Wickham Theatre programme Autumn 2012 and Spring 2013
Professional events/public lectures >>
Professional theatre, student productions, talks and courses.
Bookings and Information 0117 331 5088
Tickets available from the University's online shop.
Department of Drama, Cantocks Close, Woodland Road, Bristol.
Current events
Annual George Brandt Lecture: The Power of the Close-up
Organised by the Department of Drama
Professor Michael Renov, University of Southern California
Wickham Theatre, Cantock's Close, 5:30pm
In the documentary film the facial close-up can be a potent tool for strengthening the audience's bonds of empathy and attachment, perhaps even aiding in genocide prevention. This presentation couples ethics with aesthetics to reflect on the power of the cinema to move us through the spectacle of the human face. Further information is available.
Free, no booking required. Contact Kate Withers on +44 (0)117 -3315088 or kate.withers@bristol.ac.uk
Recent past events
March 14 - 16
When Mole leaves his little home instead of doing his spring-cleaning, he meets Ratty and discovers a whole new world. As well as adventures on the river and in the Wild Wood, there are close shaves on the open road with the loveable but extravagant Mr Toad of Toad Hall. Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad become the firmest of friends, but after Toad's latest escapade, can they join together and beat the wretched weasels once and for all or will Toad Hall be lost forever to the Wild Wood?
"This delightful stage adaptation combines all the joy and mystery of Kenneth Grahame's much-loved classic with the lightness of touch and playful theatricality that award-winning playwright Mike Kenny is known for."
Thursday 14th March 7.30pm
Friday 15th March 7.30pm
Saturday 16th March 2.30pm
Wed 20 March 5.30pm - 7pm
TALK
Italian Style: Fashion and Film (1914 to the present)
As industries and cultural manifestations, fashion and film have always influenced one another. Before the explosion of digital technology, access to fashion was mediated through cinema. Although fashion, film and costume are intimately intertwined, the importance of costume designers in Film Studies has often been under-researched. This lecture aims to redress this imbalance and to show how central clothing and costume design are for film as a vehicle for conveying a specifically "Italian" style. Focusing on a number of key films and directors from the silent era to the present, the lecture will offer an in-depth exploration of the interaction between fashion and Italian cinema.
Speaker: Professor Eugenia Paulicelli, City University of New York and Benjamin Meaker, Visiting Professor
Venue Wickham Theatre, Cantock's Close, BS8 1UP
Admission Free, no booking required.
For further information
Email n.rees-roberts@bristol.ac.uk
Professional events
Public Lecture
Wednesday 20th February, 2013 at 5.00pm
Hitchcock's Mountain: Technologies of Engagement in North by Northwest
Murray Pomerance, Ryerson University, Canada
A discussion of the special effects techniques utilized in the Mount Rushmore finale of Hitchcock's North by Northwest, with specific attention to the way these function in producing and sustaining viewer engagement with the "reality" of the scene. Invoked are Bordwell, Wm. James, Caillois, Goffman, and other theorists, to substantiate the importance of Hitchcock's meticulous construction of screen space. This lecture concentrates on the use of backdrops, rear projection, mattes, and closeups with discussion of soundstage cinematography, the MGM backdrop facility, and rear projection technique, and highlights philosophical reasons why the use of these "technologies of engagement" is important for understanding Hitchcock and film in general. Profusely illustrated.
45 minutes duration.
Admission is free but tickets required (obtained through the University's online shop)
Devised Performance
Friday, 25 January at 7.30pm
Saturday, 26 January at 2.30pm and 7.30pm
SHUT UP AND DIE! [IT'S ALL ABOUT FATE]
Wickham Theatre, Cantocks Close
Inspired by the New York-based performance company The Wooster Group who are famous for their radical re-workings of classical-canonical plays, this final-year show from the Devised Performance group returns to Greek tragedy. Refracted through our contemporary fascination with reality TV and interactive gaming, Sophocles' tragedy Antigone is mashed up with Noel Coward's social tragi-comedy The Vortex to explore the changing role of women in family and society, and the gap between public and private selves. All this with a dance, a few ladettes and the Spice Girls thrown into the mix.
Tickets: £6.00 ( £4.00 concessions) available from the University's online shop.
The Wickham Theatre is proud to be part of IBT13 International Festival of Performance and will host several performances in the Wickham Theatre over the weekend of 16th/17th February.
IBT13 is a weekend of theatre, live art, dance, opera, feasts, talks, parties and public art.
Watch a Fake Moon being hoisted into the night sky. Follow us into the trees for a dusk concert with Night Tripper, or experience an evening of Opera in a Bristol living room.
Artists from all over the world fill four days with unique events, new commissions and premieres. Over 50 artworks spill out from leading arts spaces (Arnolfini, Circomedia, Wickham Theatre) and into the city’s docksides, urban glades, and alleyways.
IBT13 features artists set to change the face of performance: the visionaries, the young bloods, the wild-cards and the one-offs.
For further information about the festival: www.ibt13.co.uk
IBT13 Events taking place at Wickham Theatre, Cantocks Close
Saturday, 16 February at 3.30pm
I Am Not Alone by Kim Noble
Wickham Theatre, Cantocks Close
A short filmic journey of one man’s attempt at connection, friendship, and employment at B&Q
“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” — Orson Welles
Bristol. Listen up. In this work-in-progress piece, Kim Noble attempts to connect with other people on this planet. Keith for instance. You maybe. And Jon. Let’s not forget Jon.
IBT13 welcomes back performance and video artist Kim Noble. Best known as one half of Perrier Award-winning, BAFTA-nominated comedy duo Noble and Silver, Kim also featured in The Mighty Boosh and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.
Tickets: £10.00 (£7.00 concessions) available from the Arnolfini Box Office via website or telephone 0117 917 2300.
Sunday, 17 February at 12.30pm
Slideshow Birdshow by Emma Bennett
Wickham Theatre, Cantocks Close
A short piece for voice and uncooperative powerpoint presentation.
Slideshow Birdshow is a songful paean to nature in all its uncooperative glory, and to the gasps, stutters and fluffed lines that emerge when we try to describe it.
Inspired by the attempts of ornithologists and poets to unlock the secret life of birds, Emma set out to find her own explanation. She discovered the scratchy music hidden in nature book descriptions. She impersonated a blackbird, got too close to a chaffinch and repeatedly failed to pin down a thrush. Here, with flickering slideshow and a tremulous voice, she attempts to present her findings.
Tickets: £5.00 (£3.00 concessions) available from the Arnolfini Box Office via website or telephone 0117 917 2300.
Sunday, 17 February at 1.30pm
Fatherland by Nic Green
Image credit: Peter McMasterWickham Theatre, Cantocks Close
Evoking the lands of ancestors through the dance of drum and moustache.
Born to a Scottish father (whom she met only once, aged sixteen), Green follows the mystery of her paternal line.
Accompanied by Tim Harbinson (drums) she draws on the energies and archetypes of her bloodline: the cathartic, intoxicating dances of the terra firma; the ancient warrior women painted and wild; the sadness of the songs, lost and forgotten and the complex psycho-geography of this land. Fatherland celebrates the complex beauty of relationships and of realising one’s place in the world.
Tickets: £10.00 (£7.00 concessions ) available from the Arnolfini Box Office via website or telephone 0117 917 2300.
Recent Past Lectures
Public Lecture
Wednesday 29th February, 2012.
'Approximation: Documentary, History and the Staging of Reality.' by Professor Stella Bruzzi.
This public lecture by Professor Stella Bruzzi, University of Warwick, will discuss 'Mad Men and Beyond: Approximation, History and the multiple re-enactments of the assassination of President Kennedy'. Professor Bruzzi is a leading authority on documentary film, and this lecture is the first George Brandt lecture, in honour of Professor Brandt who introduced film and television to university education in the early 1950s, and taught at Bristol for many years.
Wickham Theatre, Department of Drama, Cantocks Close, Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UP.
6pm (Free admission.)
Greece and Rome in Silent Cinema: A screening of archival films with live music accompaniment
Robert Fowler, Henry Overton Wills Professor of Greek, Department of Classics & Ancient HistorySaturday 3rd December, 5pm. (Free admission.)