Archive for penny dreadfuls
October gigs
September 15th, 2008 • penny dreadfuls
Copied from the Penny Dreadfuls’s site, details of the extra performances of Aeneas Faversham Forever:
LONDON, FULL SHOW: Aeneas Faversham Forever
Monday, 5th October, 7.30pm
The if.comedy National Tour, Apollo Theatre
One night at the absolutely stunning Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue on the West End, which is plenty exciting.
Tickets: between £20 - £10, entitles you to stay on to see Russell Kane’s show afterward after an interval.
Booking line: 0844 412 4658LONDON, FULL SHOW: Aeneas Faversham Forever
Monday, 13th October, 9.30pm
The Big Joke Festival
In the beautifully renovated Leicester Square Theatre, on the same stage as Joan Rivers is currently doing her London dates. Big leagues. The Big Joke Festival seems to have everyone who was super awesome at the festival, so check out their other shows too.
Tickets: £17.50 / £15 conc. Click here for ticket discount details for our Facebook friends
Booking line: 0844 847 2475BRIGHTON, FULL SHOW: Aeneas Faversham Forever
Saturday, 25th October, 7.30pm
The Paramount International Comedy Festival, Brighton
Returning to the wonderful Pavilion Theatre in Brighton for the Paramount International Comedy Festival. Boooook now!
Tickets: £12 / £11
Book online here, or call 01273 709 709
Teaching will keep me in Wales for all but the Brighton gig, I think. How will they cope? (Very well, probably.)
Faversham Forever round-up
September 12th, 2008 • comedy, festival, penny dreadfuls
Fringe 2008 and Aeneas Faversham Forever marked my third year of work with The Penny Dreadfuls - following Aeneas Faversham (2006) and Aeneas Faversham Returns (2007) - and I think we’re getting better at it.
Some production detail:
- we jumped ship from the Underbelly to the Pleasance 2, a 156-seat venue in the Pleasance Courtyard.
- our early previews played to over 100 each night; the rest of the four week run was sold out.
- our reviews were extremely positive, with a majority giving us five stars.
- thought the production budget for the entire year (running from development previews in the winter through to fringe) was far larger than either previous show, the company will turn a profit for a third year in a row. Yes, you can make money at the Fringe.
- our publicity was once more designed by the ultra-producer, Idil Sukan. It’s the third year we’ve produced a pack of bespoke playing cards which doubled as fliers: no-one seems willing or able to match the effort or cost of copying us.
- for the third year, we’ve given our audience beautiful badges as they leave the show, this year reading “Henchman of the Month.” It’s a nice call-back to a key scene in the middle of the show (it’s a title awarded for good attendance); audiences seem genuinely delighted to have something to take away with them.
- we spent far too much money on children’s tricycles for a climactic mine-cart chase, which never made it into the show.
- the show now has three further performances in London and Brighton during October, including the Apollo Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue on October 5th.
On a more reflective note, there was a moment mid-fringe where I realised that word-of-mouth is partner to hype, leading to a small percentage of our audience buying tickets for a show that they knew nothing about (other than that a friend thought it was quite good).
On those nights - most often weekends - the cast had to work incredibly hard in the opening scenes to let the audience know what kind of performance they were watching: not only the genres of comedy and melodrama that were being blended, but the way in which the play was staged, characters were created and narrative constructed. That said, audience response was generally very positive, and very generous.
Finally, we’re almost certainly taking a break from the Victoriana for a while: the guys are working on other writing projects (including a pilot for Radio 4), though we may return for a short burst of shows next fringe.
Near miss
August 24th, 2008 • comedy, festival, penny dreadfuls
Did I mention how the fringe show I work on almost got nominated for an if.comedy award?
After three weeks of visits to the show from judges, the panel met last Wednesday morning and decided that The Penny Dreadfuls‘ Aeneas Faversham Forever was so funny that it should be short-listed for the main if.comedy prize.
Then, five minutes later, one of the judges remarked that the show wasn’t actually eligible because it was a play. Hmm.
Lively opinions were exchanged (ahem) with the director of the award and another panellist fighting our corner. Sadly, they didn’t convince enough of the other judges. So that’s possibly why the nomination list was a little short this year.
When the news reached us, we had a few hours of mild hysteria and bewilderment as we tried to get our heads around what had (nearly) happened - then drowned those heads at the Avalon birthday party free bar. Meh. I don’t think we’d have won this year, but it would have been nice to be nominated.
Fortunately, the spirit of the Fringe panel prize was awarded last night to every performer at the Fringe in the shape of a free drink on Monday evening (news which was slightly muted by delivering it to a room full of people already on their third free drink of the evening). So there’s that for the poster.
Also see: Why the if.comedy shortlist is intriguingly short.
links for 2008-08-11 [delicious.com]
August 11th, 2008 • links, penny dreadfuls
-
“A comedy masterpiece… The show was performed to a packed-out audience, so book early as it is sure to sell out!”
-
“The precision of both their scripting and delivery is remarkable. No opportunities are missed or misused, and despite their regularity, the gags are always fresh. Clearly the trio’s talents as improv performers are not wasted.”
-
“With every scene a winner, what’s been created is a gripping show, performed by three talented young performers that is, most importantly, refreshingly hilarious. Everything is in place to make 2008 their year.”
-
“It is intelligent and witty, the characters, the plot and the dialogued are intricately woven and you feel that not a beat is missed as the pace is carried through meticulously. In short, see the show.”
-
“This is talented, laugh a minute hilarity and they make it all look so damn easy.”
Aeneas Faversham Forever
July 30th, 2008 • penny dreadfuls, production process
I have a stack of nearly-edited posts that I need to get up here, but the Penny Dreadfuls’ newest show - Aeneas Faversham Forever - opens tonight. Yesterday’s tech ran well but with each year we seem to have increased the technical demands of the show, giving us less time to work with. Yikes. I’ll hopefully have a few production photos before the end of the week, above and beyond the mysterious tricycle.
Aeneas Faversham Forever runs 30th July - 25th August at the Pleasance Courtyard, starting at 7.10pm. Tickets for the previews are an inflation-busting (ahem) £5 and run through until Friday. To book, call the Pleasance box office on 0131 556 6550 or try the Edinburgh Comedy Festival website.
london weekend, survived
June 29th, 2008 • penny dreadfuls, research
Exhausting but productive weekend: two Penny Dreadful shows at Greenwich, and a very quick visit to the Hide and Seek festival on the south bank.
A proper update to follow, but here are some production photos for Aeneas Faversham Forever taken by our lighting designer and technical director, Neil Hobbs. For gluttons, my grainy phonecam pictures are over here.
