Highlights from Work in 2018

A quick overview of some of the work done in 2018, quite a busy year.

I started filming the trailers for Suzy Harvey’s monthly Everybody Friendly Screenings at Lewes Depot Cinema. They are wonderful, exuberant screenings that welcome anyone and everyone. They’ve since expanded to De Le Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, with more in the pipeline.

An Everybody Friendly screening of "Mamma Mia", with your host, Suzy Harvey, dressed in full Abba gear, filmed at Lewes Depot. Audience members wore their own silver headbands, waved their Money, Money, Money, wore their Dancing Queen crowns, blew bubbles during wedding toast, called out an SOS, sang out loud and danced along.

Kindness Week with People Unted returned to Priory School in Ramsgate. The kids there were wonderful - fun, ready to learn, ready to play, ready to be kind. They all drew pictures of me as Steampunk Bob at the end, v lovely.

I was composer in residence with Bolder Voices choir of elders for our second care home project. We met the folks at Riverview Care Home in Wembley, listened to their stories and wrote songs based on their lives. Bolder Voices learned the songs, and at the end we had a concert There’s a separate post here - right before this one - if you’d like to see a video based on the project…

The company invite themselves to the B(old) festival 2018 at the South Bank. Filmed and edited by Bob Karper http://www.bobkarper.com/

In June I took a break to welcome my gorgeous, fun and *hilarious* nieces Sophie & Sara to the UK. We went to Paris and Cambridge and Ireland and all over London. They are such terrific young ladies…

I filmed Moving Memory’s Cracking the Crinoline performance at the South Bank Centre in May - they are amazing inspiring women. Based on this film, they were invited to join the Trafalgar Square women’s protest in autumn. Woo Hoo!

In July I was cast in Home Alone 2 - a true crime reconstruction drama - as the lead - the victim bank manager who was forced to rob his own bank by thieves who tied explosives to his body and threatened to blow him up unless he went through with it. Yikes!

In the summer Lone Twin’s Beastie went to Latvia, and Lorna Rees/Gobbledegook’s Ear Trumpet went to Pfozheim Germany and Morecombe England for the Vintage Festival, where a Lancaster bomber made a dramatic flyby.

Autumn came and the making continued for Oh! Suburbia! with Gary Winters.  We had a premiere of the London version at the end of October at Chats Palace - I’m very happy with the show and Gary was a pleasure to work with from start to finish.

In November I went to West Cork Ireland to mentor a wonderful artist called Tess Leak. She was making a multi-disciplined show with long term residents of Bantry Hospital - taking stories from their lives, turning them into poems and dramatizing them with handmade puppets set to live music. I watched an early run-through, lent an outside eye, and visited Tess’s gorgeous studio across Baltimore Bay. Later in the year the group had their performance - and this wonderful film was made from it.

Following a two-year residency in St. Joseph’s Unit, Bantry General Hospital, artist Tess Leak collaborated with a group of residents, puppeteer Eoin Lynch and composer Justin Grounds to create ‘Stories from the Well-Field', bringing to life their poems about enduring childhood friendships. Sharon Whooley's short observational film captures the remarkable performance by 'The Well-Field Company' which took place in January 2019. Tess Leak and filmmaker Sharon Whooley were awarded the 2018 artsandhealth.ie documentation bursary to capture the project on film. The project was supported by an Arts Council of Ireland Arts Participation Project Award and is part of the Arts for Health Partnership Programme, West Cork. The artsandhealth.ie documentation bursary is funded by the HSE and the Arts Council.

At the end of the year it was another outing for the Christmas Show - at Pegasus Theatre in Oxford. Lorna Rees was already booked on a dinosaur project, so the very funny, talented Alys Torrence stepped in and the show was renamed Alice & Bob’s Whopping Christmas Cracker Party. We had a lovely audiences and multiple five star reviews, a particularly wonderful show was when our Tubthumpers choir came to Oxford and sang before the performance. A very fun end of the year.