A new face and a new diary date

My first day working with Hoipolloi and I turned up drenched in a mixture of rain and sweat - not a great start. The rain had hit me getting off the train in Cambridge (not in Hull - a place you’d think would get more rain - when I set off in the morning), and the sweat was because it was warm rain. Mmm. By the way, I'm Richard – nice to meet you.

This Hoipolloi blog is usually written by producer Simon and the company’s intern, which - as of yesterday - is me. Hello. Over the next year or so I’m going to be getting stuck into how a real theatre company works, and it’s all very exciting. Even more exciting than today’s first task...searching through roughly 1,200 spam e-mails (who knew there were so many cheap and easy ways to improve your sex life, or that you could get a Masters degree just by phoning someone up?). But yesterday I did get to send letters to Kevin Spacey, Cate Blanchett and Lord Neil Kinnock, so that was good. Anyway, I'm/we're looking forward to giving you little insights into what Hoipolloi and Hugh Hughes are up to over the next few months. Hopefully I'll/we'll do it as well as Marieke did.

In other news...

For weeks now Simon’s been teasing us all by dangling in our faces the prospect of future performance dates for Hugh Hughes. He’s been drip-feeding details of upcoming performances in Canada (at Vancouver’s PuSH International Performing Arts Festival, in Victoria and the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto) and, of course, Hugh’s residency at London’s Barbican, in The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes.

But now, there’s another exciting date. The lovely people over at the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival have announced their line-up for next year’s festival (you can find it here: http://bit.ly/bVfytm) - and it features our very own Hugh Hughes. Hugh will be performing all three of his shows in October, at the Smock Alley Theatre, and he’s really looking forward to it. So, if you happen to be in or near Dublin in October (or know someone who is), check out those shows (or tell those people to).

Posted by Richard (Marketing & Admin Assistant, Hoipolloi)

Thanks to Infomatique for this picture of a green(!) Irish postbox - it reminds me of Hull's white phone boxes

A Canadian Adventure

Last week, during my announcement of The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes, I promised to make further exciting proclamations, particularly to those from further afield. And so as part of my contract to fulfill this promise I bring you news that Hugh Hughes will be seeking out new audiences in Canada!

Hugh's never visited Canada before but is immensely excited (as am I) to be introducing his work to and making even more connections with people across the world.

For this visit, he'll only be taking his very first show, Floating. It sort of sounds disappointing when I say it like that (as opposed to the Barbican run where you'll be able to feast on all three shows), but undoubtedly they'll be opportunities for a return visit to share the others too.
I can't quite believe that Floating first hit the stage way back in 2005 (not long after I started working for Hoipolloi) and five years later it's going from strength to strength.

The tour commences in January 2011 with performances as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver (we're playing at the Arts Club Theatre Company's Revue Stage) followed by a trip over to Victoria (details to come shortly) and finally a visit to Toronto's Harbourfront Centre from 15 to 19 February.

At the moment, tickets for our Vancouver run are only available to anyone purchasing an Arts Club season ticket but tickets are on general sale from 3 August (so that gives you a few weeks notice!). Tickets are already on sale in Toronto and booking details can be found here.

I'm amused to be sharing dates for 2011 already (especially as you're not yet able to book tickets for dates in October here in the UK) but if you know anyone in Vancouver, Victoria or Toronto, start spreading the news today!

Posted by Simon Bedford (Producer, Hoipolloi)
And thanks to Rick Harris for the beautiful picture!

Going orange for the weekend

As it's last thing on a Friday afternoon, I thought I'd provide you with some highly topical weekend entertainment. You may remember a few weeks back that Marieke did her best to shoe horn a story about the world cup onto our blog. Some may have called it a form of 'ambush blogging'!

What neither Marieke or I knew at the time was that we had a highly legitimate Hoipolloi / World Cup story to share with you!

And here it is...

Some of you may remember Ben Frimston from his appearances in our shows (including The Doubtful Guest) and also an ongoing series of entries on this blog highlighting a variety of adverts that he's appeared in, from Burger King to the now infamous Rowntree's Randoms advert.

He's actually currently appearing in a new advert, but you'd be forgiven for not having seen it unless you live in the Netherlands.

So this is where this post finally gets highly topical. First off, let's actually see the advert we're talking about:



And now you'll begin to understand the topicality.

Those of you following the World Cup may remember a story a few weeks back where a group of young ladies were ejected from a stadium and subsequently arrested for a cunning piece of ambush marketing whilst dressed in bright orange dresses. They were basically advertising a Dutch beer called Bavaria. And this is the same company that Ben is advertising in the advert above! In fact, I believe this advert is the first appearance of the infamous orange dress the girls were wearing.

I'm sure you all know that Holland have reached the final and as Marieke and I both have Dutch heritage (although Marieke can actually speak the language), we'll be cheering for them on Sunday.

Who do you want to win?

I was slightly disheartened to hear that Paul, the score-predicting Octopus, had plumped for a Spanish victory although I'm also reliably informed that there's a parrot in Singapore who's put his money on the Dutch.

So will it be the octopus or the parrot who gets it right?

Posted by Simon Bedford (Producer, Hoipolloi)
And thanks to TwicePix for the image

A very big Hugh Hughes announcement

I've some big exciting news to announce but before I do, I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who contacted me last week regarding our research into your experiences of seeing Hugh's shows.

I hadn't quite expected so many of you to be in touch! I hope I've replied to everyone's emails by now - it was exciting to speak to those of you who I had time to call and to all of the others, I hope to be in touch again in the coming months.

And now to the big announcement!

Hugh Hughes is returning to London's Barbican Centre. And this time he's not just bringing Floating, Story of a Rabbit OR 360. He's bringing ALL three!

Louise Jeffreys, the Barbican's Head of Theatre, has been a great supporter of Hugh's work since his first Edinburgh run in 2006 and last year, she offered The Pit to Hugh for the whole of September. He's decided to create a residency project, bringing Floating, Story of a Rabbit and 360 together and call it...

The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes

The residency, whic has been co-commissioned by the Barbican will contain all three shows, which you'll either be able to see individually during the week or in one big tasty gulp on Saturdays.

And that's not all!

Every Thursday evening, as an juicy treat following performances of 360 you'll be able to enjoy a special additional extra. This includes a visit with Hugh around the John Bock exhibition, the opportunity to enter Hugh's development space with Stories from an Invisible Town and finally a brand new documentary film called Hugh Hughes: How I Got Here.

And that's still not all!

In September, we'll be launching the Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes online. A brand new site that will provide an digital fabularium of content created by Hugh. This ranges from diary entries from the past few years, sneaky peaks backstage or just random ideas that have come into Hugh's head.

This is what Hugh has to say:
"It's really exciting to have this opportunity to share my stories with you. Come and join me. Share the fun. It might put a spring in your step."

Now that I've whetted your appetite, here's the science bit.

Performances take place from Wednesday 8 September until Saturday 2 October. The schedule is as follows:

Floating: 14, 21, 28 Sept at 7.45pm (Tuesdays during the run)
Story of a Rabbit: 15, 22, 29 Sept at 7.45pm (Wednesdays during the run)
360: 8, 9, 16, 23, 30 Sept at 7.45pm (Thursdays during the run plus one extra Wednesday!)
Full trilogy: 11, 18, 25 Sept & 2 Oct from 2pm (Saturdays during the run)

Tickets cost £15 each or £33 to see all three shows on Saturdays and are available from the Barbican.

Fear not if you don't live in London or can't make the trip there. We'll be announcing two further residencies in major cities in Scotland and the Republic of Ireland in the next month (that's s big a hint as to where we might be heading as I'm currently allowed to give!).

I'm really excited that we've been able to work with Hugh to make this all work. We'll be drip-feeding through more and more information over the next couple of months as there's plenty on offer to all of our audiences, wherever in the world you happen to be based, over the next few years.

See you in London!

Posted by Simon Bedford (Producer, Hoipolloi)