An amazing weekend / Now we need your help

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!

Posted by Simon Bedford (Producer, Hoipolloi)

Two Maps Are Better Than One

I have been spending some time today working with maps.

I have been focussing on my hometown of Llangefni.I thought I'd share these two versions with you. It's obvious which one is hand-drawn. That’s the one I made.

In Rehearsal is an event in which I include an audience in the process of making my next show. My next show is called Invisible Town and it's about my childhood. The way I see it at the moment is that I will act as a guide showing people around the map of my childhood

Hugh Hughes

Five Gold Rings...

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

Sunset

In the last few days my limbs have turned to jelly, my voice has dropped two octaves and gone croaky like Yoda and if I walk over anymore Edinburgh cobbles my feet will start screaming and frogmarch me back onto proper pavements.

But I refer you once again to my patented definition of Festival Fatigue to stress that whilst my body is wrecked, my mood remains indefatigably good. As much as I'm looking forward to going to bed for a week once I'm home, I'm sure I'll be missing the festival before too long.

At the Total Theatre Awards ceremony the other day, one of the speakers pointed out something obvious but very important. Every one of us knows what an endurance contest the Edinburgh Festival is, we know we're signing up to an utterly exhausting month and yet we troop back, year after year. It's pretty special.

*

Today is my last day working for Hoipolloi, for now. I am refusing to articulate this fact with any degree of finality, as I feel sure that I'll stay in touch with everyone at the company and work with them again before too long, in some capacity or another.

I have an anecdote which I've found myself referring to a lot whilst working for the company, or when I explain to people what Hoipolloi means to me. This feels like a good time to share it with the wider world.

In 2007 I visited the Edinburgh Fringe and saw Hugh Hughes in Story of a Rabbit. (I was already a Hoipolloi fan, having seen Floating and My Uncle Arly on previous tours.) That hour in Pleasance Two remains one of the most unforgettable experiences I've ever had at the theatre. Like so many who've seen the show, I laughed and I cried. And I cried and I cried and I cried.

When I left the theatre and shook hands with Hugh, I wanted to tell him that he'd completely altered my perspective on theatre. Sadly I couldn't because I was still crying and also feeling a bit embarassed because I was covered in tears and snot. My equally snot-covered friend Hannah and I staggered into the sunlight and sat down with a drink to calm our nerves. We continued crying for at least 20 minutes, during which time a number of people tried to flyer us for shows, only to find two weeping individuals, sobbing into pints.

Less than twelve months later I was at the National Theatre Studio working on Hugh Hughes' future production Invisible Town. About 18 months later I was creating 360 with Hugh, for which I'm now credited as an Artistic Collaborator. If you'd tapped me on the shoulder, as I sat at that table crying, and told me that I'd be working with Hugh within a year, I'm sure I wouldn't have believed you.

I probably don't need to say (and wouldn't be able to find the words anyway) how much those experiences have meant to me.

As well as loving every minute I've spent with the creative team at Hoipolloi, I need to say a huge thank you to Simon my 'boss' for the year and a wonderful mentor. And we're all bidding a fond farewell to Louise Coles who has been Hoipolloi's Administrative Director for the past five years. Louise boarded a plane for Perth two days ago. She's returning to her native Australia after several decades away, to run Perth's Blue Room. We all wish her the best of luck!

So here's to Hoipolloi, to Louise, to Edinburgh and to what is sure to be a fun-tastic final performance of 360 tonight. Hugh's been hinting that he has something special planned. I dread to think...

Hugh Hughes solo show: selling fast!

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

It's not much more than a week since Hugh Hughes was at The Barbican, performing sneak previews of his new show Invisible Town. As we walked to the pub after the last performance, someone asked, "So what's next Hugh, are you going to have a bit of time off now this is over?"

Ha ha.

Hugh Hughes has at least six projects up in the air at any one time. As soon Hugh finished at The Barbican he went back to work on another brand new show:
The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes.

Invisible Town was a chance for Hugh to work with a larger ensemble than ever before, with six performers and three musicians joining him on stage. His new solo show takes the opposite road, putting Hugh onstage completely alone, sans performers, sans multimedia, sans music, sans everything.

It will allow him to connect with audiences more intimately than ever before, as he tells stories from his past, taking us even deeper into his wonderful, fantastical and imaginative world. I've been in some of the rehearsals and I can promise it will be an incredible show, and a chance to see a slightly different side of Hugh.

The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes will be performed for the very first time at The Junction in Cambridge from 29 to 31 January. But Friday's performance has already sold out! So book for the remaining nights quickly to avoid disappointment, particularly since tickets are a credit-crunch-busting £5 each.

You can book tickets via The Junction's website: just click here.
Or call The Junction's Box Office on 01223 511 511.

We hope to see you there!

Invisible Town: Leave your feedback here!

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

Following all the excitement and demand for tickets, we've finally arrived at the work-in-progress performances for Invisible Town, a brand new Hugh Hughes project.

Hugh and the rest of the team started work on the project back in July last year and you can read more about how its all come together here, here and here.

This is really a short entry to say that if you've seen (or seeing) either performance, we'd be delighted to receive any feedback you might have. You can do this by commenting on this blog entry (by clicking on comments at the bottom of the text), heading over to our Facebook group to write on its wall or by sending us an email.

Finally, it just leaves me to thank the National Theatre Studio for supporting the development of the piece thus far and to the Barbican Centre for allowing us to use The Pit this week.

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!

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!

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:

Where are you now?

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

So Hugh Hughes’ week at the National Theatre Studio has come to an end. It was great to have so many new people working on the production and we made a huge amount of progress on Hugh’s new show Invisible Town. We owe a big thank you to the National Theatre Studio and their magical automated skylights.

If you haven’t already seen it, there’s a video on my last post in which Hugh and Sioned tell us what we might expect from the new show.

In the meantime, I’ll ask you a question Hugh asked all of us at the start of the week.


Where are you now?


(Give yourself a minute to think about it and try and come up with at least seven different answers.)

Videos from Hugh Hughes & Sioned

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

We've just finished another great day at the National Theatre Studio, working on Hugh Hughes' new show Invisible Town. Here's a video of Hugh and his friend Sioned (who you'll recognise if you saw Floating) talking about their week at the Studio and what we can expect from the new show!

Story Machine

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

Hugh Hughes is spending this week at the National Theatre Studio working on a new show called Invisible Town. He's brought some of his friends along, including Sioned and Aled, and we're all working really hard, trying out ideas for the show.

There's a game we play every day which I'd like to teach you. It's called Story Machine.

Hugh's Story Machine is a huge piece of paper with 100 words written on it. All Hugh's words are to do with his childhood but you can make yours about anything you like! Hugh's words include names, places, emotions, days of the week, activities, and lots more. One of us presses one of the words (which we pretend are buttons on the machine) and then Hugh has to tell us a story to do with that word. Anyone can press any other button at any time, and when they do, Hugh has to incorporate the new word into the story as quickly as he can. Sometimes the actors perform the story as Hugh is telling it, and we also like making up songs about characters in the story.

It's great fun, and if you like using your imagination, like Hugh does, you should try it out!

If you make a really good story come out of a Story Machine, send me an email (david@hoipolloi.org.uk) tell me all about it. I'll pass them on to Hugh, he'd love to hear them!