action hero news

we’ll be performing ‘A Western’ in Chester as part of Soapbox on 11th June at 8pm, venue TBC, keep an eye on the website for details!

‘Watch Me Fall’ will be showing at The Arches in Glasgow on the 16th May at 7pm. (follow the link to book tickets).

we will also be running a workshop at The Arches from 11am on the 16th May for emerging artists and its FREE.

then we make the long trip south to BAC in London where  we’ll be showing ‘Watch Me Fall’ as part of Burst on 20th May at 7:30pm.

Book your tickets now!

We’ll be performing ‘Watch Me Fall’ at The Arches in Glasgow on May 16th followed swiftly by BAC, London on May 20th.

Keep an eye on our website for times and Box Office details or join our facebook group to keep up to date

Action Hero – Watch Me Fall, Arnolfini

21^st Feb 2009

On the morning after watching Watch Me Fall I wake and still feel something of that event with me, over me. Something about your grip has lingered. The epicness, the savagery, the dream like fantasy of it remains. Your hair, Gemma, coke stained and dishevelled, the sweat falling from James’ hair and face. The ordeal of it all.

It remains in my memory so visceral, like the pages of Rolling Stone or the pictures of some infamous rock gig.

These cold acts of care, the hug, the helping hand and then the sad and continuous kicking of the head. Gemma, the power and menace of your frilly dainty figure. An audience not knowing who to side with, feeling like you would both bite the hands that feed you and as you turn on each other you would turn on us.

We stood along that long stretch and enjoyed the use of that strip, up and down the runway, similar to a boxing ring on a fight night. How you invited a hesitant crowd to get ugly, to become a disturbance.

Your seduction of the crowd was not as subtle as I imagined your hype hyperbole in itself. You were not so likeable and I enjoyed your bravery over this. I was not sure whether I would root for you James, you thinly guised misogynist. And yet I did, as you kicked and pulled and tormented each other with such mutual complicity and a deep rooted sadness in your willing self exploitation.

We did root for you like a good and willing baying mob and you delivered your dare devil deeds, these small acts of glory and sacrifice and maybe this is why I awake with fragmented memory and unattributed guilt like the morning after the night before.

WATCH ME FALL
Arnolfini Fri 20th Feb 7pm
(as part of a double bill with Neil Callaghan & Simone Kenyon)
tickets are £8/£6
Box office: 0117 9172300

www.actionhero.org.uk

In April 2008 we re-enacted Evel Knievel’s 1967 Caesar’s Palace motorcycle jump at Arnolfini, Bristol. We landed just short (like the original), but in our version we didn’t spend 29 days in a coma afterwards. Since then, we have continued to make such attempts and developed an event for an audience. On February 20th we are returning to Arnolfini to attempt a jump once again…..only this time we’re going further.

*Watch Me Fall* is an intimate yet epic live performance- an experiment with the relationship between an audience and an event; a celebration of futility and danger. It is An Arnolfini We Live Here commission, supported by The ShowRoom University of Chichester, developed at Forest Fringe, Shunt and Residence, and it is funded by Arts Council England.

If at any point you see me on fire, don’t try and help. Just stand well back and wait until my own people can be there.

“an ecstatic atmosphere” Metro
if you want to know more about the process of making ‘Watch Me Fall’ scroll down our news page to the ‘Shunt Fun’ post. For images of the show visit/join our facebook group

We will be performing a work-in-progress of ‘Watch Me Fall’ at Showroom, Chichester university on Wednesday January 21st then the ‘finished version will be at Arnolfini in Bristol, on Friday 20th February. Its part of a double bill with another South West company Neil and Simone and it kicks off at 7:00pm.

Arnolfini will be the first time it will be presented as a ‘finished’ piece. Hope you can make it x

Also we are performing ‘A Western’ at Teatro de Laboral in Spain as part of SPACEUK on March 7th. Which is a British Council Showcase for international promoters, for work that inhabits non-theatre spaces.

Wednesday January 21st – Watch Me Fall - Showroom, Chichester Univesity.

Friday February 20th – Watch Me Fall – Arnolfini, Bristol.

Saturday March 7th – A Western – Teatro de Laboral, Spain.

Here is a link to an interview we did for the Theatre Bristol website. TB interview

It also contains some images taken of the work-in-progress of ‘Watch Me Fall’ we did at Shunt. They were taken by a photographer called Sandy Danbury (Elliott Rebellious and Dave Treacle) and we rather like them.

We’ll be performing at approx 9:30pm thursday, friday and saturday. We are in a small room, through a door, off the long corridor. Our room has its own bar that will be selling whisky and beer all night, so get in early to avoid the queues and relax with a drink.

See you there.

We will be performing ‘A Western’ at the Shunt Vaults, London on Wednesday 19th, Thursday 20th and Friday 21st November. Contact shunt for more details.

“Resolutely off-kilter but entirely accessible…brilliant…immensely clever” Metro

So now I know the true meaning of ‘the baying mob’.

Before we performed ‘Watch Me Fall’ at Shunt we were warned that on a Friday night at 10pm it was a bit of a bear pit. We thought we’d take it on as a challenge and thought it would be a good exercise for the development of the show. The idea being that the risk and energy of the space would teach us lessons about the material.

Well we definately learnt a few lessons.

The audience were a chaotic mix of aggressive interventionists, apathetic bystanders, flailing drunks and anguished sympathisers watching the tragedy unfold before them. As soon as we started it was clear we were in for a rough ride, and the intricate subtleties we had been working on were immediatley thrown out the window. It was only going to be broad strokes that could carry us through and when even setting yourself on fire is not quite enough of a broad stroke, you know its going to be a long night.

To give you an accurate picture of the audience we were facing, the bicycle we use to make the jump was stolen halfway through the show and had to be retrieved by a bouncer. As were the safety elbow and knee pads I need to wear. The bouncers managed to retrieve the elbow pads, but not the knee pads (which accounts for the large bruise and cut I’m now nursing on my knee). We were shouted at, abused, pushed, ignored, yet still, in amongst the chaos, there were moments of glory that carried us through.

The theme of futility was pushed beautifully to the forefront of the piece as we persistently tried our best to win the audience over to little or no avail. With rowsing speeches that became desperate pleas the folly in the act was exaggerated to new heights,  helping to emphasise the content we’re currently exploring. The arrogant young clubbers who postured and paraded themselves throughout the show served as perfect exemplars for the obnoxious, aggressive, masculine ideal we were attempting to crash land.

When you set out to use audiences as collaborators you have to except that you are going to come across audiences who want it all on their terms. Friday nights audience wanted flame and spectacle and when they didn’t get it they felt cheated and weren’t prepared to take the embarrasingly cheap subsitute we were offering. So they bayed and drunkenly staggered across our work, stamping their own authority of mass upon it and they’ve left an indelible mark on the piece that we are indebted to them for.

Both us as performers and a faction of the audience who were willing to collaborate got a truly unique experience from the event. A rock and roll car crash with two tragic heroes at its heart, whimpering and straining to be heard, moving from one hilariously futile attempt to the next. At various moments I looked into the eyes of audience members who looked back with deep, deep pity in the eyes and a worn out grin that said, “I’m not sure you’re going to make it”. For that fleeting moment, I loved them and I think they loved me.

Thank you Shunt.

Bring on the next work-in-progress.