Sunday 27 June 2010

Cinema: Whatever Works

Larry David has been swallowed whole and passed through the bowels of Woody Allen onto a Manhattan street where they both belong. After 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona', which did a creditable impression of a Pedro Almodovar movie and was the auteur's most enjoyable outing in years, the portents weren't good.

For a start, while I love Larry David when he plays Larry David, I seriously doubt whether he can play anyone else. He is a Jewish New Yorker trapped in the body and mind of a Jewish New Yorker. Fortunately, the third most famous man to answer to that description is given his own skin by the first. What doesn't work is his notional day job as a nuclear physicist, but strip the script of the occasional quantum reference and nobody would miss much. Better to have made him a retired comic writer and be done with it.

That aside, Larry David plays Larry David and plays him well. He gets to deliver some Woody Allen lines that are more thought through than his usual Curb Your Enthusiasm improvisations, but they seem no less spontaneous; Larry's sounds like a stand-up even in the most mundane of conversations, and while he doesn't have the genius of a near Nobel prize winning scientist, he does have a knack at gnawing at the bones of a conversation until they miraculously regrow meat.

Woody Allen movies generally feature versions of himself; in recent years, they've put the Woody-Woody-would-like-to-be  rather than the Woody-Woody-has-now-become centre stage, which isn't to say Boris/Larry is the kind of somebody anybody else would aspire to. Infact, he's a misanthropic loner who seems to have given up on his higher calling to spend his days sharing his solipsistic observations and bleak cosmological musings with his cafe cronies and abusing would-be chess prodigies and pretty much anyone else he encounters while patrolling his neighbourhood. Plagued by nervous tics and prone to conversational tropes, he is the stupid genius who doesn't even seem that bright.

Then a southern belle walks into his life; a Briney Spears before she was famous, spouting Mickey Mouse dreams and sweet as a cream filled twinkie. Melody is played by Evan Rachel Wood who at least has to act out a part; as sleight and vapid as her role might be, the girl can act. She is everything Woody wants - young, pretty and cute in a stupid-assed way. Moreover, she's willing to marry a cranky old fuck and feed him crayfish pie and viagra. Her arrival and their year long union is wholly unbelievable, but whoever said comic situations require credibility to be funny. Woody goes just as far as he likes with the scenario, turning her Waco (as in Texas) parents into wacko (as in Manhattan) born-again bohemians, and getting the best out of the supporting cast in the process.

I went into the cinema wondering why I was there. It was the sunniest day of the year outside and the only other member of the audience might have stepped straight out of the New York cafe where Boris hangs out having had too many crispy cremes and cafe lattes. He laughed like a cat choking up a hair ball. All of Woody Allen's films these days seem half-thought through and half-finished, sketches either of greater works or projects his younger self would've discarded. But Woody Allen is Woody Allen. And Larry David is Larry David. If you love either, you will forgive this film its faults and find much to like, the old moment to love if laugh-out-loud moments are your chosen symptoms of comic romance. 'Whatever Works' just about works despite itself and turns feel-bad into feel-good like only a couple of Jewish comic geniuses from New York can.

Book Launch: 'Chocolate Che' and 'On the Governing of Empires'

Book Launch: A Message from our Sponsor

A very sunny evening to you all (sunny for the majority of the week, in fact...)

Firstly, thank you all who came to see Carrie Etter last Thursday. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Feedback on the space for future readings is very welcome. You can follow Carrie's adventures here:

http://carrieetter.blogspot.com/

Secondly, the next event will be the home-launch of books by two Exeter poets. On July 1st, Damian Furniss will be reading from his first full length collection, Chocolate Che, alongside Alasdair Paterson, reading from his new book On the Governing of Empires at the Devon and Exeter Institution. Publicity attached - please forward to interested parties.

You can read more about their books here:

http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/furniss.html
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/paterson.html

The event is FREE. No, that wasn't a typo, FREE, wine and nibbles provided.

We've had a good run with guests at ExCite Poetry lately, and I'm jolly well looking forward to this, I hope to see lots of you there.

All the best, as ever,

Rachel
(Yes. It's free...)
--

Rachel McCarthy,
Poetry Society Representative for East Devon
email: stanza AT rachelmccarthy.com
website: www.rachelmccarthy.com

Saturday 26 June 2010

Simon Persighetti and Phil Smith invite you to join them for a ‘Tour of Sardine Street’



Since late 2007 Simon Persighetti (poet, playwright and performer) and Phil Smith (author of ‘Mythogeography’) have been regularly walking, researching, exploring and performing on one street: Queen Street in Exeter. Now, after a number of ‘test runs’ with other walkers, they have prepared a ‘mis-guided tour’ of the street and would like to invite interested members of the public to join them for a tour.
Phil Smith (The Crab Man) said: “Allowing ourselves more than two years to prepare, we have built up an awareness not only of many of the unseen or ignored details of Queen Street, but we have also seen how it can change radically in short spaces of time – it has a life cycle and a heart beat!”

The tours all begin at the Dinosaur Café at the northern end of Queen Street (at its junction with the New North Road), next to the Miles Clock Tower.
These tours will last between 90 minutes to 2 hours, but walkers are requested to be free for 3 hours (occasionally the guides have been spontaneously invited to visit certain closed areas of the street and would like to be free to respond to any similar invitations).

The times of the tours are as follows:
9th July (Friday) 10am – 1pm

9th July (Friday) 2pm – 5pm

10th July (Saturday) 10am – 1pm

15th July (Thursday) 10am – 1pm

15th July (Thursday) 2pm – 5pm

16th July (Friday) 10am – 1pm

Numbers are very limited (a maximum of seven people for each walk) – those interested should make a booking by email to perform.smith AT ukgateway.net

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Exeter Summer Festival: The Fringe at the Bike Shed


Ladies and gentlemen, Particular Theatre Company Supporters, Bike Shed Theatre afficionados,


THE FRINGE IS IN

65 Performances, 21 Companies, 11 Days, 1 Venue

Following the most eventful six months in our (fairly) young lives, The Bike Shed Theatre is closing this season with 11 days of back to back performances. From dance to theatre, comedy and musicals companies from across the UK will be delighting our stage with entertainment for all.

The Fringe Festival will kick off at 2pm today with An Arrangement of Shoes, a touching one woman show about family life in an Indian Railway colony. This is an award winning new play which will give you an idea of the wonders we have lined up over the next couple of weeks.

Also on my personal list of "must sees" are Up The Gary; a musical performance about the rise and fall of a Gary Glitter Tribute artist which promises to have the audience in stitches, and Stuck in the Throat a play of stories which follows three people who are unsure what should be shared and what should remain a secret. These are topped off by our first stand up comedy at The Bike Shed Theatre, Shazia Mirza and Susan Murray are both national calibre comedians who will be previewing their Edinburgh shows on the Bike Shed Stage. You can find more details of these shows and many more on our website www.bikeshedtheatre.co.uk/fringe/ where you will also be able to buy your tickets for the shows.
The festival is bringing companies from far and wide into Exeter, please support these performers, lets show them that this city is still craving for quality entertainment.

This will mark the end of our season at The Bike Shed Theatre, following the festival we will be closing our doors for refurbishments and preparing to come back in the autumn with a whole new program of entertainment. We hope to see you walk through our doors over the course of the next 11 days.
Enjoy the Fringe!
David, Fin and Debs

The Bike Shed Theatre

Sunday 20 June 2010

Art: Theo Jansen at Exeter Summer Festival

Theo Jansen: Artist's Talk


Friday 2 July, 7pm at Exeter Central Library (Music Room), £6/£4 concessions.

An illustrated talk by Theo Jansen providing an insight into his work over the years with details of the new strandbeest, Ventosa Siamesis.

To book a place please contact Spacex:
t: 01392 431788, e: info@spacex.org.uk.Booking essential.

Theo Jansen: Public Demonstration


Friday 25 - Sunday 27 June, between 11am - 5pm on Exmouth beach, (Carlton Slipway east of the Pavilion), free.

Exclusive live demonstrations of Theo Jansen's new strandbeest, Ventosa Siamesis. This is the first unveiling of this new work. The strandbeest will be in operation on the beach between 11am - 5pm and Jansen will be present from 3 - 5pm (except Friday, when his assistant will be present).

A smaller strandbeest (four metres long) will be available for audiences to interact with and learn how the beach creatures walk.

Theo Jansen: Public Demonstration

Friday 2 - Sunday 4 July, between 11am - 5pm in Exeter city centre, free.

Following the live demonstrations of Theo Jansen's new strandbeest on Exmouth beach, the beach creature will appear in Exeter city centre in Princesshay Square. The strandbeest will be in operation between 11am - 5pm and Jansen will be present from 3 - 5pm.

A smaller strandbeest (four metres long) will be available for audiences to interact with and learn how the beach creatures walk.

Exhibition at The Spacex Gallery, Exeter

15 May - 3 July 2010


Internationally renowned Dutch artist and engineer Theo Jansen has been developing mechanical, skeletal like sculptures for the last 20 years. Jansen has named these creations strandbeests, which translates as beach animals. The strandbeests are self-propelling engineered creatures which are powered by the wind.

Spacex has co-produced this project for which the artist is creating a major new work, a Siamese twin version of his last work, named Ventosa Siamesis. Each of the twins will be approximately 10 metres long and, under the guidance of the artist, this enormous creature will explore Exmouth beach from 25–27 June, before arriving in Exeter city centre, to coincide with Exeter Summer Festival from 2–4 July.

In addition Spacex is showcasing the first UK exhibition of the artist’s work at the gallery from 15 May–3 July 2010.

http://www.spacex.co.uk/

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Cinema review: The Milk of Sorrow

La Teta Asustada is set in contemporary Peru but looks back to the troubles of the 1980s when the country was at virtual civil war between Sendero Luminoso, a ruthless Maoan revolutionary organisation that also took inspiration from Inca resistance movements to Spanish imperialism, and a military that often acted above the law and in many parts of the country were the law which thet despatched with summary justice.

The literal translation of the title is 'the frightened teat' and the film's central concern is the abuse of women during the conflict by both sides and its long-term effects on them and their offspring, many of whom were born from rape; the belief the title alludes to is that the trauma of a violent conception is transmitted to the child through her mother's milk.

The director, Claudia Llosa, is the niece of Peru's best known novelist Mario Vargas Llosa but she draws on a wider range of material for her script than fiction, although magical realism and folk tale are both woven into the texture of the books, including psychological and sociological studies that exposed mass rape as explicit strategies deployed by both sides.

This suggests a heavy watch but the movie, set in the barrios that extend for miles over the desert hills surrounding Lima, is also a charming evocation of village life transplanted to a more urban and less rooted existence. In particular, weddings and wedding customs parade through the film, bringing families and communities together to celebrate their camaraderie, play out their tensions and seed new romances among the guests.

Magaly Solier's central performance as Fausta, a near mute and painfully shy.young woman whose mission is her mother's dying wish - to bury her back home. On her death bed she sings of the troubles that befell her and her generation in an opening scene that demands attention as it establishes in ballad form the back story that brings us here. In telling the story of mother and daughter and their bond beyond death it becomes the repository of many similar testimonies and does bear the weight of that responsibility. How you react to Solier in the lead role will determine whether you respond emotionally or merely cerebrally. It is her journey to reestablish her life after the death and to overcome her condition that is beyond the medical, although it manifests itself medically, that you'll be preoccupied by.

Ultimately, the film represents the shame of a family and of a nation as both attempt to overcome their past by burying it. That is a theme that can be applied to conflicts across societies and throughout history told as the sun slowly rises in the the beautiful sadness of Solier's eyes. The story is told less through linear plot and more through the occurrence and recurrence of images that suggest the paintings of Frida Kahlo, another Latin American woman who spent her life overcoming a tragic beginning by a strength of will expressed in surreal but rooted visions. 

Thursday 3 June 2010

Cinema review: 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans' directed by Werner Herzog, starring Nicolas Cage

This good cop/bad cop movie is more reminiscent of David Lynch, whose involvement in the project is unspecified and apparent, down to the jive talking surrealists and their chameleon visions - and than any of his previous work. That said, Nicolas Cage is at his maddest and most affecting in the lead role and one can imagine Cage and Herzog in a creative partnership in the way the latter once enjoyed and endured with his best fiend, Klaus Kinski.

We join Cage as Terence McDonagh just after Hurricane Katrina when despite his worser nature he dives into the bilge to rescue a jailbird, injuring his spine in the process, thus initiating a drug addicted spiral he never really breaks out of but that gives the film its momentum. McDonagh is a man of many vices, addicted to gambling as well as painkillers and consorting with prostitutes and gangsters, playing ball with the law.

Eva Mendes is a great watch as the hooker with a heart, body and brain and Cage visibly enjoys slowly loosening his grip on the role that may well become a cult anti-hero, delivering increasingly crazed lines with brio and following a course dictated by the peculiar logic of his inner and outer circumstance. There's enough bodies strewn in his path to keep the hardboiled amused and although calling this a psychological drama would be claiming too much - or too little - it is a psychodrama of both the highest and lowest order. 


Theatre: Beanfield by Shaun McCarthy directed by David Lockwood at Bike Shed Exeter and Tobacco Factory Bristol

Beanfield

Written by Sean McCarthy
Directed by David Lockwood
Produced by the Particular Theatre Company
The Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter: 1st - 19th June 2010
The Tobacco Factory, Bristol: 24th Auigust- 4th September

It is 25 years since the Battle of the Beanfield, a confrontation between the police forces of several counties and a peace convoy of new age travellers on their way to Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice, a fourteenth free festival that would have established the event by right. It occurred at the high watermark of Thatcherism and for many symbolises her government's strategy: to create enemies without or within, demonise them with the assistance of a right-wing press and then defeat them by force of arms. However, unlike the Falklands War and the miners' strike, it seems to have faded in the collective memory, despite being the police operation that led to the largest number of arrests in British history - 1,600 officers took over 500 citizens into custody, filling holding cells all over England with men and women, their children taken into care. Years later, the justice system begrudgingly acknowledged their innocence and police guilt but by then, lives had been ruined and a way of life erased from the landscape.

Why this anniversary has been overlooked when our media is usually hungry for the nostalgia of recent history is partly because of the lack of documentary footage of the event. Photographers on the scene were few and what news footage was filmed was mysteriously deleted or edited. In our age of internet media what has survived has surfaced on youtube, and can be seen by anyone, but back then were were dependent on the news barons of Fleet Street and Broadcasting house. There was something almost medieval about the confrontation as the police systematically destroy the travellers' homes and beat them into submission. What few independent witnesses there were on site still talk of their shock that such force could be deployed at so much cost to deal with what were mainly the refugees of recession, rogues by necessity but hardly potential revolutionaries.

The challenge for writer, cast and director is how to give the event context and reduce it from the widescreen to a small stage, telling human stories to capture a historic event from multiple perspectives. Shaun McCarthy looks to Shakespeare for his inspiration. The prelude to the Battle takes place in the Forest of Arden of a Midummer Night's Dream while the Battle itself draws from the history plays for lessons in how to conjure up largescale confl;ict with a small cast and a few props on a few boards of stage.

Key to success or failure of the endeavour of the venture is Steamer, the narrator and central protagonist played with energy, conviction and insight by Ben Crispin. This is his first major role since qualifying at Exeter's Cygnet Theatre drama school; it won't be his last. It is Crispin's charisma and drive that gives the momentum drama as Steamer steps out of his own tragi-comedy of a love story and into those of others, still seeking to understand what happened years on. Writing this review weeks after seeing the production, Steamer still lives in my dreams while the other characters have faded into the background; give him a chance, he might just find his way into yours.



The first act is one of setup and explication. If you are of that time and place, it may seem laboured, but no doubt necessary to situate characters and audience. The roles established are convenient to the development of several themes of the play. Steamer's girlfriend Annie is herself the daughter of a news editor, taking a break out of what has otherwise been a cosseted life; seeking purpose, flirting with danger. Katie Villa is well cast to walk a sometimes meandering line between innocence and experience and it is her character and gives many in the audience a door from their life into that of a band of vagrants who were more often choosing the convoy over sink estates and urban squats than slumming it for fun, although there was plenty of fun to be had along the way.

Diane is a west country innocent picked up by chance en route and Georgie Rennolds who plays her combines naivety and nous in a persona that becomes more layered as the drama unravels until it his her experience and its telling that you trust more than any other. She also plays the female half of a Midlands couple due to take a trip through the West Country and again gives her character development that becomes insight, however simplified the implied conflict between working and non-working class is represented as being. Again, McCarthy takes from Shakespeare that combination of cartoon characterisation and plotlines that depend on coincidence for credence with a quality of language that enables the actors to transcend and subvert audience expectations. 

The demands of the production mean all of the cast apart from Crispin have to play a variety of roles so the foot soldiers of the battle are in place when the action begins, whether police, council or convoy. Ben Simpson as Benny and as Eli Thorne as Lex are asked to represent the light and dark sides of both convoy and police and while these minor roles are more symbols than characters, they dodeliver their keynote speeches with gusto and bring enough energy to the stage in the battle scene that you feel you are seeing a telephoto view of a wideangle conflict. It is a credit to cast and David Lockwood's direction that the set piece scenes are conjured up by just five actors and a flexible set that is cunningly designed by Phil Wyatt to become any of the many settings the play demands while also saying something of a mobile life off odds and ends, its frammework and props something that could be constructed from the contents of any hardware store.

The second half of the play opens with the battle scene that is necessarily noisy and brutal but then takes us through the immediate aftermath and into the later eighties when bust has turned to boom and there is money to be made even by the more savvy of those like Steamer who were once left behind. In many ways, this is the most interesting part of the play. Leave travellers in their battered buses and you only see a segment of their lives because few except those born to the convoy began their lives on the road and, given the sequence of laws that were passed in the five years after the battle that the play relates like a magna carta of rights taken away, most have long abandoned the lifestyle or fled to southern europe where casual work is more available year round. Steamer has got off the bus but still has the light of life in his eyes while in others from the past he encounters by chance, it already seems to have died.

Veterans of the conflict - for this was just the largest of many battles that ended at Castlemorton in 1990, the last of the great free festivals when new age and rave cultures merged on common land for a week or two of fuck-you paryting - attended rehersals on a number of occasions but in the end it is writer and director who had to find a few stories among the many to make sense of what happened to a modern audience and say something worth saying today. In that, they largely succeed. Back then, I was flirting with the lifestyle myself, a weekend hippie and armchair anarchist hitching my way to free fesivals across southern England. But in just the same way as union laws were rewritten after Orgreave and Wapping, so the trend towards a progressive denial of civil liberties and ever-increasing surveillance began at the Beanfield. However confused resistance was in that movement, it wasn't futile although it was defeated.

As another young generation are dispossessed and see the life opportunities they thought they were born to evaporate, so a new movement will begin and this time it will be better organised, at once less visible and more effective. By looking back to Shakespeare, McCarthy reminds us that the English peasantry have a long history of rebellion. Any history play has to do more than describe a particular set of events if it is to survive. Yes, the play is one of archetypes playing out plot lines we've seen before in familiar ways but that is both its point and purpose. I have seen all of Particular Theatre's productions so far and rate this as the one most likely to have a deserved life of its own beyond the Bike Shed stage.

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Poetry: Excite June Newsletter


Firstly, welcome to all new stanza members, and a sunny morning one and all,


Details of poetry events in June follow below, with flyers attached, so please forward to interested parties.

Open mic night at Exeter Cathedral, 4th June, 8.30pm -10.30pm, a fundraiser for a charity which provides emergency accommodation for young people with nowhere else to go. Open mic spots available, contact Katie Moudry at katiemoudry AT hotmail.com

Otto Retro open mic, Exeter, 10th June, 7.30pm, £4/£3 concs on the door - Another night of funky junk with generous helpings of wine and nibbles and yes, poetry. Give me a call or drop me an email to book a slot.

Carrie Etter @ The Paragon Gallery, Exeter, 17th June, 7.30pm, £5 /£3 on the door. We're very lucky to have Carrie come down and visit us. Carrie is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She has been widely published both in the US and UK, (Poetry Review, The New Republic, Stand, TLS, to hardly name a few). She'll be reading from both her pamphlet, The Son, from Oystercatcher Press and her first collection, The Tethers, from Seren, which the TLS hailed as 'one of the most ambitious and accomplished first collections in recent years.'
Not to be missed.

Open mic spaces available, but I warn thee now, they will go quickly...
Other interesting bits of news
Word of Mouth, A wee bit further out, but on the 5th June if you are in the Barnstable area there is a free afternoon of spoken word, poetry, performance and live music at Boston Tea Party, 1pm - 5pm.
The Poetry Society Stanza Competition is open now, the theme is 'Elsewhere', full rules below. If you are on the ExCite Poetry mailing list, i.e. received this email from stanza@rachelmccarthy.com you are eligible to enter.

http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/membership/stanzas/competition/2010rules/
I've been wittering in public about various things lately, which are now archived on the website (www.rachelmccarthy.com).
A look back over Carol Ann Duffy's first year as laureate:
http://www.rachelmccarthy.com/rachelmccarthy.com/One_going,_going,_gone.html
My Interview in Poetry News about what we do:
http://www.rachelmccarthy.com/rachelmccarthy.com/Poetry_News_Article.html
That's all for now folks, best
Rachel
--

Rachel McCarthy,

Poetry Society Representative for East Dev
email: stanza AT rachelmccarthy.com
website: http://www.rachelmccarthy.com/
 
Uncut Poets
 
The June event features guest poets
James Bell & Steve Spence
Please join us to say farewell to James who is retiring from his slot as co-host of Uncut, and also has a new collection to promote: Fishing for Beginners, published by Tall Lighthouse. Steve will read from his recently-published first collection, A Curious Shipwreck.

The event takes place on
Thursday 24 June, 7:30 pm, at
The Black Box
Media Centre
Exeter Phoenix
Gandy Street
Exeter
Box Office: 01392-667080

Tickets: £5 / £3 (concessions & open-mic readers)

Anyone wishing to book an open-mic slot may do so by calling James Bell on 07879-888319.

If you can't get hold of James, try me (Tony Frazer) on 07789-430485.

The next Uncut session will be on Thursday 29 July, our last session before the summer break, and will feature Lee Harwood as guest poet. Guests for the rest of the year are Kelvin Corcoran (September), Alice Kavounas (October) and Lawrence Sail (November).
Another date for your diaries: on 1 July, Uncut regulars Damian Furniss and Alasdair Paterson launch their new collections at the Devon and Exeter Institution, 7 The Close [i.e. on the Cathedral Green], Exeter EX1 1EZ. 7:30 for 8pm. Admission free.
 
The Language Club
 
Poetry in performance


7.30 – 10pm

Tickets £5 (£3 concessions)

Saturday 5 June

With guest poet Damian Furniss.Damian will be reading from his forthcoming book Chocolate Che. The poems in Chocolate Che were written in Cuba in the fiftieth year of the revolution; in India working with dying destitutes and recovering from tuberculosis; travelling up and down the spine of the Americas and into the heart of Europe on the trail of soldiers, artists and monks.

 
Shearsman Readings
 
Swedenborg Hall, Swedenborg House, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH. The entrance is through the portico on the right of the building shown above. There is no admission fee. Unless stated otherwise, all readings are hosted by Tony Frazer, publisher of Shearsman Books.
The next reading is as follows:

All events start at 7:30 pm.
Tuesday 7 June 2010

Damian Furniss & Martin Anderson


Exeter Poetry Festival

On Sunday 10 October, 3:00pm, Elisabeth Bletsoe, Damian Furniss and Jaime Robles read in a special Shearsman event at the first Exeter Poetry Festival, Exeter Central Library. Further details tbc, but, apart from the Shearsman reading, Jen Hadfield, Julia Copus and Greta Stoddart are all scheduled to read at the Festival. Follow news about the Festival here

Particular Theatre: June Newsletter


June 2010 – Newsletter 7
Dear Particular Friend,
It’s the 1st of June, the 25th anniversary of the battle of the beanfield and the opening night of Beanfield, Particular Theatre Company’s new play written to commemorate this event.

Also coming up in June is our two week theatrical extravaganza; the Exeter Fringe festival which will bring to the Bike Shed Theatre 20 different performances to keep you busy for two weeks straight.
We hope to see you all at The Bike Shed Theatre enjoying the treats we have lined up for this most exciting of Junes…
David, Fin and Debs

BEANFIELD
Our cast and crew are ready for the lights to go up on our brand new production of Shaun McCarthy’s Beanfield. Opening tonight the show will be on at The Bike Shed Theatre until the 19th of June.
The battle of the beanfield took place 25 years ago to the day and saw a group of travellers being kept away from Stonehenge through police brutality. Beanfield tells the story of the event through the means of a beautifully scripted love story.

Veterans of the battle have been involved in this production from the start; from the writing of the play to the rehearsal room. This will give you a real and true story that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Tickets for Beanfield are £10 (£5 Monday and concessions) and can be bought online http://www.bikeshedtheatre.co.uk/whats-on/2010/6/#diary.

EXETER FRINGE FESTIVAL

The first ever Exeter Fringe Festival will take place at The Bike Shed Theatre from the 23rd of June to the 3rd of July 2010.
Everyday from midday to midnight The Bike Shed Theatre will be hosting six consecutive shows for a total of 20 shows over the course of the two weeks. It’s going to be busy.
We have dance, we have theatre, musicals and stand up, whatever you fancy there will be something for everyone.
Tickets for all performances are £5 except for stand up which are £10. For further details on each show and performance times visit www.bikeshedtheatre.co.uk.