hugh Hughes Appreciation Society.

Tonight we've got a potentially riotous company meal at CB2 (where you can also find our Hoipolloi photo exhibition) and then The Doubtful Guest moves on to Leeds (from 28 Oct to 1 Nov) and Cardiff (5 to 8 November).

Wishing you a fantastic weekend!

Spectral sounds

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

A big thank you to everyone who came to see The Doubtful Guest in Southampton last week and Plymouth the week before. We've had some very complimentary emails and posts on our Facebook Group from audience members who enjoyed the show.

At this very moment, the company are at the Cambridge Arts Theatre setting up for tonight's performance. We're delighted to be playing in our home town and we hope that The Doubtful Guest is as well received there as Floating was last December. The show runs at the Arts from Wednesday to Saturday, with matinees on Thursday and Saturday. To book tickets, click here!

If you see the show over the next few weeks in Cambridge, Leeds or Cardiff and you leave the theatre humming the haunting tunes from the show's original soundtrack, you can buy your own CD copy in the theatre foyer after the show for a measly £5. If you've seen the show already and would like a CD, just send us an email.

The soundtrack was written and recorded by the production's composer Alex Rudd, who spent the rehearsal week before the first night of the tour dashing all over the country, from our rehearsal room to his recording studio and back to his new baby, writing and recording new songs and incidental music for the show.

It's a beautiful soundtrack, perfectly suited to the eerie world of Edward Gorey! You can hear a taster in our video trailer for the show:



For the rest of The Doubtful Guest's tour dates click here. See you at the theatre soon!

Cambridge beware...

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

Our autumn tour of The Doubtful Guest kick-started in Plymouth two weeks ago, to great acclaim. Hoipolloi have staged work at the Theatre Royal’s Drum Theatre in the past but we were delighted to move upstairs into the TR’s larger main space, where the show played to extremely appreciative audiences. Here’s a very complimentary review from the opening night in Plymouth.

The show’s at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton at the moment. And those of you in Cambridge should beware: Edward Gorey’s peculiar creature will be scuttling about the Cambridge Arts Theatre next week! Hoipolloi are delighted to performing the show in our home town, at the theatre where Floating was such a great success last December. Tickets for Cambridge are available here.

After the Cambridge run, the company will have a well-deserved week off, before heading to West Yorkshire Playhouse followed by the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff. For the full tour schedule and all the box office details, click here.

See you at the theatre soon and, to whet your appetite in the meantime, scroll down for a video preview of the show!

The Guardian preview The Doubtful Guest

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

Lyn Gardner has this to say about The Doubtful Guest in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/sep/27/theatre.southlistings

The Doubtful Guest returns tonight!

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

Our autumn tour of The Doubtful Guest opens in Plymouth tonight! The curious creature will then be heading to Southampton, Cambridge, Leeds and Cardiff. Click here for the full tour schedule and box office details, and book tickets soon!

Since joining Hoipolloi in July, I’ve had a great time learning about Edward Gorey, whose book The Doubtful Guest Hoipolloi’s production is based on. Gorey’s biography is a series of curious anecdotes and eccentricities. For those who are new to the blog and my Gorey obsession, let’s have a recap...

Edward Gorey was an American author and illustrator, and he still has a cult following in the States. He produced hundreds of books, all of which exhibit a melancholic wit and a playful sense of the macabre, not unlike Edgar Allan Poe. Gorey’s stories are full of mysterious mishaps. The Gashlycrumb Tinies, for instance, is Gorey’s take on children’s alphabet stories; but in Gorey’s world, “S is for Susan who perished of fits”, whilst “T is for Titus who flew into bits”.

Gorey’s distinctive hand-drawn illustrations take the viewer into a pseudo-Gothic, Victorian world, reminiscent of Tim Burton, who acknowledges Gorey as a huge influence. The eccentric Mr. Gorey was famous for his enormous fur coats and his white plimsolls; his books feature brooding, ominous figures in similar outfits!


The Times called Hoipolloi’s version of The Doubtful Guest “a playful, accomplished piece of nonsense” and The Guardian said it “captures all the Victorian pastiche, fantastical imagination and ominous air of Gorey’s original”.

I've just come back from re-rehearsals in Plymouth and the show looks better than ever! Once again, click here for the full tour schedule. We hope to see lots of you at the theatre over the next few weeks!

And here for good measure is our trailer for the show:

The Doubtful Guest: Version 1.5

Posted by Holly Race (Assistant Director, The Doubtful Guest)

On the long train journey from Cambridge to Plymouth on Monday, I unexpectedly found myself sitting opposite an old friend. Having carried the memory of her – her physicality and personality, and how much I liked her – around with me for years, it was surprising to realise how much about her I had forgotten.

You can see where this analogy is going: walking back into the rehearsal room on Tuesday was strangely shocking.

Having worked on /The Doubtful Guest: Version 1.0/ it has been fascinating to re-visit the play and watch it change and grow over the last week. Some of my favourite moments from the original version have been reworked, and while it was a wrench to watch them go, the piece has without doubt become stronger as a result. The themes and drive behind the play are far clearer and, if possible, I have grown to love the ever-so-proper Bishop family even more.

So even if you met the Guest on its first escapade, why not come and see it again, and witness even more of the trials and troubles of the Bishop Family. If you haven’t seen it yet – you’re in for a treat!

Fresher faces in Cambridge

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

On my way home from the pub the other night, I popped into my local chip shop for some deep-fried carbohydrates, only to find this usually reputable establishment over-run with drunken school children. Upon closer inspection, said school children turned out to be rather larger than one would expect. They weren’t children at all, they were students dressed as children. Freshers’ week is upon us.

Now explain this one to me: you leave school, you leave home, you go to university in a hyperactive flurry of grown-upness... and the first thing you’re expected to do is put your school uniform back on for a Freshers’ Week “School Disco”.

There are rather a lot of students in Cambridge, making it completely normal to stumble across groups of people in silly costumes wandering the streets late at night. Pirate costumes are a popular choice in my experience, and I couldn’t approve more of such a wholesome and hearty theme. But school uniform in this post Hit Me Baby One More Time-era?

Perhaps I’m jealous. I’ve just graduated and I’m still getting to grips with being on the wrong side of the university/real-world barrier. But I’ll be returning to university spheres, for the Anglia Ruskin University Freshers’ Fayre tomorrow and the Cambridge University one in a couple of weeks.

Hoipolloi are looking forward to meeting lots of Cambridge’s newest residents. We hope that you’ll come to our stall and say hello, and that we’ll see lots of students at the Cambridge Arts Theatre for The Doubtful Guest between 15 to 18 October.

The company started re-rehearsals for The Doubtful Guest in Plymouth today and I’ll be blogging from the rehearsal room next week. In the meantime, don’t forget to book tickets for Plymouth, Southampton, Cambridge, Leeds or Cardiff! All the tour dates and box office details are here. Book soon!

“Obsessed by what? Ourselves, I expect.”

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

When Edward Gorey, author of The Doubtful Guest, arrived at Harvard in 1946 as a fresh-faced freshman, he found himself sharing a room with a man who would become one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated poets: Frank O’Hara.

By the time O’Hara died prematurely in 1966, he had cemented his reputation as a bold and inventive writer at the forefront of what is now called the New York School of poetry. Like Gorey, O’Hara had rather a lot of strings to his bow. As well as writing, he devoted a significant portion of his career to visual art. He worked at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) until he died, he was close friends with painters including Jackson Pollock and his writing reflects a fascination with Surrealism and Dadaism. He was also an accomplished pianist and he referred to writing as “playing the typewriter”!

This inter-disciplinary approach, combining text, visual art and music, perhaps stemmed from his university days with Gorey, where students were encouraged to see themselves as “artists”, rather than restricting themselves to one medium. This approach is evident in Gorey’s work too.

Over the course of his life, O’Hara became a famed socialite, mixing in circles with painters, jazz musicians, writers, dancers and aesthetes. And all this started in the Harvard dorm he shared with Edward Gorey.

O’Hara and Gorey have been described as a “noticeable odd couple on campus”. They bonded over their love of stylised English writers like Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett, a passion for foreign films and trips to the ballet. They hosted innumerable parties, where guests would lounge on rented garden furniture, drinking, arguing and listening to Marlene Dietrich records. It was here that Gorey began illustrations which would later appear in his books.

Together O’Hara and Gorey founded the Poets Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gorey designed programs and posters and O’Hara wrote experimental new plays. In an interview, Gorey said of the period: “We were all obsessed. Obsessed by what? Ourselves, I expect.”

Over time, O’Hara’s rambunctious social life became too much for the reclusive Edward Gorey and the pair drifted. But that’s probably a good thing, because it gave Gorey time to write The Doubtful Guest, which Hoipolloi have adapted for stage.

Did I mention that The Doubtful Guest’s autumn tour kicks off in just over a fortnight? It’s coming to Plymouth, Southampton, Cambridge, Leeds and Cardiff. Click here for the full tour schedule and book soon because tickets are selling fast!

Can you explain the ascendance of Ogdred Weary?

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

There’s a clever thing called Google Analytics which tells me exactly how many people have looked at this blog. Because I’m a narcissist, I check it most days and I was surprised and delighted to find that after my last post, the numbers rocketed up.

Naturally, I assumed that I’d tapped into a vast and devoted Sesame Street fan base. But Google Analytics is so very clever, that it was able to tell me that the hits had all come from people in the USA googling “Ogdred Weary”, one of Edward Gorey’s pseudonyms, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. (Click here to have a look.)

If anyone in America can tell us why this is, please tell us! Was it a crossword clue, a reference in a TV programme...? There’s a sweepstake going in the Hoipolloi office so do put us out of our misery. Email david@hoipolloi.org.uk

If you read the post, you’ll know that Gorey used the pseudonym Ogdred Weary for his “pornographic work” The Curious Sofa. And yes... there was a hit from someone searching for porn. “Pornographic theatre video”, to be precise. The mind boggles.

Mystery, missing toast and Sesame Street...

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

A friend of mine, when aged about three, accidentally stabbed herself with a pin and needed several stitches. But despite being in immense pain and bleeding all over the sofa, she didn’t find the time to tell either of her parents until that day’s episode of Sesame Street was over. Even three year olds know how to prioritise.

If you’re vaguely the same age as me, or if you have children who are, Sesame Street should be etched into your memory as a daily slice of televised joy which, at that age, was enough to make the world seem entirely happy and complete.

And do you remember Vincent Twice, who always said his name twice and hosted a segment called Mysterious Theatre? What British viewers probably didn’t know was that Mysterious Theatre was a spoof of long-running American TV show Mystery! (yes, it’s always spelt with an exclamation mark) which tells detective stories featuring familiar characters like Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes.

Mystery!’s animated opening sequences were created by none other than Edward Gorey, the cult author and illustrator whose book The Doubtful Guest Hoipolloi have adapted for stage. Gorey is famous for his playfully macabre, pseudo-Gothic-Victorian visual style which Tim Burton, amongst others, acknowledges as a huge influence on his own work.

Here’s one of Gorey’s truly wonderful Mystery! intro sequences:




And just for good measure, here’s an episode of Sesame Street’s Mystery Theatre, in which Sherlock Holmes investigates the case of The Missing Toast!




Funnily enough, having spoofed Edward Gorey on Sesame Street, Jim Henson Productions have recently announced that they'll be making a Muppets-style film of The Doubtful Guest.

Meanwhile, Hoipolloi's autumn tour of The Doubtful Guest kicks off in less than three weeks. Tickets are selling fast, so if you haven’t yet booked for Plymouth, Southampton, Cambridge, Leeds or Cardiff, get in quick! The full tour schedule and all box office details can be found here.


Finally, here’s a trailer for The Doubtful Guest to whet your appetite.

Floating off to Australia

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

Since his first ever theatre performance, in Belfast in 2005, Hugh Hughes has made connections all over the world. He’s already ticked Colombia, New York, Moscow and Helsinki off his list of places to visit, and now Hugh is looking forward to performing on a fourth continent.

In March 2009, he’ll be flying to Australia for a five-week tour, which will include eleven performances of Floating at perhaps the most famous performing arts centre in the world: Sydney Opera House!

The Sydney Opera House was designed by Danish architect, Jørn Uzton, who won an open competition in 1955. There was a slight hitch though: Uzton designed a building which, at the time, nobody knew how to build. The concrete shells, or “white sails”, which make the building so distinctive caused a lot of headaches during the early stages of the project. Between 1957 and 1963, at least twelve different versions of the design were created before an affordable and feasible solution was found. Needless to say, almost everyone who worked on the project, from Uzton himself to the tea boy, claims to be able to remember the “eureka” moment and more often than not tries to take credit for discovering it. It’s still unknown where exactly the solution came from.

Despite being a hive of culture, a cursory glance at the internet demonstrates that Sydney Opera House attracts some really tacky merchandising... Here you can send an “animated” Sydney Opera House e-postcard. Not exactly Harry Potter-esque levels of photo animation, you’ll agree. And the photograph top left seems to be of the Sydney Opera House mid-apocalypse. This is a nice little video of the Opera House, taken from the sea, but turn the volume down... what an odd soundtrack to choose. And finally, a Sydney Opera House “joke” I found on the web:

-What powerful reptile is found in the Sydney Opera House?
-The Lizard of Oz!

(If you’re struggling to get that one, as I did for a while, it might help to know that you could replace Sydney Opera House with the name of any other place in Australia. Or with “Australia”.)
But amongst all the tat, I’ve found two wonderful items: here you can download and print all you need to make a paper model of Sydney Opera House! And here’s a second one, designed by a man who calls himself “Papermeister Dooney”.

It’s Friday afternoon, so I can’t possibly be expected to do any more work this week. I suspect the rest of my day will be spent with a furrowed brow and my tongue poking out of the corner of my mouth, wrestling with fold lines and Pritt Stick, until my paper Sydney Opera House is complete. Papermeister Dooney, I salute you.

With thanks to Sir Mervs for the photo!

The Hanging

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

I usually need a bucket or two of coffee before I get started on a Monday morning, and this morning’s Monday morning start was even earlier than usual. Luckily, I was at CB2 cafe in Cambridge, so there was no shortage of caffeinated beverages; and after a bleary start, I was able to begin hanging a Hoipolloi exhibition, which will be on show at CB2 until the end of October.

Sadly, I have few practical skills and little to no common sense. On one occasion, I spent a good fifteen minutes looking first at a picture, then at a nail on the wall, then back to the picture, trying to work out how the two could be united. A reel of hanging wire eventually provided the solution, although this triangular approach (picture, nail, wire...) made me feel a little dizzy at first.

The exhibition showcases photographs of almost fifteen years of Hoipolloi productions, including The Doubtful Guest and Hugh Hughes’ productions, as well some of Hoipolloi’s much earlier shows. The photographs were taken by Richard Heeps and Geraint Lewis. Richard is an old friend of the company and a widely acclaimed photographer, who has published five books of his work. Geraint is an extremely well established theatre photographer, who takes pictures for The Independent, The Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Times, as well as the Royal National Theatre and numerous West End productions.

Most of the photographs are for sale, so if you want a Hugh Hughes print or a picture of the Doubtful Guest on your wall, head for CB2! We should also point out that even when it isn’t being colonised by Hoipolloi, CB2 is a great place to eat and drink. We’ve had lots of delicious company meals there over the years. It’s on Norfolk Street in Cambridge, fairly close to the Grafton shopping centre and Anglia Ruskin University. (Click here for a map.)

Finally, a reminder that The Doubtful Guest is going back out on tour in October and November! The show will be heading to Plymouth, Southampton, Cardiff, Leeds and Cambridge. Click here for the full list of tour dates, and don’t forget to book tickets soon!


http://www.cb2bistro.com/
http://www.richardheeps.co.uk/
http://www.geraintlewis.com/

Video interview with Hugh Hughes

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

After a gentle summer lull, things are getting busy again at the Hoipolloi office. The Doubtful Guest is going back on the road in October and November: you can find all the tour dates here. We’re also preparing to mount an exhibition at CB2 café in Cambridge in September. It will feature work by renowned photographers Geraint Lewis and Richard Heeps, who have been photographing Hoipolloi shows since the company was founded almost fifteen years ago. Most of the work will be for sale, so if you want a Hugh Hughes print or a picture of The Doubtful Guest on your wall, head for CB2! The exhibition starts Monday, 1st September.

In the last blog post, Simon told us about his trip to Helsinki with Hugh Hughes. Just before they left for the airport, Hugh was in the office, and I grabbed him for a moment, sat him in front of a video camera and conducted an interview for your collected viewing pleasures.

In the first video, Hugh talks about how he came to make his award-winning show Floating, how he met Sioned Rowlands at a voice workshop in Romania and how he hopes his shows will help people make connections. In the second part, Hugh talks about his next show Invisible Town, Heidegger and his mother’s garden shed. Enjoy!

Part 1:



Part 2:

Rabbiting around in Helsinki

Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)

It's Monday evening and I'm now back home after my trip over to Helsinki with Hugh and Aled. Although international touring is exhausting in its planning, the pay-off of actually travelling out to the final destination is almost always worth the effort.

And Helsinki definitely didn't disappoint, with plenty of interesting stories to share!

The trip commenced on Thursday last week with a very early flight out of Heathrow (we checked in at 6am) with the delightful Finnair. Perhaps the most bizarre part of the flight was the addition of a CCTV camera at the front of the plane, giving us first a pilot's eye and then a bird's eye view of take-off and landing. It's actually quite fun to see the world become minature as the plane climbs up into the clouds but I'm not so sure I wanted to see us zoom down the runway and I definitely didn't enjoy seeing the pilot's (increasingly erratic) attempts to line us up with the runway to prepare for touch-down!

Over in Helsinki, the company were performing at Korjaamo, a new(-ish) theatre in the city. Actually to describe it as a theatre is a complete underestimation of what takes place there - it's actually a converted tram depot, with two gallery spaces, two theatres, a trendy bar, a delicious restaurant, a tram museum and even a TV studio (I think I made it onto Sub, a Finnish TV channel one night - in the background behind a continuity announcement!).

Anyway, I made this little video, which will give you a slightly better sense of the space we were performing in...



I think that Hugh and Aled were really happy with the show. It's always tricky to work out whether people outside the UK will totally understand and respond to the show in the same way but it's always fun/interesting to see what happens!

Our time at Korjaamo was part of their STAGE Festival, which in turn was part of the wider Helsinki Festival. With the city in a truly cultural mood, we found art popping up in lots of random places and on Friday evening, we were entertained by numerous choirs (including a group of Helsinki's policewomen) everywhere we went. They were at Korjaamo and even at a restaurant where we ate that night. The brochure for this mini-festival also provided us with our other entertainment for the evening - reading the different English translations of the copy...

For example, how do you fancy seeing some...

"Elderly young people pull solid rock songs about streetcars amd [sic] booze-vapored moments of enlightment"

or how about...

"The best female vocalists sing their audience into oblivion"

or my favourite...

"Love poems and sounds of liking a special person"

Actually I shouldn't mock too much as Finnish people speak far far better English than my very poor attempts at basic Finnish! I think I managed only to master "thank you" or "kiitos".

And it is a big "kiitos" to Raoul and all the staff at Korjaamo for inviting us over to Helsinki and making us feel so welcome.

Finally, as a way of bringing my trip neatly to a close and in tribute to the tram depot that hosted us for a few days, the final leg of the journey back to my flat in England was made by tram. Although this time sadly from the far less glamorous location of Croydon!

Hoipolloi elsewhere on the web...

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

I've just given our MySpace page a long overdue update and created a Hoipolloi Facebook Group to complement the Hugh Hughes Appreciation Society.

If you'd like to join either of the groups or add us as a friend on MySpace please feel free to click the links above. (It'd be great if you could write on the Facebook wall too, at the moment it's depressingly bare!)

Don't forget that you can subscribe to this Blog by clicking on the menu to the right. And if you haven't done so already, have a look at our YouTube channel for video previews of The Doubtful Guest and interviews and backstage footage with Hugh Hughes.

Some Facts

Posted by David Ralfe (Marketing & Admin. Assistant, Hoipolloi)

Things are pretty quiet in the Hoipolloi office at the moment. Steffi Muller, our Associate Director, is away in Edinburgh performing with our friends Menagerie. (Click here for details of the show, Correspondence.) In fact, I’m the only person I know who isn’t going to the Fringe this year. And in the meantime, whilst everyone else in Theatre-land is busy at the Festival, the phone here is quiet and my inbox is empty.

To pass the time, I’ve been learning about Helsinki. That’s because on Thursday Hugh Hughes and Aled will be flying out to Finland to perform Story of a Rabbit at the Korjaamo Culture Factory. The set and lots of our technical equipment is already on its way and I had a great time rummaging around the Hoipolloi store last week, until Richard, our Production Manager, forced me to stop exploring and do back-breaking labour while we packed up the freight. (The Story of a Rabbit set is really heavy.)

Anyway, before we go into Fun Facts About Finland, I should say a couple of things:

1) I have learned everything I’m about to tell you from the internet and Wikipedia. It may or may not actually be true.

2) A lot of the aforementioned websites preface their facts with the adjective “fun” and, frankly, they don’t deliver. I don’t consider statistics pertaining to population demographics to be fun. Nor is the fact that the country’s dialling code is 358. By contrast, my Finnish Facts will be 100% Funtastic.


FACT 1:
Helsinki? More like HELLsinki. Such was the outrage when “hard rock quintet” Lordi bagged Finland’s first ever Eurovision victory in 2006. The group is fronted by the inimitable Mr. Lordi. Past band members with amusing names include a bassist named G-Stealer. Apparently he was kicked out of the band because he kept stealing all the G’s from the band’s alphabet fridge magnet set.

FACT 2:
There’s a statue of a super-sexy mermaid in the market square in Helsinki. On the 1st of May every year, students gather round the statue to celebrate the arrival of Spring. (And to stare at a sexy mermaid, probably.) The statue hasn’t always been popular though. When it was unveiled in 1908, women’s rights groups protested that it objectified women. Two years previously, women in Finland had been granted the vote: that’s 20 years before the same happened in this country. (Wow, those Scandinavians are progressive.)

FACT 3:
The city’s animal symbol is a squirrel.


Well, I'm sure you all got a lot out of that.

Let's finish with a video of Lordi, performing their song, Would You Love a Monsterman?