Crick Crack Club: Soho seasons

A treasure house of myth, humour and romance, smack-bang in the middle of London's West End.

The Crick Crack Club’s hugely popular Soho Seasons bring monthly performance storytelling events to the studio of London’s Soho Theatre - turning a small corner of the West End into a wild haven of fairytale, myth and epic.


Season1 2009	Season2 2009	Season3 2010	Season4 2010	Season5 2010	Season6 2011	Season7 2011	Season8 2011	Season9 2012

We're interested in up and coming artists. If you're an aspiring performance storyteller and have a performance (between 45 mins and 2 hours long) which you think we'd be interested in (and is based on folk tales, fairytales, myth epic, legend .... or something like that), then please let us know where we can see you in action. We can't get to everything, but we'd like to know what you're up to. We don't programme performers whose work we haven't seen.

SOHO SEASON 9: ARTISTS AND SHOWS:

TUUP, with Sheema Mukherjee
TUUP

8pm Wednesday 18th January 2012: The King and The Corpse

A king is obliged to carry the corpse of a hanged man on his back – but the corpse is not dead, it is possessed by a storytelling vampire, whose enigmatic puzzles threaten to burst the King’s head into a thousand pieces… The magical storyteller, TUUP, and virtuoso sitar player, Sheema Mukherjee, both core members the wild world music collective Transglobal Underground, team up to tell transglobalised versions of these stunning, 2,000 year old tales.

TUUP is a true phenomenon. Born in Guyana and raised in Acton, West London, Godfrey Duncan - TUUP (The Unorthodox, Unprecedented Preacher) - has been a professional storyteller since 1981, when he joined Ben Haggarty and Daisy Keable to form the West London Storytelling Unit. He is truly an elder of the storytelling revival in Britain. His style of total improvisation, fabulous capacity for mimicry and ear for a wild story is outstanding. He has a deeply sensitive spirit, which means that he can sometimes create very moving spontaneous poetry. He has travelled the world, telling stories all over Europe and in Northern and Southern Africa. He has performed in many countries in Asia and both North and South America in his role as a creative lyricist, poet, percussionist and vocalist with the highly influential dance music collective, Transglobal Underground.

Ben Haggarty, with Sherry Robinson

8pm Tuesday 21st February 2012: Beauty & the Beast and other Lovers of the Rose

Ben Haggarty and musician Sherry Robinson (cello & hammer dulcimer) make a sortie into the unfathomable mysteries of the heart to ask ‘do we choose love, or does love choose us?’ This exploration of the intoxication and brutality of love, lust and betrayal draws together comedic games in paradise, a broken vow of chastity, a reunion in death, and culminates in an extraordinary retelling of a seemingly familiar fairytale for grown-ups, which will creep into your waking dream and haunt you with its beauty.

Having been trained in mime and theatre direction in the 1970s, and apprenticed as an image-maker with Welfare State, Ben Haggarty began telling stories professionally in 1981 - becoming a central figure in the re-visioning of storytelling as a contemporary performing art in the UK. Today Ben is a world-class performance storyteller, heralded for his dynamic and lively performances. His shows, including Gilgamesh, Mr Sandmann, Indo-european Wondertales, Frankenstein and Beauty and the Beast, have earned him international renown, and he tells his stories with infectious charm and deceptive ease. Ben has featured as guest storyteller, representing Britain, in over 45 International Storytelling festivals in over 23 countries. He is honorary professor of storytelling at the Arts University of Berlin (UDK) and is the official storyteller with Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. www.benhaggarty.com

Dominic Kelly

8pm Tuesday 20th March 2012: Trickster

Delightful and dangerous, hungry for life and never to be trusted… On the edge of the road a figure wanders between the sunshine and shadows, keeping an eye to the main chance, or a way to slip the nets that trap the rest. Meet the comedian of myth, charlatan, shapeshifter and master of uncertainty, in this premiere performance - Come and journey on Trickster's side of the road.

Dominic is a storyteller with a growing national reputation for his performances in schools, museums, libraries, theatres and conservation sites, and at major festivals across the UK. Through flowing narrative, and his dynamic and subtle feel for pace and mood, he draws audiences into traditional stories told for the 21st Century. Trickster is a 3monkeys commission, supported by Arts Council England. www.dominickelly.uk.com

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