HELL IS BACK…

One year on from the final performance of AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM, Drunken Chorus are pleased to announce the online release of the full length video of the show.

***PLEASE NOTE: For best results we recommend you watch this video with headphones or through good quality speakers, due to the heavy bass sound levels. We also recommend you change the YouTube settings to 1080pHD.

AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM is a horror performance by Drunken Chorus, with sound design by Steve Kilpatrick.

To find out more about the project, and to read about the making process, visit the AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM blog space.

Filmed by Sheena Holliday and Adam Greenwood (Crestfallen Productions) at Junction in Goole.

The projected was supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England funding, as well as Live at LICA, LANWest, Junction, Testing Grounds, China Plate / Pilot and Proto-Type Theater / Sunday Lunch Club.

the end is extremely fucking nigh

One more drag.

One more shack.

One more rape.

One more scrub.

One more flash.

One more dance.

One more silence.

One more blackout.

One more awkward moment.

One more limp lift.

One more slow dance.

One more answer phone message.

One more make-up.

One more embrace.

One more thigh slap.

One more dig.

One more chair slamming.

One more sexy dance.

One more time.

One more time.

One more time.

…

…

…

8pm, Saturday 28th May

Junction, Goole

01405 763652

www.junctiongoole.co.uk

…

…

And then darkness.

And then silence.

And then darkness and silence.

And the end…

…

…

…

For details on future projects by Drunken Chorus visit:

www.drunkenchorus.co.uk

www.drunkenchris.wordpress.com

TRAILER and PREVIEW

We’re currently busying away rehearsing and planning, ready for a sneak preview of AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM at Warwick Arts Centre on Tuesday 25th Jan. Here’s some info…

 

We’re SO BUSY creating the show that we haven’t had much time to blog. So, to make up for this, here’s an exclusive online trailer for the show – it’s best listened to with headphones, or with large speakers, so you can appreciate Steve Kilpatrick’s Hellishly good sounds! Let us know what you think.

SPRING 2011…

We hope you’ve had a wonderful festive season, with lot’s of excess and lot’s of rest! As we look towards the new year, we wanted to let you know about our Spring tour dates for the new show, AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM. So, here are the dates, with a little bit of blurb about the performance below. We hope to see you at one of the venues, and if you can’t make it, we’ll be announcing further dates for Summer soon…

SPRING 2011 TOUR DATES*:

Wed 23 February: THE NUFFIELD THEATRE, Lancaster
8pm | Tickets: £11/£8 (Web price: £10/£7) | 01524 594151
www.nuffieldtheatre.com

Fri 25 February: THE WICKHAM THEATRE, Bristol
(Includes post show discussion)
7.30pm | Tickets: £8.50/£5 | 0845 402 4001
www.bristol.ac.uk/drama/theatre/

Thurs 3 March: LEEDS MET GALLERY & STUDIO THEATRE*
(*at Northern Ballet, Quarry Hill, Leeds LS2 7PA)
7.30pm | £10/£8 | 0113 220 8008
www.northernballet.com/boxoffice

Fri 18th March: GREENROOM, Manchester
8pm | £9.50/£6.50 | 0161 615 0500
(Double-bill with Trace Theatre’s Once Upon a Something)
www.greenroomarts.org

*MORE TOUR DATES WILL FOLLOW IN SUMMER 2011.

AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM is a haunting piece of theatre, exploring the tension and suspense of the horror genre.

‘She sees the end of the world – all fire and smoke and blood rain. You know, like they say… the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.‘ (Lynch, INLAND EMPIRE)

Merging nightmarish visions with grotesque movement and gallows humour, Drunken Chorus descend into a dark and disturbing world of fear and violence. It is a performance that explores our perceptions of horror; a performance full of darkness and silence; a performance that lies always in the shadow of some horrific act.

Conceived and devised by:
Chris Williams, Nicki Hobday, David McBride and Martina Curtin
Lighting design: David McBride
Sound and music: Steve Kilpatrick

AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM has been created with the support of the National Lottery through Arts Council England, The Nuffield Theatre, Junction, LANWest, Testing Grounds. Sunday Lunch Club, Pilot and China Plate

DRUNKEN CELEBRATIONS

Greetings Drunken followers,

Great news from Drunken HQ…

We are over the moon to announce that we have very recently been awarded a second grant from Arts Council England, in support of our 2011 tour of AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM.

The funding, which is awarded by Arts Council England’s ‘Grants for the Arts’ scheme (from National Lottery money), will enable us to embark on a national tour in 2011. This follows initial funding from Arts Council England earlier this year, which was used for research and development.

AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH THEM will tour to key contemporary performance venues throughout the country; including Manchester, Lancaster, Warwick, Bristol, Goole, Leeds and London (amongst others). We will be announcing a full list of tour dates very soon.

We would like to say a big thank you to all of our other supporters for this project, who have helped us in securing ACE funding: Nuffield Theatre / LICA (Lancaster), Junction (Goole), LANWest, Testing Grounds, Pilot and China Plate.

The show premieres in February at The Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster

In the meantime, stay up-to-date with our rehearsals via the project blog: www.hellfollowed.wordpress.com

And now for a celebratory drink…

Cheers!!

DC x

SUNDAY LUNCH CLUB…

It’s dark outside. My eyes have been adjusting back and forth – darkened studio, brightly lit foyer, the twilight outside the theatre, the lights of the cars speeding by on the motorway by night, the flashes of christmas lights up Market Street in Manchester, the contrast of fluorescent train lighting and the empty darkness outside. Everything blurs.

After a late(ish) night last night (David got the whiskey and the espresso vodka out!), we struggled against the intrusive alarm clocks. Still dark outside, hiding under the covers with sticky eyes.

It’s evening now, and we’re all heading back home in our separate ways. Nicki will be home by now, as will Steve. Martina will be some way towards London, and David will be well on the way to Lancaster. I’m in Stockport, on the train – crowded, but quiet. Another couple of hours before I reach home and a chance to sleep.

But somewhere in the middle, between forcing open our eyes, and speeding across the dark countryside to our homes, we showed some work in Crewe, as part of Proto-Type Theater’s Sunday Lunch Club. It was a collection of ideas, fragments, experiments – and a chance for an audience to have their say, to give guidance and support. It went well. We felt happy. But I don’t think we can process it all now. As I type this, with the intention of writing up some of the feedback, I realize I just can’t process the thoughts that I have about what we did or what people thought about it. I feel a little flat, a little disconnected from the work. That’s not to say it wasn’t a positive experience or that I feel negatively about the performance. Quite the opposite. When I’ve slept and eaten and feel a little fresher I will no doubt be raring to get back in the saddle, and develop the piece with all the feedback and performance experience in mind.

The event itself was smashing. My first SLC – great work, great venue, great food, great audience. Thoroughly enjoyable. But I really am very tired. We are all very very tired.

It will be December when we rehearse again. And things will be notched up a level as we prepare for the next performance of this show – a shortened preview version (not a work-in-progress) at Warwick Arts Centre at the end of January. After that it’s the premiere at the Nuffield in Lancaster. So back to work very soon…

All for now.

From Hell, with love.

x

 

act one…

ACT I

In the beginning there was light. Not very much of it. And in very small spaces. Coming on slowly. And fading out even slower. Sometimes the light only catches an arm, half a face, the outline of a body, a slow dance, an embrace. Sometimes the light fades up like the sun rising for the very first time.

… … …

We have our twenty minutes ready for tomorrow’s work-in-progress at Sunday Lunch Club in Crewe. I guess we’re showing a collection of ideas and experiments from what we’ve been working on over the last couple of weeks. We’re interested in discovering how these ideas can be read by an audience, and how these ‘bits’ of performance could be understood in the context of a full length show.

Things have turned out very differently to the first work-in-progress back in June. Not only do we have a new performer, which of course has affected the dynamic of the group, but the material we’re working with has developed into something more ‘structural’, and perhaps less ‘narrative’ driven. Things seem to have become a lot more ‘dancey’ too. And the text has been severely stripped away, leaving only occasional, almost inaudible moments of speech.

We’re still not fully sure what all this means for the final show. But tomorrow will reveal a lot for us. So… until tomorrow…

See you in Hell…

dance with me, dance with me, dance with me…

where there is no imagination, there is no horror

(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

20 minutes of struggle. dragging nicki’s limp body across the stage. taking off her sweater. holding her. david moving around in the shadows. just watching.

trying to drag her away into the darkness. or else, trying to stand her up, to dance, to hold one another. moments of sweetness, of love and care, morphing into an implied aggression, a very murky hint of sexual violence. back to an embrace.

it feels more and more isolated as it goes on. not building to anything, just maintaining the basic intensity, whilst the sheer duration builds tension. sweat, strain, shaking, desperation. all the time nicki stays limp, dead weight, lifeless.

it’s not what you see, it’s what you might see. leaving the audience hanging, always on the edge of their seats waiting for the horrific act that feels like it will come soon.

later nicki climbs up me, wrapping herself around me, unwanted, rejected, desperate. followed by attempts to pass her onto david, to get rid of her.

and later, similar but smaller interactions between david and i. hugging, carrying – ‘the scoop’. this changes things somehow.

none of this plays a great deal on narrative. there’s very little in the way of concrete ‘meaning’ given to the audience. but the sense of what might happen, the ambiguity of intention, the isolation, the tension – it’s all palpable. disarming and uncomfortable, it is the gaps where the power of the spectators imagination flourishes, where the nightmare really takes hold…

My First Drunken Rehearsal

What did I do this weekend? Went to Hell, had a ‘Wibbly Wobbly’s, pulled not one but TWO men (..across the floor of the Nuffield) and danced with a sack on my head.. to name but a few things.

(So this is how I’d start a blog)

I won’t bang on, but seeing as I have just had my first rehearsals with David and Chris, who I will be rehearsing with a lot in the very near future, I thought I should write something about the experience so far.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but am really pleased with how it all panned out. We all get on well, and seem to work well together. You can’t ask for much more than that when you’re welcomed into an existing project at the very early stages of the process. I was initially interested in the show because its so different from anything else I am involved with at the moment, and that excites me. Its been a while since I made something new in collaboration with other performers, so going back to that challenging stage of having to generate new material in a space with limited time no matter how ‘wanky’ it might be can be hard work if you don’t feel comfortable. Luckily, I do. We don’t have long to make it so have to work quickly which isn’t always a bad thing. Of course we all have completely different schedules and locations- but that’s often the case. and we wouldn’t want it any easier. I absolutely loved getting up at 4.30am this morning in Lancaster to make it to work in Manchester for 9. No really.

I’m going to keep this short in fear of making it less interesting the more I go on, but thank you for reading my first post and do keep your eye on what we’re doing..

Drag me to Hell…

A long day spent in a vast dark space.

Playing with talcum powder again in the lights. This time it’s up into a squared off spotlight, with a chair, some dancing. Somewhere else there’s a dim red light spilling across the stage, and figures moving around outside of the white spotlight. It feels seedy.

We switch on another spotlight towards the other side of the stage. Already the plumes of talc have reached that space too, hovering in the light, not even moving. Nicki stands in the light. Feels like something is beginning to happen. Improvisation for us seems to just start at any given moment – someone sees an opportunity and takes it. Most of the time the others follow and things start to happen – useless, boring, uninteresting things. But occasionally we hit something that we like. I see Nicki move into the light and put on a Tom Waits track – ‘It’s Over’ – a dirty, seedy jazz number. Nick starts to dance. We can see David lurking in the shadows near Nicki’s spot as her movements get the talc clouds swirling again. By now I’m in the other spot – watching, eager to get involved. But I guess somehow I’m trapped in the light, banging my chair in sexual aggression and frustration. It’s unnerving, unsettling. We like it. We carry on for a while.

When we move on things begin to disintegrate. Lilly Allen is played and we dance on chairs. Someone in the corner singing. A rose thrown across the stage. More talc. I drag David into the light, but with affection this time. Some of these things might have legs but right now they’re just bits of ideas floating around. Feels like we’re winding down, clutching at straws. We’ll carry on in the hope of more flashes of inspiration. Maybe it will happen quickly, maybe it will take days or weeks.

What’s been great about the last couple of days is that we’ve been generating new material all the time – the old material is still there but we haven’t really gone back to it yet. It’s waiting in the wings.

Nicki has blended into the team seamlessly. And when Martina can join us for rehearsals too, and Steve is more involved with the sound, we’ll really be firing on all cylinders.

After some degree of apprehension and anxiety towards restarting rehearsals, it now feels like a weight has been taken off: it went well; we generated new material; we enjoyed each other’s company; and, perhaps most importantly, we are excited to delve further and further into the depths of Hell…