A Message From Hugh Hughes

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...Floating or 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?

All of my shows are being performed under the title The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes, which you can find out about on my new website here: www.hughhughes.me/wonderful-world-of-hugh-hughes.

Let me tell you the important bit here though:


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!

Best wishes,
Hugh x

Visit Hugh's brand new website

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)

Don't forget that the shows run at the Barbican until Saturday 2 October and then move on to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh (5 to 9 Oct) and the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival (12 to 17 Oct).

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...

The first videos from the wonderful world

Good morning. It's a little dark and drizzly here in Cambridge at the moment. I think someone forget to tell the weather gods that we're not in Edinburgh this year - my hopes to enjoy a little sunshine through at least one August seem to have been dashed!

My apologies that this is our first blog post this month; I feel slightly shamed that our last posting was back on 28 July, which seems like an age ago now! I'm sneakily going to shift blame on to Richard for abandoning his intern post for a few weeks so that he can go and review shows up at the Fringe (and thus he's not here to defend himself!).

My reason for posting this morning is that Hugh has created some lovely little videos for us to act as mini-insights into his wonderful world. Here, some of his friends (and his sister) give you their thoughts on the Hugh that they know.

I'll leave you to enjoy them...









And a quick reminder that tickets are now on sale for The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes at London's Barbican Centre from 8 September until 2 October and the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival from 12 to 17 October. Full details here.

Posted by Simon Bedford (Producer, Hoipolloi)

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 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)

A special announcement for our 100th Post

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.

Genuine or Genu-wine?

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

Hugh Hughes premiered brand new material last night in a sold-out show at The Junction in Cambridge. It was the first time Hugh had shared the work he has done on his new solo show with an audience, and he admitted to me just before he went onstage that he was a little bit nervous!

Here's what Hugh said about the show in the programme notes:

"In some ways tonight's performance will be very different from my previous shows. I will be onstage completely alone, with no set, costumes, props, music or multimedia.

But I hope that together we will be able to fill this empty space using our imagination. I believe this will allow me to share my experiences in new ways and to make more intimate connections with audiences than ever before."

I was in the rehearsal room with Hugh a little bit last week. It really was fantastically exciting to see Hugh continuing to experiment with theatrical forms, never content to re-use an old artistic formula, as he seeks new and different ways to communicate with his audiences.

There's a moment in the show when Hugh tells the audience about a game he used to play as a child, and we've found ourselves playing it in the Hoipolloi office today! If someone says something a bit unexpected, you ask, "Are you being genuine or genu-wine?" "Genuine" means they're telling the truth, "Genu-wine" means they're joking. It's a little childish but I think Hugh would approve of that!

All the performances for this week have now completely sold out but we very much hope to take Hugh's solo show out again in the near future.

Keep checking in with this Blog for all the latest updates!

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!

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!