Storytelling PR

Press Release

Swamp Motel present The Mermaid’s Tongue

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Swamp Motel presents The Mermaid’s Tongue

From the team behind summer 2020 cyber smash-hit show Plymouth Point, comes a new live experience, The Mermaid’s Tongue. Combining the artistry of live immersive theatre with the thrill of an escape room, The Mermaid’s Tongue builds on the new wave of COVID-19 prompted home entertainment. Inspired by the phenomenon of true-crime – this is audience participation but not as we know it. 

The Mermaid’s Tongue begins with audiences and their teammates taking part in the True Colours online life-drawing class. It quickly becomes clear that there will be no time for sketching, as a spilled secret quickly plunges you into a murky underworld. Each group of detectives have to hack into an art gallery CCTV, outbid a high-end art dealer in a live auction, and decipher messages from beyond the grave. Every click, log-in, call or code immerses players deeper in the mystery to discover the artefact, before it falls into the wrong hands. Let the hunt begin.

The first show in the series, Plymouth Point (designed and produced in April – May 2020) provided a rare shared live-entertainment experience in lockdown. Born out of digital tools widely available to the public, it successfully blurs fiction and reality to create an hour of entertainment for socially distant friendship groups and theatre-goers. Follow-up The Mermaid’s Tongue steps deeper into those blurred lines, turning audience members into live protagonists of the experience.  As audiences and theatre makers continue into a disrupted and unknown time for live events, Swamp Motel invite audiences to another piece of innovative entertainment two months in the making.

Swamp Motel specialise in immersive entertainment, and with the closure of events spaces and theatres, they set out about building a new way to play. Company Founders & Creative Directors Clem Garritty & Ollie Jones commented: 

“We’re excited to unleash Mermaid’s Tongue to the world. With the mad, sad and strange events of 2020 we got to thinking: what we really love, ultimately, is expressing new narratives to audiences and subverting their expectations along the way. People weren’t able to leave their houses, they were using video-call constantly, so our challenge became: how do we make that exciting and can we use the internet as a new platform for us – as experience makers – to engage audiences? As we quickly discovered – there were endless ways to get theatrical – and we’re now so very excited to welcome audiences to our latest Swamp Motel creation.”

The Mermaid’s Tongue is part theatre, part crime mystery thriller, part night out. All from the comfort of your own home – with friends and family safely, in theirs. 

Praise for Plymouth Point:

★★★★ “Fiendishly Good Fun” – Metro

★★★★★ “Thrilling Whodunnit” – Upcoming

★★★★ “Plymouth Point is seriously gripping stuff” – Guardian

Audiences do not have to have played Plymouth Point to enjoy The Mermaid’s Tongue but it may help! The first show in the series will continue to be available to book for teams through the rest of 2020. Team size can be 2 – 6 people for both shows.

swampmotel.co.uk 

For further information, images and interview requests please contact Miriam Attwood 07825642225 miriam@storytellingpr.com Emma Costello emma@storytellingpr.com

Wonder Fools announce new summer season of work

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Announced this week: five new projects come from the young Glasgow Company as they, along with most of the country, rewrite their diary for 2020.  Stories to Connect Us is an entire season of digital work from Wonder Fools, with three completely new pieces of storytelling: Secret Private World, Home Made and The New Normal.

A reworked audio version of The Coolidge Effect will be available from July and the theatre company’s sold out Scottish touring show 549: Scots of the Civil War will be available for a limited time to watch online, with a new intro from the team explaining why they’ve decided to share the archive footage online. The online premiere with a Q&A will take place on June 30.

Wonder Fools co-founder, Jack Nurse commented:

“Wonder Fools were set for 2020 being the most productive, far reaching and artistically challenging yet. With the advent of COVID19, we have put our planned live shows on the backburner and turned our attention to creating digital work that directly speaks to today. At heart, we are a company that tells stories and have always experimented with different forms – Stories to Connect Us is no different.

“We can’t wait to be back in theatres again but for now we are excited for audiences to interact with some of our favourite old shows in new ways and to create brand new work for the first time in two years. We hope the season will utilise the possibilities of digital forms and through the stories we have chosen to tell offer audiences great entertainment and, above all, a sense of connection for these isolated times.”

Online from Tuesday July 28 a new audio version of Wonder Fools’ play, The Coolidge Effect, starring Robbie Gordon & Jamie Marie Leary, (written by Gordon and Nurse) will be available for download. Having toured extensively across the UK through 2016 – 2018 the show explores the impact of pornography addiction on people’s mental health. Devised from interviews with porn advocates, addicts, mental health experts and scientists The Coolidge Effect has become an even more relevant conversation as we sit at home behind our screens. 

At its core, The Coolidge Effect is a story about isolation and the importance of connection, the new audio version features a powerful and upbeat score written for the show by VanIves.

549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War will be shared through archive footage from one of the most joyous nights on the UK tour. Available to watch on Tuesday June 30. Filmed live in an Ayrshire town hall, the recording celebrates the raw power of rural touring and community, and tells the story of a moment in our history where international solidarity and hope stood up in the face of oppressive fascism. The need for this story to be retold regrettably continues today. Wonder Fools hope to reach more of the families of the 549 who were unable to see it on tour in 2019, inviting them to contact the team directly to share their stories contact@wonderfools.org. A huge archive of information gathered around the project of 549 men who traveled from Scotland to support the anti-facist movement in Spanish Civil War is continually being built at 549.scot.

The three projects that will be announced in more detail through the course of summer 2020 include, The New Normal, a collection of monologues created by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Young Company which tell the stories of those people most profoundly affected by the pandemic.

A co-production with MGA Academy, Home Made looks at how our relationship to home evolves as we move out into the world. Created on zoom with the final year acting students – what home means seems very poignant, especially right now.

Finally, Secret Private World is a new thriller by Wonder Fools to be serialised as a six-part podcast. Set in lockdown Glasgow, the familiar story of gazing out windows, staring at the same walls, watching the rubbish pile up, will come to life with fictional James, as our narrator. Whilst creating narratives in his head about the lives of his neighbours he notices something, a peculiar incident nobody else seems to notice.

Further information about this impressive season of work from the independent theatre company coming through summer 2020.

For images, interview requests and further info please contact Miriam at Storytelling PR miriam@storytellingpr.com 07825642225 (and hopefully the rest of the team soon!)

Listings Stories to Connect Us

The Coolidge Effect – available 28 June 2020

549: Scots of the Civil War – viewing on Tuesday 30 June, tickets available via the website on a ‘pay-what-you-can’ basis alongside a live Q&A with the creative team. Fundraising around the re-run of 549 Scots of the Civil War will see 50% of money raised going directly to the cast and creative team behind 549.

Home Made – to be announced

Secret Private World – to be announced

New Normal – to be announced

Wonder Fools Team

Robbie Gordon co-founder / co-writer/ performer

Jack Nurse co-founder / co-writer/ director

Steph Connell producer

549: Scots of the Civil War on tour was ‘in association with Citizens Theatre and the Brunton supported by Ayr Gaiety’. The Peggy Ramsey Foundation is supporting Secret Private World.

Hot Brown Honey

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WORD POLLINATION TOUR | DECOLONISE AND MOISTURISE | ROCK THE BOAT

Hot Brown Honey. Image by Dylan Evans.

It’s 2020, and Hot Brown Honey are back. Touring to the UK and Canada, leading a charge for a matriarchal future with their smash-hit, world-wide, sell-out blend of theatre and activism. 

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Mother Lovers? A theatrical explosion of colour, culture and controversy, Hot Brown Honey is returning to the UK and Canada after taking the world by storm.  

Equal parts theatrical masterpiece and social activism, a stellar posse of phenomenal women smash stereotypes in an unapologetic celebration of our similarities and differences. Steeped in the Word of the Mother and packing a potent punch of Hip Hop politics, Hot Brown Honey will make you laugh until you cry, clap until your hands bleed and shake every part of what your mama gave you. With lighting, music and costume set to ignite the change we want to be, Hot Brown Honey is an extraordinary production that spins tradition on its head, going above and beyond to challenge boundaries and embrace resilience. 

Hot Brown Honey features a bevy of powerful and talented First Nations women from the Global South from Aboriginal, Samoan, Tongan, Maori, Indonesian and South African backgrounds who are dead set on calling out the patriarchy, shattering preconceptions of colour and having a riotous time doing it. 

Starring Lisa Fa’alafi as the Game Changer, Kalala Sione as The Love Liberator, Hope Haami as Hope One the Beatboxer, Cody Raymond as The Shape Shifter, Crystal Stacey as The Peace Maker and Busty Beatz as The Queen Bee. 

Co-creator and Director Lisa Fa’alafi says: “We’re telling our own stories and putting them into a big theatrical explosion. We are going, you know what, it’s our time to shine. We’re all from these amazing heritages and we all live in Australia and we want to show the world what we’re made of. We really do believe ‘You cannot be what you cannot see’, so we are just doing it; we are putting more brown faces on stage.”

Recipients of the 2017 Three Weeks Editor’s Award at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 2016 UK’s Total Theatre Award for Innovation, Experimentation and Playing With Form, Helpmann Award for Best Cabaret Performer and Green Room Awards for Best Production and Best Design and a 2018 UK Theatre nomination for Best Touring Production, Hot Brown Honey have lit centre stage at the most prestigious venues and festivals across the globe including Sydney Opera House, Queen Elizabeth’s Hall, National Arts Centre Ottawa, Brighton Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Auckland Pride Festival and Hull Freedom Festival, to name a few. 

Co-Creator/MD Busty Beatz: “The Arts has the capacity to shift culture and we are living in a time where the paradigm is shifting enormously. We live in a culture that needs change urgently.Not tomorrow. Right Here. Right Now. We stand in the Creative Revolution.At the forefront we give Love and Respect to First Nations People. We give Love and Respect to those who have come before us. To the Game Changers Myth SlayersPoets, MoversMusic MakersGround Breakers, Truth Sayers, Shake em up Women Queens, Queers and Risk Takers. We are the Change Creators – This is our world Mother Lovers and we are here to MAKE NOISE!”

In 2020 Hot Brown Honey are ready to Rock The Boat, unapologetically fierce, defiantly shattering preconceptions in an explosion of colour, culture and controversy. Fighting the Power never tasted so sweet. 

Media Contact: Miriam (+44) 7825642225 miriam@storytellingpr.com and Eleanor eleanor@storytellingpr.com at Storytelling PR LTD.

Within Sight

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By Ellen Renton
Presented by In The Works

Spring UK Tour March – June 2020 

Ellen Renton, Within Sight. Image by Bibi Schwithal.

Scottish Spoken Word artist Ellen Renton has lived with albinism her whole life. An estimated 1 in 17,000 people in the UK do. But what if there was only one achievement that would deem that life successful? Within Sight dismantles ableism, inspiration porn, and the myth of the Paralympics. 

This is a poetic exploration of living with albinism – an inherited life-long condition that means people produce little or no melanin, affecting the eyes, skin and hair and resulting in various levels of visual impairment.

One of society’s most misunderstood conditions wildly shrouded in myths and misconceptions, Ellen will tour the UK this Spring with her debut solo work urging audiences to reconsider representation.

Through softly spoken but hard-hitting words and an impressive cardio display, we follow the journey of a young athlete who goes out for a run in an attempt to clear her head after receiving news that she has narrowly missed out on being picked for the GB Paralympics team. 

As she runs, she recalls the events that have led to this pivotal moment, reflecting on relationships between her body, her senses, and her sport. She contemplates what her future will hold in a society that has forced her life into a binary: to succeed and be an inspiration, or to fail and be pitied.

Hot-tempered with passion and fanatic in her strong work ethic, the protagonist’s complex character defies the one-note depiction of disabled people in popular media. 

Spoken word and poetry is fast becoming one of the world’s most popular mediums for marginalised artists to address societal prejudice and discrimination. Ellen set out to create a work that is personal in its topic but universal in its narrative of how society fails disabled people.

Confrontational, complex and emotional, the show is a display of the power of spoken word theatre.

The team for Within Sight is disability-led, and the show has been designed to flip accessibility on its head. With minimal staging and text-based performance, the show has been created for all to enjoy without relying on sight. Ellen enlisted filmmaker Kiana Kalantar-Hormozi to create a visual backdrop aimed at providing a glimpse of what the world looks like through the eyes of someone living with partial sight and a musical score by Jack Hinks. 

On creating Within Sight, Ellen Renton said, “I wanted to challenge people to think about the role that they themselves play in perpetuating ableism, and specifically, to talk about the poor representation of disabled people in today’s society. The show mixes a fictional narrative with the reality of living with albinism, confronting the audience with their expectations of what a disabled life looks like.”

Event information: 

5-6 March, 8pm – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh 
19-21st March, 8pm – Tron Theatre, Glasgow 
15 May, 7.30pm – Dunoon Burgh Hall
21 May, 8pm – Canada Waters, London
30 May, 2pm – Platform, London
4-5 June, 7.30pm – Byre Theatre, St Andrews 

Every venue will host BSL interpreted shows with an adapted ‘touch tour’ pre show available for visually impaired audience members. All performances are captioned and relaxed. 

Tickets available from In The Works.

Symbiosis of art and science at Summerhall this April

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We began as part of the body by Beverley Hood.
  • See, hear and smell the fusion of art and science in Edinburgh Science Festival exhibition series, Syncrasy 
  • Bong Joon-ho leads Cinehall programme of apocalypse thrillers and nature documentaries
  • A live music line-up with chemistry: Colonel Mustard and the Dijon 5, Grace Petrie and David Ford & Jarrod Dickenson

We’re shaking off the winter blues and slipping on our lab coats – the Edinburgh Science Festival returns to Summerhall. An interactive library of food additives, apocalypse movies and the backdrop of our former Vet School home combine to make Summerhall the perfect place to experience the satisfying, gloopy compound that is Art(Science)2

Art, science and technology combine in our science festival exhibition series, Syncrasy. Co-curated by Summerhall and ASCUS Art & Science, Syncrasy is made up of three exhibitions, We Began As Part of The Body by Beverley Hood, Oscillations by Victoria Evans and E-Number V2.0 by Sneha Solanki. Each exhibition plays with how we understand and interact with the world around us – from the microorganisms that produce artificial flavours in our food, to the ethical questions around artificial skin cells, to the music made by the tide. Syncrasy invites audiences to smell the food additives that now form such a large part of our diets and get up close and personal with scaled-up models of human skin cells. 

In our newly established Summerhall Cinema programme, Cinehall, nature documentaries meet apocalyptic thrillers in a science inspired lineup. British zombie flick 28 Days Later and climate-change chiller The Day After Tomorrow sit alongside Cane Toads: The Conquest and (the frankly adorable) March of the Penguins. On 17 April we’ve got kids classic Finding Nemo, followed by Academy Award-winner and Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s creature-feature thrill ride Host on 18 April. 

The team behind Edinburgh Hogmanay’s Message From the Skies, Bright Side Studios, bring their new interactive installation to Summerhall’s Old Lab. Elemental invites audiences to explore the four elements the ancient Greeks believed made up the universe: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. On this magical multi-sensory journey, children and adults alike will move through an intriguing, immersive digital world in which magic meets alchemy and alchemy meets science. 

Slightly less scientific but just as much fun, our live music lineup for the start of Spring has a whole lot of chemistry. Our songwriters circle night All Work Together brings Carla J. Easton, Withered Hand and Rachel Sermanni to the same stage on Friday 3 April; Genre-hopping party band Colonel Mustard and the Dijon 5 rock up on Saturday 18 April; there’s the return of folk singer Grace Petrie on Tuesday 21 April; on Thursday 23 April there’s a special double headline show from singer-songwriters David Ford and Jarrod Dickenson. 

All exhibitions are free. Check the Summerhall website for gig, film and installation tickets – we can’t wait to welcome you to Summerhall this April!