Freshly home from a useful recce to the Cannes Film Festival and yes, I have brought the sun back with me. (I took the rain with me when I went, mind…) Now stuck back into the ‘Fabled‘ preparations fray – under 3 weeks until the premier – CRAZY STUFF.
Taking some time out on Friday to perform one or maybe two of my Lois of the Lane variety acts at Boxing Rabbit‘s Launch Party. Here’s the flyer:
For now, it’s back to ‘Fabled‘ logistics. I feel a spreadsheet coming on…
I appear to have had all my hair chopped off 😀 Renders my headshots slightly out of date, but it certainly feels good! Hello Summer. The pixie-esque crop will have useful photographic evidence soon-ish.
In less hair-based news – my show GLITCH made another appearance last week: I was support to 2 bands at The Lexington in Angel. Wasn’t sure how it would go down in a gig setting, but it worked surprisingly well!
This Saturday I’m off out to do some Lois of the Lane air guitaring at The Stag’s Head in Hoxton for the legendary night that is Gypsy Hotel. I’ve even bought me some rockin’ wristbands for the occasion. Splendid.
I’m currently brushing up my Queen impression for this evening’s monthly Village Green Preservation Society jaunt. I’ll be doing my version of a Queen song… as the Queen. I’ll also be taking requests from my steadily growing catalogue of songs as I’ve actually practised them!! Last month’s VGPS outing resulted in an almost finished new song. Still not quite there with that one yet so I’m going to let it bubble away in my bonce for a bit…
Currently my next little outing will be at Bob Slayer’s Heroes of Alternative Comedy night at the Leicester Square Theatre on the 7th of May. Not sure what I’m doing at this yet, but I’ll either be Lois of the Lane-ing or doing some songs.
After this I’m going to be part of a new show called Circuit put together by Iris Theatre. Details on Facebook here and on Iris’ website here.
“The dark fairy-tale world of Circuit is an experimental performance project which blends the very best of emerging physical theatre, circus and contemporary dance.
A long forgotten, cavernous building broods in the dark, the air thick with the hum of a million ghosts. The silence is suddenly broken by the sound of a heavy metal door slowly swinging open. A child peers in through the darkness. In the shadows strange creatures, half human, half machine, begin to move…
Performed for two nights only at St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, this is an evening of circus, music, theatre and dance not to be missed.”
8pm Fri 13th and Sat 14th of May
St Paul’s Church WC2E 9ED
www.seetickets.com
0871 230 0010
£12 advance
£15 on the door
£10 concessions
I’m playing a musician android and will be doing some kind of bizarre skit with loads of different bits of music. Looking forward to it! The space is fantastic and there’s a whole bunch of really talented people getting involved. Promises to be a grand evening.
In new show news: I am no longer taking this up to the Edinburgh Fringe this year unfortunately (curses) but I have about a third of it written and aim to have it finished and on before the year is out.
Right, back to Queen rehearsing…
Another 4 months appears to have zipped past. They do that don’t they?
Well, in April I was being all tragic in a masked version of The Bacchae for Chris Vervain which was filmed for use in schools. Helloooooooooooo Thebes!
In May I had another private Lois of the Lane gig and then subsequently found myself hanging out at Paul Zenon‘s cabinet of Curiosities at the Brighton Fringe:
I was generally being a helpful sailor and keeping an eye on Paul Garner‘s freakshow artwork:
June saw me freaking out with the Gawkagogo Freakshow again – this time at the Udderbelly on the Southbank as part of the Time Out Live Friday Night Freakshow. There was pigging and a bit of Siamese Twin action:
(Lots of black wig wearing going on over the past few months!)
Also finally put in an application to the Arts Council in June, for funding to re-develop and re-vamp Super Situation. ALL TOES ARE CROSSED. I’ve just been on a fund raising course too, so NOTHING WILL STOP ME…
Moving on to July, last Thursday I was part of Jennifer Farmer’s 10 minute slot during the Brand writers symposium at the Southbank Centre as part of the London Literature Festival. She presented 4 small sections of piece she is developing entitled ‘thefadingcity’ which will ultimately be a large scale immersive theatre piece. I was doing random, absurd, interactive improvised stuff with kitchen implements, imaginary toxic ingredients and song. Love it 🙂
Coming up…
I’m putting on Super Situation and Glitch at the (almost) newly opened Waterloo East Theatre on Brad Street next week. Here be map. Also on the bill is ‘Baby Rice Cakes’ by Michele Hallak; performed by Michele and the Director of Super Situation: Jamie Rocha Allan. (We have the honour of being the first professional shows on there – whoop!) Important details below:
Thurs 22nd and Fri 23rd of July
7:30pm – Super Situation
9pm – Baby Rice Cakes followed by Glitch£8 for one time slot, £10 for both
Box Office: 0207 928 0060
Click here for Facebook event.
It’s part of the Best of Festivals season produced by Theatre6 which is warming up the theatre before it officially opens in September. Looking forward to cracking on with rehearsals next week 🙂
In August I’m going to be disappearing off to the Edinburgh Fringe to do a bit of busking for just over a week. As yet, I still have to dust off my guitar and come up with the songs, but, seemingly, I like a challenge!
Erk – another long update hiatus. As ever, stuff’s been going down despite the radio silence.
First up, I had some marvellous new headshots taken at the end of October by Ceri Ashcroft. They are waiting in the electronic pile of bits to upload to my website when I manage to squeeze a long overdue website updating session in. Soon I hope! Soon… Here is one of ’em for now:
There are more on my Spotlight CV if yer interested.
The beady eyed of you will also notice on said CV that I have an agent! I’m now represented by Sharon Foster Management 🙂
Over a couple of Sundays in October I also got round to recording my little song with my bruv. It’s called ‘Really and True’ and it’s been uploaded to the site for a while now so you can listen to it here. ( For those with a more offend-able disposition than my own, there is mild ‘language’ from the start…) It’s me on guitar, kazoo and vocal and my bro on thigh slapping, faux glockenspiel and faux accordion. Very pleased with how it’s turned out. There’ll be a proper link to it added during my next update session and, at some point, there’ll be a video for it too. Raaaah!
In December, the Gawkagogo Freakshow descended upon The Lowry:
Much freakiness abounded and I got enjoy being part of the inaugural outing of the all new, literally all singing, all dancing Siamese Twin act, as well as the premier of the new Beatnik Piggy act and various other freaky gubbins. More Freakshow news at some point in the near future…
As for Lois of the Lane, she performed at the Comedy Cabin at the end of October and has had her a private gig so far this year at the RVT, with another private gig booked for elsewhere in May. On the Super Situation front, plans are still afoot for the next stage of the show. STILL VERY EXCITED!
Coming up, I’m going to be involved in a film production of The Bacchae in April. Amongst other things, it’ll be a great chance to learn a good chunk of lines again. (So much silent performing over the past few years – which I LOVE, but speech based things do also most definitely float the boat.) Until then though, there must be a veritable cracking on with the stuff that needs to be done. Let me at ’em…
Despite what the radio silence of late may suggest, I can assure you that I did indeed make it back from the Edinburgh Fringe in one piece at the end of August – never you fear. I had a very good, useful trip up there with me and my alter ego, meeting a whole host of lovely talented people and doing some storming gigs, performing for the Bongo Club Cabaret, Sideshow, Bob Slayer‘s ‘You Bastard’ and Carnival des Phenomenes. Thanks to all who made it such a marvellous 2 mini trips.
Now, back at grindstone central, things are bubbling away nicely. I’ve had a good few of gigs as Ms of the Lane – 3 back in September: Electric Mouse Comedy‘s one off re-creation of Bob Slayer‘s Edinburgh show at The Paradise; my second private gig and thirdly the Red Velvet Curtain Cult‘s ‘Lust and Luxuria’ night at Whitechapel Art Gallery where I premiered a new stoopid act, plus a gig in October at Resistance Gallery‘s ‘Anti Frieze’ party. I’m back at the latter this weekend to perform as part of Lucha Britannia‘s Winter Weekender:
Aside from cabaret bits, my little one woman black comedy GLITCH is to be making an exciting re-appearance early next year. I’ll be performing it at the British Library‘s Taking Liberties exhibition, Tuesdays and Saturdays from mid January to mid February:
Tuesdays 20, 27 Jan and 3, 10 Feb
at 17:30 and 19:00
Saturdays 24, 31 Jan and 7, 14 Feb
at 13:00, 14:30 and 16:00
Here’s the latest version of the blurb:
A 30-minute black comedy performance set in an imaginary near future. A lone traveller finds herself trapped during an automated security check. Rather than succumb to the totalitarian surveillance, she attempts to outwit the machine and make a bid for freedom.
There really is some great stuff going on as part of this exhibition so I’m over the moon to be involved in it!
Now onto the grand plan mentioned in the last post… Well, not much in the way of juicy tidbits for you just yet, but to whet your whistle, I’m in the very early stages of developing a Feature Film. It’s going to be a slightly surreal character comedy involving many of the bright and talented sparks that I know. Very excited. Updates will be posted here.
Can’t wait to get properly stuck in…
Well hello there. I’ve just about recovered from the Latitude Festival (eee it were grand) in time to mention my appearance as Ms Lois of the Lane this Friday the 25th of July in ‘And the Devil May Drag You Under’.
Details:
“A Twisted Vaudevillian Romp” TIME OUT – Critic’s Choice
FINAL LONDON PREVIEW – FRIDAY 25TH JULY
FEATURING THE LOST SOULS OF:
Des O’Connor as “THE DEVIL”
Pustra/Vile-een’s Vaudeville as “CLAMMY DO AND THE CORN DOGS”
Lizzie Wort as “MISS MEPHISTO”
Scottee as “SCOTTEE”
Honey Lulu as “THE MERRY WIDOW”
Lois Tucker as “LOIS OF THE LANE”
plus
Archibald Floss
Volupte Lounge
7-9 Norwich Street
London
EC4A 1EJ
Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central Line)
Doors: 6:15pm
Showtime: 7pm-8:30pm
Standing Room £5
Concessions available
2 for 1 Cocktails 5pm-8pm
info@volupte-lounge.com
And The Devil May Drag You Under is a darkly hilarious slice of razor-sharp, lightning quick comedy and song wrapped up in a thrillingly wicked story told by a dysfunctional family of colourful characters. Damnation Never Looked This Good!
Get yourselves down there for one hell of a time. (Sorry – couldn’t resist.)
I’ve just had some more fantastic Lois of the Lane photographs taken by Emre Soykan. Most of my faves are now uploaded to my MySpace and I’ll be getting on to putting them up here asap…
For now, here’s a taster:
Been beavering away over here on a new Lois of the Lane act which I’ll be performing at The Red Velvet Curtain Cult‘s ‘(Truth &) Lies’ evening at The Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club next Thursday the 19th of June. The night’s a mask and dress up affair (dress code: Vagabonds, Butterflies, Carnival Freaks, Alter Egos, Dopplegangers, Victorian swooning ladies, Eccentric Gents, Vintage Belles, N’er do wells, Spies, Dead Poets, Faux Queens, Fake Kings, the Devil himself…) which promises: “productions and destructions, illusions and delusions and the conception of deception with performances, art, happenings, devilish delectables, oddities and conundrums galore.”. More details here, and here’s the flyer:
After this skewed affair, I’m going to be singing Second Soprano in a piece entitled ‘Steta Speaks: The Opera’, a 6-10min piece for 9 voices – concept and text by Rachel Greaves, score by Gregory Emfietzis – at the Byam Shaw Fine Art Degree Show on Monday the 23rd of June between 6 and 8pm and then Wednesday the 25th of June between 3 and 4pm.
Then (unless anything crops up beforehand) it’ll be off to the Latitude Festival with me as The Pig-Faced Girl in the Gawkagogo Freakshow. The Freakshow tent’s coming with us, to be pitched in what will become ‘Pandora’s Playground’, and we’ll also be headlining the Cabaret Stage on the Friday. Lots of happy squealing from me 🙂
The Edinburgh Fringe will be waving its cheeky little hand at all and sundry after this. I’m hopping up there a couple of times on the 9hr Coach of Joy to peddle Lois of the Lane to the masses. Hopefully, they won’t know what’s hit ’em. More on this when I have it…
Yes it’s that time again.
Making it for the Spotlight deadline, almost by the skin of my teeth, I’ve had some glorious new headshots taken by Kirill Kozlov. I’ve uploaded my favourites to the gallery page. Sarah Costley has taken some more great pictures of me too and they have also made their way to the gallery. I took this opportunity to do a bit of code spring cleaning so the whole page should work more smoothly. Along with this there are some more photos in the Production Shots section. (So many pictures of me…)
On Wednesday of this week, May the 14th, we have the last Gawkagogo Freakshow in this round of shows, in which I’ll be Pig-Faced Girl-ing and clowning around. Here’s the latest flyer:
It’s at Vibe Live, above the Vibe Bar on Brick Lane. It’ll be a superbly wrong evening’s entertainment. (Go on. You know you want to.)
Almost lastly – there’s a podcast on Youtube about the Wooden Swordsman test I was involved in in March. Here it is:
More information about the project can be found here.
Definitely lastly, and by no means least-ly – I’m going to be starting work on a new show imminently. I have no idea what it’ll be, but I’m rather excited nonetheless. Throw some money at me!! Updates when I have ’em.
Two more dates are lined up for the extended version of the Gawkagogo Freakshow.
Here’s the flyer:
Last month’s show was a freakish success!
Aside from pigging, I’ve had an afternoon puppeteering a Wooden Swordsman during rehearsals for a pilot scene of The Dark Side of the Earth, a fantastic fantasy film. This is the puppeteering team, and indeed the Swordsman himself, in action:
More soon, undoubtedly.
