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Christopher Green: No Show

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Presented by Christopher Green and The Yard Theatre
25th February – 8th March 2020

(c) Holly Revell

Olivier Award winner Christopher Green (The Home, Tina C, Office Party) has, for once, got cold feet.

Renowned for creating spectacle after spectacle which have wowed, intrigued and beguiled audiences internationally, this time the responsibility may become a little bit much.

‘Christopher Green: No Show’ has been over two decades in the making. It’s the culmination of 25 years of entertaining tens of thousands of audience members and learning exactly what makes them tick, what they want.

For his next trick, our hero toys with what keeps an audience in the room. Tension? Anticipation? Entertainment?

Christopher Green: No Show

In an moment when political leaders fly to Hawaii while their country burns; would rather play golf than actively govern; and where hiding in a fridge is a better option than allowing press to see you are vastly unprepared; Christopher Green asks who will step in when the person who’s meant to be ‘running the show’ just doesn’t. Is this the perfect metaphor for the state of everything – or just another gimmick?

Christopher Green has decades of experience in the industry – creating bespoke, immersive and experiential work around the accepted areas of live art like The Home – an overnight stay in a nursing home – Office Christmas Party, a massive night out in, well, an office. He is a Music Hall cabaret legend, has had a successful career in comedy and play writing for BBC Radio 4 and has really lovely hair.

Join Christopher Green, the reluctant performer. So what if he’s a No Show?

On ‘Ida Barr’s Mash Up’

“Marie Lloyd meets Missy Elliott. Awe inspiring” – The Guardian

On ‘The Home’

“an unforgettable feat of emotional engineering.” – ★★★★ The Guardian

On ‘Prurience’

“… a disorientating, provocative experience….  Theatrically the piece is audacious, springing a series of head-spinning surprises.  This is the kind of art that leaves its mark on you.  Unnerving, and uncomfortably compelling” – The Times

Green creates “..a deeply unsettling experience; one that gets right to the core of contemporary life” – ★★★★ What’s On Stage

“Tests the limits of theatre…. Very funny and genuinely discomforting…at its fiendish, exhilarating best it makes you question not just attitudes to porn but how we experience reality.” – Lyn Gardner

Tickets are available here

Mount Strange and the Temple of Fame

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Hamsafar by Mina Heydari-Waite

January 2020: four very different artists uncover forgotten histories and semi-imagined pasts in Summerhall’s first exhibition of the new year, Mount Strange and the Temple of Fame. Deep diving into investigative research, these artists interrogate the minutiae of tangled human and ecological life.

Curated by Wendy Law, Edinburgh-based contemporary visual arts specialist, Mount Strange is a reimagining of Summerhall’s Festival 2012 exhibition Only Women Women Only, presenting a diverse range of work dealing with the erasure of women in written history, wealth and power, folklore and ritual. These four women artists across six galleries, invite us to contemplate what is fake, what is artifice, what is real and what is truth.

Wendy Law commented; ‘These women are today’s explorers – as artists they research, scrutinise and collect. They delve into strange histories, question reputations and our spiritual and physical relationships with our environment.’

Victoria Clare Bernie, Maria Gimeno, Mina Heydari-Waite and Alix Villanueva use film, video, drawing, photography, found objects, ritual and performance.


Victoria Clare Bernie is a visual artist concerned with the tension between natural entropy and human design, exploring wildness through human minutiae. Her film Mount Strange and the Temple of Fame gives the exhibition its title. She is presenting two other films, including Daedalus – exploring the mysterious true story of Hitler’s Deputy’s fateful flight to Scotland in search, perhaps, of a peace treaty – and Office of Woods.

In Queridas Viejas (Old Mistresses), Maria Gimeno stages a gendered intervention on the ‘bible’ of art history; E.H. Gombrich’s The Story of Art. Using a sharp tipped kitchen knife and an academically rigorous approach, Gimeno carefully inserts the artists Gombrich ‘forgot’ – the women – and invites us to examine our own relationship with art history, and the primarily white, male collections of our major art institutions. On the 8th March, Marie Gimeno will perform Queridas Viejas for the first time in the UK to celebrate International Women’s Day in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre.

Glasgow-based, Iranian-British artist and facilitator Mina Heydari-Waite’s work is concerned with hierarchical dynamics in cultural history and cultural participation. Her work همسفر  (Hamsafar / Companion Traveller) investigates the role diasporic identity plays by weaving together semi-imagined histories of the Iranian diaspora created after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Alix Villanueva is a multi-media Edinburgh-based artist and cosmoecologist, interested in the use of the strange and the folkloric within ecological thought and in investigating where domesticity and the wild entangle. She is presenting items worn during her happenings, including ‘Landscape Skirt’ – a healing ritual.


Find out more about Summerhall’s Visual Arts programme.

Giant puppet STORM unveiled ahead of Celtic Connections 2020

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  • Ten metre tall goddess of the sea, Storm will walk through Glasgow’s city centre on Saturday 18 January
  • Route details and how audiences can take part in the free family friendly outdoor spectacle announced

Vision Mechanics, the Edinburgh company behind the much loved Big Man Walking have unveiled their latest project, Storm, ahead of its debut as part of the Celtic Connections Coastal Day celebrations. 

Rehearsing in the expansive grounds of the Museum of Flight, the ten-metre tall puppet is putting her sea legs to the test in preparation for her first public appearance. 

Two years in the making, Storm is a new feat of mechanical mastery created by the formidable puppeteering duo Symon Macintyre and Kim Bergsagel. Created in response to the climate crisis, she is a folklore giant made real who will encourage children and audiences alike to celebrate our seas, encourage care for our coastlines and empower us all to put the environment first. 

Made from entirely recycled materials, her eyes are the colour of oyster shells, her hair thick strands of kelp, her voice the chorus of the waves. Aided by eight puppeteers, Storm will wake up on the banks of the River Clyde to kick off the inaugural Coastal Connections Day at the UK’s largest annual Folk Festival. Storm is also one of the first events to mark Scotland’s official year of Coasts and Waters 2020.

Families, friends and passers by will have the opportunity to walk alongside Storm as she slowly makes her way to the Royal Concert Hall. Backed by a beautiful soundscape from Scotland’s pioneering folk singer Mairi Campbell, Storm will be joined by some surprise performances along the way, culminating in a specially choreographed dance performance by students from Glasgow Kelvin College’s Performing Arts Programme. 

Storm’s route map and summary of activity on the day:

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Harry Clayton-Wright presents Sex Education

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Sex Education by Harry Clayton Wright

Hands up who had good Sex Education? Very few of us. In his first solo show, performance artist, theatre-maker and internet-provocateur Harry Clayton-Wright is here to tell you you’re not alone. 

Resplendent in a vintage charity shop wedding dress (a story in and of itself), Harry narrates the audience through some of the gay porn given to him by his Dad when he was 14, candidly shares his sexual encounters – the good, the bad, and everything in between, and asks the question: why are we still so bad at talking about sex? And wouldn’t an openness keep us all so much safer? 

Throughout, we hear a conversation between Harry and his Mum, a former Christian missionary, who is not allowed to see the show. How does she feel about the fact his nudes are all online? Does she think he’s a top or a bottom? How would she feel if he did porn? Their experiences are worlds apart, but their conversation is full of warmth and closeness, and soon everything begins to make sense. 

After an extremely successful run at Summerhall’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where he was nominated for a Total Theatre Award and won the Melbourne Fringe Award, Harry is taking his unique brand of education on the road in what is his first national tour. Come for the lessons, stay for the delicious cucumber sandwiches. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – The Guardian 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – The List 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Fest 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – The Stage 

 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Scotsman

“Clayton-Wright has complete control of the room’s mood. Achingly funny, filthy and tender” – The Guardian  

“Extraordinary. An exuberant, propulsive, and often hilarious hour” – Scotsman

Listings

12 February – The Lowry, Manchester

25 – 28 February – Seymour Centre, Sydney – Sydney Mardi Gras

10 March – Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton

17-27 March – Shoreditch Town Hall, London – And What? Queer Arts Festival

31 March- 4 April – The Other Room, Cardiff

24 April – The Harris Museum, Preston

20-23 May – Tobacco Factory, Bristol – Mayfest

30 May – Cambridge Junction, Cambridge


MANIPULATE Festival 2020: Young Critics Programme

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A Wire Apart, Manipulate Festival 2020

MANIPULATE Festival is piloting a young critics programme this year, offering free tickets to a full day of shows, lunch and travel expenses on SAT 1 FEB. 

For more information on what’s on that day, visit the website and we will work with you to design a programme for your day!

The aim of this pilot programme is to invite five younger and emerging writers to engage creatively and critically with the wide range of visual theatre performances on offer at the festival.

Puppet Animation Scotland work incredibly hard to support visual theatre makers, puppeteers and animators in Scotland, and their work has paid off – the 2020 programme is 90% Scottish. This Young Critics Programme is a move towards fostering critics and critical language around visual theatre, supporting the rich culture there now is in Scotland.

The Summerhall cafe turned cabaret space will provide a space to reflect and we are hoping to invite some Scottish critics to come and talk about writing on visual theatre, puppetry and animated film.

We have outlets available to host content, and StorytellingPR can also support with pitching elsewhere.

Interested? Get in touch with Mim Black!