Forkbeard Fantasy

Last updated

Forkbeard Fantasy is a British multimedia arts company, based in Devon. It began as an experimental performance art group in 1974, founded by brothers Chris and Tim Britton.

Contents

Between 1974 and 2010 it made touring theatre productions, largely performed by Chris and Tim. [1] In 1979, they were joined by Penny Saunders, a designer and maker, who went on to create most of Forkbeard's extravagant costumes and props. In the late 1980s they were also joined by Ed Jobling who became a core cast member and the company's technical wizard. [2]

Lyn Gardner, reviewing The Colour of Nonsense (2010) in The Guardian, described the company as long having had a "mixture of madness and creativity". [3]

Touring theatre productions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy West</span> English actor (1934–2024)

Timothy Lancaster West, CBE was an English actor and presenter. He appeared frequently on stage and screen, including Coronation Street as Eric Babbage, EastEnders as Stan Carter, and Not Going Out as the original Geoffrey Adams. He was married to the actress Prunella Scales. From 2014 to 2019, they travelled together on UK and overseas canals in ten series of Great Canal Journeys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Will Adamsdale</span> English actor

Will Adamsdale is an English actor, comedian and writer. In 2004, he won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for his show Jackson's Way.

Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory is a professional theatre company based at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, England. It was founded by Andrew Hilton in 1999, with the initial aim of producing two Shakespeare plays between mid February and May each year. The plan was to operate without subsidy, seeking instead sponsorship and using an ensemble of actors recruited or each season. Hilton, an established actor, had spent ten years teaching the craft of Shakespearean theatre at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rufus Norris</span> British theatre and film director (born 1965)

Rufus Norris is a British theatre and film director, who is currently the artistic director and chief executive of the National Theatre.

<i>Into the Woods</i> (novel) 2006 childrens fantasy novel by Lyn Gardner

Into the Woods is a 2006 children's fantasy novel by Lyn Gardner illustrated by Mini Grey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Park Theatre (London)</span> Theatre in Finsbury Park, London, England

The Park Theatre opened in Finsbury Park, north London in 2013. It describes itself as "a neighbourhood theatre with global ambition", offering a mixed programme of new writing, classics, and revivals. As well as the main auditorium seating 200, the building includes a 90-seat studio theatre, a rehearsal space and a café bar.

Sam Yates is a British director. Yates grew up in Stockport and attended Poynton High School. He was selected as a Screen International Star of Tomorrow, named a rising star in The Observer, and featured in GQ Magazine's "Men of the next 25 years". Yates has been described as "a major talent" in The Guardian, and "a director of unusual flair" in The Observer. He studied Education with English at Homerton College, Cambridge.

Clean Break is a women's theatre company based in London, focused on telling the stories of imprisoned women.

Emma Juliet Rice is a British actor, director and writer. Hailed as a fearless director, Rice's work includes theatrical adaptations of Brief Encounter, The Red Shoes and Wise Children. In 2022, Rice was named in the Sky Arts Top 50 most influential British artists. Rice worked with Kneehigh Theatre in Cornwall for twenty years as an actor, director, then artistic director with co-artistic director, Mike Shepherd. She was the Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe from 2016 to 2018, before founding her own touring theatre company Wise Children.

Theatre and disability is a subject focusing on the inclusion of disability within a theatrical experience, enabling cultural and aesthetic diversity in the arts. Showing disabled bodies on stage can be to some extent understood as a political aesthetic as it challenges the predominately abled audience's expectations as well as traditional theatre conventions. However, the performance of disabilities on stage has raised polarising debates about whether the performers are exposed and reduced to their disability or whether they have full agency of who they are and what they represent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morfydd Clark</span> Welsh actress (born 17 March 1989)

Morfydd Clark is a Welsh actress. Her appearances include Love & Friendship (2016), Interlude in Prague (2017), and The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019). Also on television, she played Mina Harker in Dracula (2020) and Sister Clara in His Dark Materials (2019).

Kaite O'Reilly FRSL is UK-based playwright, author and dramaturge of Irish descent. She has won multiple awards for her work, including the Ted Hughes Award (2011) for her version of Aeschylus's tragedy The Persians. O'Reilly's plays have been performed at venues across the UK and at the Edinburgh Festival. Her work has also been shown internationally including in Europe Australia, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. O'Reilly openly identifies as a disabled artist and has spoken of the importance of "identifying socially and politically as disabled" to her work. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Chris Goode was a British playwright, theatre director, performer, and poet. He was the artistic director of Camden People's Theatre from 2001 to 2004, and led the ensemble Chris Goode and Company until its closure in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sian Clifford</span> English actress (born 1982)

Sian Clifford is an English actress. She is best known for playing Claire, the older sister of the titular character in the BBC comedy-drama series Fleabag (2016–2019) and also portrayed Martha Crawley in the ITV/Amazon Studios series Vanity Fair (2018). In 2020, she played Diana Ingram in the ITV series Quiz.

Oily Cart is a London-based national and international touring theatre company founded in 1981. The company specialises in creating original, immersive, multi-sensory productions for babies and very young children under 5, and for children and young people who have profound and multiple learning disabilities, are on the autism spectrum, or are deafblind/multi-sensory impaired. The emergence of Theatre for Early Years (TEY) has been credited to Oily Cart and Theatre Kit. The company is a registered charity.

Alice Birch is a British playwright and screenwriter. Birch has written several plays, including Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. for which she was awarded the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright, and Anatomy of a Suicide for which she won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Birch was also the screenwriter for the film Lady Macbeth and has written for such television shows as Succession, Normal People, and the Peabody Award-winning miniseries Dead Ringers.

Restoration is a 1981 play by English dramatist Edward Bond that has been described as "simultaneously a Restoration comedy, a parody of Restoration comedies, and a dissection of class privilege in the Restoration era." It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre on 22 July 1981 with the master, his wife, his servant Bob, and Bob's wife played by Simon Callow, Irene Handl, Philip Davis, and Debby Bishop, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kully Thiarai</span> British theatre maker

Kully ThiaraiFRSA is a British artistic and creative director whose career began in theatre. With her appointment at National Theatre Wales in 2016, she became the first Asian person, and only second woman, to lead a national theatre company in Britain. She has held multiple artistic directorships, including, from 2020 to 2024, the role of creative director for LEEDS 2023 – the city's independent year of culture.

Sally Cookson is a British theatre director, known for her devised adaptations of literary works, in particular, A Monster Calls (2018) and Jane Eyre (2014).

References

  1. ↑ Farmer, David (13 May 2015). "Forkbeard Fantasy - Multimedia Theatre of the Absurd - 1". Drama Resource. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  2. ↑ Bristol, University of. "Forkbeard Fantasy". www.bristol.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
  3. ↑ Gardner, Lyn (19 March 2010). "The Colour of Nonsense". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  4. ↑ "The Fall Of The House Of Usherettes, Tobacco Factory, Bristol". The Independent. 2 October 2005.
  5. ↑ "Reviews: Mad, bad and atmospheric". The Independent. 11 March 1998.
  6. ↑ "See Forkbeard Fantasy". The Independent. 28 February 1998.
  7. ↑ "Theatre: A tale of two hemispheres". The Independent. 25 November 1999.
  8. ↑ "Yallery Brown". The Guardian. 1 November 2000. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  9. ↑ Gardner, Lyn (17 October 2001). "My God, we've created a monster". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  10. ↑ Mahoney, Elisabeth (23 October 2004). "Shooting Shakespeare". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  11. ↑ "Tights, camera, action". The Independent. 21 October 2004.
  12. ↑ "Forkbeard Fantasy's weirdly topical". Manchester Evening News. 18 April 2010. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  13. ↑ "Fall Of The House Of Usherettes, Corn Exchange, Brighton, until Saturday, November 5". The Argus. 3 November 2005. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  14. ↑ "Invisible Bonfires". BBC. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  15. ↑ Mahoney, Elisabeth (27 September 2007). "Invisible Bonfires". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  16. ↑ Cook, Mark; Gardner, Lyn (8 October 2010). "This week's new theatre". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  17. ↑ "The Colour of Nonsense, Southbank Centre, review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
P culture.svg

This British theatre–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.