Showing posts with label worm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label worm. Show all posts

Monday, 22 May 2017

THE UNITED KINGDOM OF EARTH: A BREXIT OPERA


THE UNITED KINGDOM OF EARTH
A Brexit Opera



UK Premiere Performances

July 26th
The Agitprop Allstars present "The United Kingdom of Earth"
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, London

September 7th
The Hidden Noise present "The United Kingdom of Earth"
CCA Glasgow

In a not-too-distant future, having avoided some nuclear misunderstanding that engulfed the rest of the planet, a post-Brexit Britain finds itself surrounded by nothing but scorched earth. How do people from the everyday family home to the corridors of power cope with this? And what on earth is Boris doing in Downing Street in a tie-dye suit?

An epic community opera with electronic music, performed by a cast of professional and non-professional actors and singers, “The United Kingdom of Earth” is a wide ranging satire on British values, beliefs, and histories.

As a “non-denominational satire” the piece chooses not to take a particular political angle, so is suitable viewing for all of you whatever your stance on the Brexit argument. A comedy of manners, “The United Kingdom of Earth” combines killer songs with spoken-word and synthesised sound to create an evocative picture of a country looking backwards at itself.

A production of composer, writer, collagist Dominic Robertson - formerly known as Ergo Phizmiz – who, over the past twenty years, has become a prolific maverick of UK and international theatre, opera, radio, and independent music worlds.

Rotterdam’s Worm Institute was the incubator of this piece, which received its first performances in November 2016 at the Ubik Theatre.






Trailer for Rotterdam production https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp7A7edZHRY

Dominic Robertson is available for interview deedubyarobertson@gmail.com

Monday, 6 March 2017

That Happy Breed - Brexit Opera, at CCA Glasgow

Delighted to announce that my Brexit science-fiction opera "That Happy Breed" plays in Glasgow at the CCA on May 18th, with a cast of locals. Huge thanks to Shireen Taylor at The Hidden Noise for making this happen.



In a not too distant future an isolated Britain survives on an otherwise scorched earth, saved from nuclear misunderstandings by Brexit. "That Happy Breed" is a science-fiction vision of "an island in the moon", adrift on shared history and past glories, visions of empire and sightings of rabbits on the copse. 

Utopia or dystopia? Either way, something is bubbling under the civilised surface of day to day life, and there doesn't seem to be anything anybody can do to stop it.
 

And the earth itself? It's flat!
 

"That Happy Breed" is presented with a cast of local people wherever it goes. A large scale community play with songs, music, Morris dancing, marching, a dash of Christmas, and a special appearance by Her Majesty the Queen.
 

"That Happy Breed" is a commission of Worm, Rotterdam.

Facebook event page for "That Happy Breed" at CCA Glasgow.

Watch the trailer for the original Rotterdam production of the show ...

 
Watch this flat earth in space for news about further UK productions of this timely parable and a forthcoming publication. Interested in staging it in your town? Get in touch with either yours truly or the good folk of Worm...