I'm very proud to announce that Hugh Hughes won Best Scripted Comedy Drama at the BBC Audio Drama Awards last night. It's a real honour, particularly as Floating was both Hugh's first live show and his first work to be broadcast on the radio.
Andrew Davies, who wrote the TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, was one of the judges in Hugh's category and this is what he had to say about Floating:
"Floating
was totally original. Generally I hate fantasy, but this was very different,
somehow sweetly earnest as well as daft, with sadness at the heart of it. I
loved it that it had a cast of two, and I’d never heard of either of them. It
used the radio medium with enormous (concealed) sophistication and reminded one
of the almost limitless power of radio to create a world."
The award itself was presented by actor Richard Wilson and, as you can see from the photo, Hugh also met David Tennant who was master of ceremonies.
It being radio awards, someone sneakily managed to record some audio of Hugh on stage...
Hoipolloi are excited to announce that Floating has been adapted into a radio play, to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Friday 9 September at 2.15pm.
Floating (and Hugh Hughes) have been on an incredible journey since the very first performance of the show at the Old Museum Arts Centre in Belfast on 12 September 2005.
I remember that day very vividly - it was part of the first tour I ever booked for the company. It was a pleasure to witness how the audience were delightfully confused and excited by the story unfolding in front of them. And that first show last well over 2 hours!Having started at Hoipolloi at the beginning of 2005, it’s been a real pleasure to share in the successful journey of this show. From its simple beginnings in Belfast, to a rewarding run at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006 (winning a Total Theatre Award) and performances at London’s Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House and most recently a trip to Canada (visiting Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto).We really hope you’ll be able to tune in and listen to this new version of the show. And please share the news with your friends and family too.You’ll also notice some brand new dates in the performance calendar. These include a brief visit to London’s Roundhouse with Floating and 360. These performances are taking place in the Roundhouse’s studio, which has a very limited capacity so if you want to come, I’d advise booking early.Posted by Simon Bedford (Executive Producer, Hoipolloi)
With thanks to machoismtango for the image
Hello! I hope you enjoyed Saint David’s Day yesterday. Or the day of Dewi Sant, as we call him in Wales.
A big part of my shows is about meeting people and making connections with them. If you’ve seen one of my shows, maybe Hugh Hughes in...Floatingor Hugh Hughes in...360, you’ll know that I like to get the audience involved a little bit. I like us all to have a nice time together. We are sharing a space together, after all, and we might as well enjoy our time together, in that space, together.
The purpose of this blog post here is for me to invite you to come and share some time and space with me again. Or maybe even for the first time. You never know, it might just put a spring in your step.
If you’ve seen one of my shows before, you might like to know that I’m performing all three of them in March and May this year. So you could come and see one that you haven’t seen yet, perhaps, or remind yourself of one that you have seen. If you enjoyed it and you know someone else who might like it too, why not bring them along and introduce us all to each other?
15 –19 March at the Drum Theatre in Plymouth (tickets on 01752 267 222 or here) 22 – 26 March at The Junction in Cambridge (tickets on 01223 511 511 here) 17 – 21 May at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds (tickets on 0113 213 7700 or here)
Sometimes people contact me through my website saying ‘Hugh, I really wish I’d brought my sister/brother/friend/mum/dad along to see your show, I think he/she would have really loved it, but we’ve missed our chance now’.
Well, you still have the chance to make sure your sister/brother/friend/mum/dad does see the show!
I’d love to see you in Plymouth, Cambridge or Leeds – so why not come and see me, and bring a friend along!
As you may already know, Hugh Hughes is touring his theatre show, Floating, in Canada at the moment. He was very excited to catch the plane over this weekend, and he’s already been reporting back to us here in the UK with stories of his adventures – more of those at a later date.
If you’ve already discovered Hugh Hughes at a theatre performance in Canada (or anywhere else, for that matter), and just want to find out a bit more about him, then why not have a look at his new website? It’s something he’s been working very hard on, so that you can use it alongside his live theatre performances and find out what he’s up to when he’s not performing Floating.
Hugh very much hopes you’ll delve deeper in to his Wonderful World and that you and he can become that little bit more connected.
If you haven’t come across a Hugh Hughes theatre show before, and you’re in Canada, then this is the perfect opportunity to discover our charming Welsh friend. Floating will be performed in three different Canadian cities through January and February, in a tour covering British Columbia and Ontario.
Vancouver, BC, part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, with the Arts Club Theatre Company 20th January – 5th February Details here.
Victoria, BC, at the Intrepid Theatre 10th and 11th February Details here.
Toronto, Ontario, at the Harbourfront Centre 15th – 19th February Details here.
This picture comes from Hugh's flickr stream - there are more photographic snippets of Hugh's life on there.
To celebrate his arrival in London, Hugh has launched his own brand new website and he'd love to share it with you. It can be found at www.hughhughes.me
Thank you to everyone who's paid a visit to the site so far, we're really excited that we've been able to work with Hugh to create it. Over time, it'll become both a vast archive of the Hugh's journey as an emerging artist and also a place for a whole host of new content for you to enjoy.
It's been a busy month, hence the lack of posting here since the 13 August!
The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes has opened at London's Barbican Centre to great critical acclaim and we've had the very first screening of Hugh's brand new film - How I Got Here.
Here's some of what the press has been saying:
"If there's a friendlier, more engaging character in contemporary British theatre than Hughes, I've yet to meet him" The Times (reviewing 360)
"An infectious enthusiasm that radiates warmth like a homely coal fire." The Stage (reviewing The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes)
"Just the tonic for the cynicism and drudgery of London" Time Out, Show of the Week (4stars)
And also, if you're in Cambridge this Sunday (19 Sept, 6pm, Cambridge Arts Picturehouse), Hugh will be introducing a screening of How I Got Here as part of Cambridge Film Festival. This will be a special moment as it's the first time that Hugh's work has been included in a non-theatre festival.
And to celebrate that fact, he's an exclusive clip from the film...
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.
Wow, what an amazing weekend that was (obviously ignoring the football result!). I hope you had as much fun as I did. The weather was glorious and I took my very first trip to Anglesey to meet up with Hugh Hughes and see his homeland.
Before I talk more about the weekend, I should first explain that now Marieke has left us, I (as in Simon, Hoipolloi's Producer) will be the main voice on here for the next few weeks whilst I await the arrival of Marieke's replacements.
Anyway, back to my travels...
It's strange that since I first joined Hoipolloi in 2005, I've spent most of that time talking about Anglesey and yet I had never actually once visited the place. But this weekend that all changed and I had a special guided tour of all the places that had previously only existed in my imagination.
I crossed the now fully reconstructed Menai Bridge (after it's collapse in Floating), I went to Llangefni and saw the house that Hugh grew up in and the church where Hugh's father died (as described in Story of a Rabbit). Perhaps most excitingly, particularly for 360 fans, I also saw the river where Hugh and Gareth built their dams (as pictured here).
It was a delight to see these places and have them leap into reality, suddenly become vividly alive in my mind. It's deepened my connection to the shows and brought the world of Hugh even closer.
And now we need your help to discover our audience's experiences of the work of Hugh Hughes.
This weekend has been just one of many exciting experiences of Hugh Hughes over the past five years. And now we'd like to understand more about your experiences of Hugh.
We're currently conducting some research into our audiences and are looking for some volunteers who might be willing to offer us up to about 30mins of time to chat about what they think of Hugh Hughes and their experiences of seeing his work.
You'll need to be:
It's last minute but you'll need to be available for a 30min conversation (probably by phone) at some point between today and this Thursday (1 July).
Have seen at least one (but preferably more) of Hugh Hughes' shows - Floating, Story of a Rabbit, 360 (or indeed in development projects such as Invisible Town or In Rehearsal).
If you're interested in helping us out, please email your contact details, including a phone number, to me via this address simonb@hoipolloi.org.uk.
As I'm looking for a real cross-section of people, it would be great if you could include your age (or I'll also accept a rough age bracket if you'd prefer!).
Not quite sure how the response to this request will go but I promise I'll respond to everyone who emails in to let them know whether we'll need to talk to them or not.
I look forward to hopefully talking to some of you very soon!
Finally, we've made it to the end of the week and the end of the year! A huge thank you to everyone who's seen a Hoipolloi show this year. And if you've missed anything, you can read about it in part one, part two, part three and part four!
OCTOBER October was the changing rooms month when we switched everything around in the office. This involved some fun day trips, including one to the dump. It was here that Simon and I rescued the following books from the paper recycling bin: Sebastian Faulks' Charlotte Gray; Industry and Empire by E.J. Hobsbawn; The Path to Genocide by Christopher R. Browning; Safe Outback Travel by Jack Absalom and The Holocaust in History by Michael R. Marrus.
NOVEMBER Hugh toured Story of a Rabbit with Aled, and learnt to tweet. I’ve never seen anyone throw themselves into twitter with such enthusiasm. Do check out our twitter stream for Hugh’s wonderful musings.
While Hugh was obsessed with twitter, my attention was focused on Cate Blanchett’s dress and my appetite was mainly keen on cake.
Oh, and the reason I mentioned Cate Blanchett's dress was because we won another award! Floating picked up Best Live Theatre from Australia's The Age paper.
DECEMBER
The best thing to have happened so far this month has to have to been the announcement that 360 will be touring in the New Year – Sydney, Oxford and Liverpool, prepare yourselves!
If you haven't seen it already, we've prepared this little trailer for the show!
As well as getting everything sorted for the tour, Simon and I were involved in the 24 Hour Plays at the ADC, which was a lot of fun indeed. And Simon's spent several occasions this year telling our arts world colleagues about we keep up communcation with you guys via the internet. As you can see it’s been a great year for Hoipolloi and we’d like to thank you all for reading the blog, seeing the shows, sending us emails and generally being fantastic. And to sing out the year in good cheer, and in the absence of the Hoipolloi staff doing so, here are the muppets (with the help of John Denver) to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Posted by Marieke Audsley (Marketing & Admin Assistant, Hoipolloi). Thanks to G-hat for the photo.
Welcome to day two of our special round up of 2009, undoubtedly Hoipolloi's busiest ever year. I worked out earlier that this year we've worked on 5 full shows plus 1 show in development and 1 mini-project. Wow! And if you missed it, part one of our round-up is here.
APRIL
Still on tour and making new discoveries…Simon made a note of all of the places in Tasmania which have connections to the UK: Brighton, Kettering, Launceston, Tamar, Swansea, Melton Mowbray, Richmond, Ross.
Although there was also plenty of fun to be had back in Cambridge, especially with Steffi’s word of the week podcast. One of the highlights was ‘truculent’, which apparently Steffi originally associated with truffles and toffee. Yum!
Amazing April also saw the 100th blog post, and Hugh announced the title for his new show…360.
As if all this wasn’t enough, Hoipolloi took part in the Made In England celebrations for St George’s Day. Made In England was a special artistic adventure assembled by the BBC and Arts Council England, which took place all over the country on Thursday 23rd April.
Hoipolloi led The Full English, which involved a performance in front of Milton Keynes Theatre, a double-decker bus journey to Luton, performances on a commuter train travelling from Luton to St. Pancras and a final performance at St. Pancras itself, alongside a choir of school children singing a new national anthem composed for the day.
MAY
This was the month when David’s post was advertised as up for grabs and I got terribly excited and wrote a letter begging Hoipolloi to pick me. I thought I’d scuppered my chances when I had to ask to move my interview date due to one of my final exams. Luckily Simon, Louise and David very kindly let me come on another day.
I was so nervous that as I crossed the road to get to the office I tripped over on my brand new shoes, looking like a fool in front of all of the pedestrians on Mill Road. Oops. Although I must have done something right in the interview as a few weeks later Simon rang to offer me the job. Hurrah!
While Simon, Louise and David were busy interviewing keen beans like me, Hugh and Aled were wowing audiences with Story of a Rabbit. They got some lovely reviews, too. The Charleston SC Newspaper's review described the show as one "that links the audience together with laughter, song and tears" whilst the Charleston City Paper enthused, "you're going to be talking about how inventive and charming it is for the rest of the festival."
Posted by Marieke Audsley (Marketing & Admin Assistant, Hoipolloi). Thanks to Ansik for the photo
Welcome to the Hoipolloi Advent Blog! It is the final week in the office before we all take a break to enjoy the delights of Christmas and New Year so we thought we should do something special.
Instead of five gold rings, you get five blog posts this week. Lucky you! As it is the end of the year I thought it would be fitting to do a nice little round up of 2009. Of course I only joined the team in August, so I have trawled through all of David’s posts from January to July in order to get the low down on all of the exciting things that happened before I rocked up. So this is in effect, the Hoipolloi blog 2009 ‘digested’; if you didn’t get a chance to follow the whole thing this year, then do not despair, the key events will be reported right here...
JANUARY
Hugh was a busy bee performing The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes at The Junction in Cambridge. We are big fans of The Junction here at Hoipolloi and we can highly recommend Gomito’s Christmas show, A Merry Little Christmas, which is being performed there at the mo.
Hugh also performed sneak previews of his new show Invisible Town at the Barbican in London. As I wasn’t there I’m afraid I can’t fill you in on the intimate details of the performance. Although I will take this opportunity to say how much I enjoy following the yellow line which takes you from the tube station to the Barbican. It always makes me feel a little bit like Dorothy following the yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz.
FEBRUARY
February was a month of great adventures with Hugh, Aled and Sioned flying to Singapore, where Hugh and Aled performed Story of a Rabbit at the National Museum. Meanwhile, back in Blighty, Shon starred in a Radio 4 documentary about limericks. The show was put together by the performance poet John Hegley. John introduced Shon with the following lovely lines...
Shon Dale-Jones Who write and directs and who hones Works for the stage Which inform and engage And his company Hoipolloi have used some of Edward lear's limericks in the creation of a biographical drama.
MARCH
More exciting travels for the gang, with performances across Australia, including Floating at the incredible Sydney Opera House. At the same time, we revived the classic My Uncle Arly in London and Los Angeles and ended up with a time where both shows were on stage at exactly the same time!
When Hugh and the crew zipped over to Melbourne they experienced an earthquake during the tech rehearsal of Floating. Luckily it was only a little one, lasting for about thirty seconds but poor Tom was caught up on a rickety balcony at the time.
To round things off, here's a video of Hugh Hughes' day trip to Anglesea (that's the one near Melbourne, Australia and not Hugh's homeland in Wales!). We'll see you back here tomorrow for the next installment...
Posted by Marieke Audsley (Marketing & Admin Assistant, Hoipolloi). Thanks to Jerry 7171 for the photo
Today I received the very exciting news that we've won another award! Hugh and Sioned have been rewarded for their travels down to Melbourne with Floating by being named Best Live Theatre in The Age newspaper's inaugural M-ie Awards.
The awards were announced back on the 8 November but I've only just received word from our friends at the fantastic Arts House, who were our generous hosts during Floating's time in the city.
Sadly there is no glamorous awards ceremony to attend and I'm not even sure we'll receive any form of trophy to add to the cabinet (or the awards shelf as it actually exists as). But it's a delight to form part of the highlights of the social year in Melbourne.
And I'm really impressed by the lovely write-up it's received...
"You'd need to be lacking a heart not to have fallen in love with this teeny-tiny production from Wales. Somewhere between performance art, stand-up comedy and old-fashioned storytelling, it felt like the most thoughtful and generous gift you'd ever received. From a stranger, no less."
Also commended in this category were Jersey Boys and Ontroerend Goed's Once and For All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut up and Listen. Several of us were fans of their Internal which played in Edinburgh this year, so it feels like honourable company to reside in.
The awards are a ludicrously diverse mix 0f categories from Most In-Demand Party Guest (which went to film star Eric Bana although Dannii Minogue did get a commendation) and Best Fashion Moment (going to Cate Blanchett and her blanket dress - although I have no idea what that is!) to the seemingly more sensible Best Pub/Bar (Madame Brussels - a choice that I'd definitely agree on) and Best Coffee (which the fantastic Auction Rooms missed out on, but they're definitely worth a visit if you're heading to a show at the Arts House).
You can read the full article here, although you might have to scroll down or skip to page 4 to find us!
If you're reading this in Australia, don't forget that Hugh will be returning to Sydney (although sadly not Melbourne on this occasion) for performances of 360 at the Sydney Festival (22 to 30 Jan). Tickets for that can be booked here.
As luck would have it, our 100th blog post is also a very special annoucement!
Finally, after lots of discussion, Hugh has decided on a title for his brand new show! It was christened in a coffee shop in Melbourne a few weeks back and we’ve made a little video to announce it officially:
The show will receive it’s official world premiere at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. We’ll announce the full details of this gig when the Fringe launches in June but needless to say that anyone who saw Floating and Story of a Rabbit at the Fringe in 2006 and/or 2007, won’t have too far to look to find him!
In the meantime, Hugh will be packing his tent, his wellies and his flask of coffee and heading off to one of the summer’s fastest growing festivals, Latitude. Taking place at Henham Park in Southwold, Suffolk on 17, 18 and 19 July, Hugh has been asked to perform some special previews of the show as part of the Pick of the Pleasance’s mini-season.
To book your tickets for the festival, head here. Last year’s festival sold-out and there’s plenty of other exciting theatrical offerings including performances from our friends over at English Touring Theatre.
Our trip to Tasmania has proved to be full of connections back to Anglesey, Wales and the UK.
Here are just a few of the places we've visited or passed through since we arrived: Brighton, Kettering, Launceston, Tamar, Swansea, Melton Mowbray, Richmond, Ross.
If my commute to work in the UK from South London up to Cambridge took place in Tasmania, it would take no time at all as Lewisham and Cambridge here are conveniently located just a few miles from each other.
And next to our hotel here in Hobart we've found St David's Park; St David's Cathedral is only just round the corner.
As we undertook our epic drive down the east coast, we happened to pass through the town of Beaumaris, which you'll also find in Anglesey, so Hugh and Sioned made this very brief video.
In just over 24 hours time, a momentous occasion in the history of Hoipolloi will occur. When I discovered this, just yesterday, I shrieked with excitement at the good fortune that's being delivered to us by time zone variations!
Our first performance of Floating here at the Ten Days on the Island festival in Launceston, Tasmania kicks off at 2pm on Saturday. This also happens to be 8pm on Friday in Los Angeles when My Uncle Arly will be 30mins into its first public performance at UCLA's Freud Playhouse.
And thus, for the very first time, two Hoipolloi shows will be playing at exactly the same time in two differerent corners of the world, neither of which are our home territory!
It's not actually the first time we've had two shows performed on different continents on the same day; if you cast your mind back to about this time last year, Hugh and Aled were over in Bogota, Colombia performing Story of a Rabbit whilst The Doubtful Guest was running at Watford Palace. However, none of these performances occured at exactly the same moment in time.
If you're in the UK and would like to celebrate the moment, I'm afraid you'll have to stay up until 3am on Saturday morning, but if you happen to be in Los Angeles or Launceston, please join us for one of these historic shows!
Ladies and Gentleman, I'd like to report that a minor earthquake has just hit our current home of Melbourne! It was about 20 minutes ago and Hugh and Sioned were in the middle of a tech rehearsal for Floating.
We all stopped, looked at each other and tried to work out what was happening. But thankfully it wasn't too strong and passed after about 20 or 30 seconds! Fortunately we had passed the moment in the show when an earthquake hits Anglesey otherwise we would have been really confused! It was worst for Tom as he was up on a rickety balcony overlooking the space.
The show opens here at the Arts House at North Melbourne Town Hall tonight. We're all really excited to see how it goes, particularly following the success of our time in Sydney.
And speaking of Sydney, I've finally had time to edit together a quick video leading up to our first night at the Opera House. Here you go...
Today I'm blogging from Melbourne, our second Australian destination on this tour. All went fantastically well in Sydney - a huge thank you to everyone who joined us there, Hugh and Sioned had a blast.
We transferred over yesterday (driven through the above bit of road in our taxi from the airport!) and were met by our lovely new host, Jude who works at the Arts House, the show's new home for a week.
She showed us around town a bit, sharing us the delights of Lygon Street and it's many Italian restaurants.
Today is going to be a relaxed day as we try and prepare ourselves for the week ahead. I've already completed a radio interview and am now attempting to catch up with myself in terms of sharing photos, editing some video footage and doing some jobs that I've been putting off!
If you saw the show in Sydney and have friends or family in Melbourne, please let them know where to find us (Arts House at North Melbourne Town Hall from 18 to 22 March!).
Hugh and Sioned can't wait to connect with a brand new set of people!
Breakfast this morning was a rather exciting affair! As I tucked into my muffin and jam and flicked through the Sydney Morning Herald, a very pleasing sight caught my eye.
There on page 15 was a picture of Hugh staring back at me and the headline "Fantasy world makes real one hard to rejoin".
I think it's actually the best review of the show we've ever had! Here are just a few little highlights:
"The audience is carried effortlessly along, put at ease and immersed in good-humoured theatrical playfulness."
"The ease with which both performers establish rapport with the audience, make ambitious ideas accessible and glean laughter from all possible sources is disarming."
"Entertainment is first-rate when the audience has to be encouraged to rejoin the real world."
I don't think it's made it in full online as yet but will update this entry once it does so that you can read it in full. If you're reading this in Sydney and haven't bought tickets yet, I'd do so as soon as you can as the show is proving to be very popular.
And don't forget we'll be at the Arts House in Melbourne from 18 to 22 March and at the Ten Days on the Island Festival from 28 March until 5 April. Full details can be found here.
Finally, a massive thank you to everyone who's joined us at the show so far. Hugh and Sioned have been having a blast! Please continue to recommend the show to all your friends.
Good morning, welcome to Sydney and our first proper blog entry from our international tour. I'm going to be your main guide to our time in Australia although Hugh and Sioned will do their best to say hello as and when their busy schedule permits.
Hugh apologises for not updating you from Singapore. He, Aled and Sioned had a fantastically hectic week in the city, thank you to everyone who joined them at Story of a Rabbit, the symposium or one of the workshops. We'll try and post a catch up about their time there soon.
In the meantime, tonight is our first performance from Sydney Opera House. The building definitely lives up to its iconic status and I'm currently sat in the Green Room with a delightful view of the harbour and the city beyond. Something I could definitely get used to.
We've got a busy day ahead. Hugh and Sioned should arrive in about 30mins and then we'll be continuing the tech run. Floating hasn't been performed since Moscow back in May last year so everyone's doing there best to remember exactly how it fits together. But I'm sure we'll get there in time for the imminent opening!
I arrived in town early on Sunday morning and enjoyed the luxury of being collected by an Opera House driver. He'd just delivered Juliette Binoche to the airport so I enjoyed my little VIP connection!
I'll keep you posted on how it goes tonight with a few twitter updates as and when I can! I'm just in the process of putting together a little video and if I can work out a way of getting it online without crashing the Opera House's server, I'll post it to YouTube.
In the meantime, here's a few pics of outside of our current 'home' for you to enjoy!
Speak soon! Simon (Hoipolloi's Marketing & Touring Manager)
Posted by Simon Bedford (Marketing & Touring Manager, Hoipolloi)
As you might have guessed, this post has a nautical theme.
It's all in honour of a little ship called YM Utmost which at present is speeding from Felixstowe to Antwerp on its way to Singapore and Sydney.
Actually to be honest, it's actually quite a big ship; a bit of digging on the internet tells me that its 336m long (0r 194.4 smoots) and can carry approx 8,189 standard-sized containers. I've found some photos but to keep on the right side of the copyright laws, I'll ask you to click on this link if you'd like to take a look.
If you're wondering, the photo above is the Utmost's sister ship YM Success, thank you to Uzvards for sharing.
So why is this of interest, I hear you cry. Don't worry, I've not become a ship spotter (is that the correct terminology?) - it's just that it is the current and temporary home of the sets/costumes/props for Floating and Story of a Rabbit.
Our foreign tours have become a step closer with this first stage in our journey across the world. Sadly I can't get the tracker to work on the shipping site above so I don't think I'll be able to give you regular updates.
But needless to say, we'll be letting you know when it's arrived safely along with the human cargo that will be flying out in mid-February!
And whilst we're talking about our international touring, a warm welcome to the many Australian visitors who've arrived at our sites over the last 24 hours. We look forward to seeing you in Sydney, Melbourne or Tasmania!
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
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.
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