Press
Release - Storyteller 2012
27th
November 2012 to 6th January 2013
Six Weeks of
Storytelling at Barons Court Theatre - Christmas 2012/13
A selection of
(mostly) comic stories and storytelling from award-winning writer and performer
Robert Crighton and his friends.
Two exciting new
productions performing in repertory at the Barons Court Theatre this Christmas,
spearheaded by writer, performer and storyteller Robert Crighton
Press Night for both shows: Tuesday 27th November 2012
Two
comps plus programme, do contact us if you can review the show.
Ghost
Storyteller: “Ghosts don’t pay tax.”
A traditional ghost
story show, with a difference – it’s played for laughs not for fear. Ghosts are faintly absurd things, they wander
around making noises, feeling generally sorry for themselves – why do we take
them seriously?
Robert Crighton’s
ghost story is about a poltergeist. But
why should it be one of those over the top sinister ones? So his is the poltergeist of a hamster –
doing what all hamsters do, running on his wheel all night.
Writer and Performer
Robert Crighton: “It is a comic show,
primarily because I don’t believe in ghosts.
Since I first started this show I’ve been inundated with stories – some of
which were, unbeknownst to the teller, quite hilarious. Like the person who told me all about the
ghost of a nail that appeared in their kitchen.
A paranormal nail! However,
making fun of ghosts can have its drawbacks.
There was a heckler one night - he wandered into the show after five
minutes and then started saying, very loudly, that ghosts were real and that I
wasn't showing them enough respect. I’m
sorry, but ghosts don’t pay tax or vote so I don’t see any reason to show them
respect.”
In fact lots of
people think the show should show respect, as Milk Bottle regularly receives
abusive messages from offended members of the ‘ghost community’, who don’t take
criticism of the paranormal (in a light and inoffensive fictional storytelling show) as reasonable. So just wait till we get to the second show
of the night.
For more on this
year’s ghost story show at tryout and the author’s lack of belief in ghosts, go
to:
The Fantasy
Terrorist Variations: “Three plays – one
subject – BOOM!”
This is a show that
spins off from our 2005 play Fantasy
Terrorist League which won the award for best writing at the LOST One-Act
Festival. There are three plays that
deal with different aspects of the terrorist world since 9/11 – internment,
prisoner abuse and offense, specifically offense caused by criticism of
Mohammed. Recent protests in the Middle
East highlight how different views of free speech can be used to create fear
and hatred. These are just some of the
themes dealt with in the show.
For a full account
of THE FEAR and the author go to
Robert’s blog:
A short trailer for
The Project After can be seen on YouTube –
***
Milk Bottle
Productions Presents...
Ghost Storyteller
Comic Ghost Stories Written
and Performed by Robert Crighton
Returning this
Autumn / Winter following the success of the run last year! Ghost Storyteller is a lightly comic
selection of ghost stories written and performed by award-winning writer and
performer Robert Crighton.
From the ghosts of
empty houses, to the personal ghosts we carry around us, this collection is a mixture
of the fantastic and the “real”: including the tale of a poltergeist hamster
and the pub that cried ghost.
Running Tuesday to
Sunday from 27th November 2012 to 6th January 2013
Tuesdays to
Saturdays at 7.30pm – Doors Open at 7.15pm
Sundays at 6pm –
Doors Open at 5.45pm
No performances on
Mondays, Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Years Day
Tickets: £12 / £10
concessions
Barons Court
Theatre, “The Curtain’s Up”, 28A Comeragh Road W14 9HR
Nearest Tube: Barons Court (Piccadilly/District Lines)
Writer and
Performer - Robert Crighton
Robert Crighton is a
multi-award winning playwright and performer and the only entrant in the 25
year history of the Lost One-Act Festival to win three awards in successive
years.
Robert graduated
from Middlesex University in 2003 with a degree in Performing Arts: Drama which
he occasionally uses to bolster his self esteem. On leaving he immediately set up a residency
with his company Milk Bottle in various studio spaces in Suffolk where, apart
from occasional touring work, he has been based ever since.
With Milk Bottle he
has produced a mix of work, from classical drama to new plays, swapping roles
from production to production. Sometimes
writer, director or actor (always designer – he does all the design work on his
posters, including painting the picture of the cat) he has stamped a distinct
and simple playing style in the Milk Bottle repertoire.
For Milk Bottle he
has written and often performed in The Natural History of Trolls, Shoes That
Angels Fear To Wear, Cuckold’s Fair, Teaching Gods and Other Stories... (Including the monologues: Problem Tree, The
Examiner of Small Ailments, The Alternative Seagull, Keynote Speaker, Teaching
Gods and Fantasy Terrorist League), Sunmakers, Myth, The Bear Named Mo-, Blind
Spots, Thebes, Apathy, Apocalypse, The Happy Fluffy Bunny, All Singing, All
Dancing, Pop Up Show, Amateurs & Lord Ashborn – as well as adaptations of
Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, The Birds & The Bacchae.
***
Milk Bottle Productions
Presents...
The Fantasy Terrorist
Variations
Written by Robert
Crighton, performed by Keith Hill and Simon Nader
A series of stories
spun from the award-winning ‘Fantasy Terrorist League’. A man is interned as a terrorist on the
flimsiest of grounds, a chancer looks how to make money out of
counter-terrorism and the story of the non-existent artwork that might get
people killed. The Fantasy Terrorist Variations is a powerful account of fear, the
policeman on our streets and the ones in our heads.
Running Tuesday to
Saturday from 27th November 2012 to 5th January 2013 at
9pm
Tuesdays to
Saturdays Only at 9pm – Doors Open at 8.50pm
Tickets: £12 / £10
concessions
Barons
Court Theatre, “The Curtain’s Up”, 28A Comeragh Road W14 9HR
The Cast
Keith Hill:
Keith, has seen a
lot of Milk Bottles over the last few years, but has never managed to get into
one until now. He was cast after a campaign lasting four years and a promise
not to play his accordion. Stage work has included Lucifer and others in The
York Mysteries , two productions of Road, Vaudevillains for Les Enfants
Terribles, Feydeau farce for DeadAnt, Torben Betts’ The Error of Their Ways
(then a UK premiere) for Eleanor Rhode. And now this. The one person he has played in the last few
years who is not homicidal, deluded, drunk, or all three, was the leading Miscarriage
of Justice campaigner Paul May in Someone to Blame earlier this year at the Old
King’s Head for David Mercatali. Film
includes The Last Time I Saw You; Exit with Julian Glover, an anthropophagite
home chef in the forthcoming Valentine’s Day for Benjamin Taylor and most
recently The Maid for 721 productions, which is nearing the end of
post-production. Keith has also recorded a number of audiobooks, ranging from
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ to the enormous social history of
post-war Britain: Austerity Britain, by David Kynaston
Simon Nader:
Simon Nader is a
core member of Milk Bottle having played Teiresias in Blind Spots, Treplev in The Alternative
Seagull and several solo pieces including Keynote Speaker. He trained
at London’s Academy Drama School. Previous stage work includes: Billy Blister, Billy Blister’s Circus (Watford Palace
Theatre); George, Of Mice and Men
(National tour); Colin/Policeman, Maggie’s
End (Shaw Theatre); and most recently Qudz at the National Theatre Studio venue The Yard. Feature Film
work includes The Dead Inside as
Wayne Andrews and Guildenstern in Fodor's Hamlet
(2006). Radio includes
BBC Radio 4’s The Chess Girls, whilst recent TV appearances include a recurring role in The Borgias and follow up to multi-award winning series Pillars of the Earth: World Without End.
THE COMPANY: Milk
Bottle Productions
Milk Bottle was
founded in 2000 by Robert Crighton and has been performing a constant stream of
small scale, high quality theatre productions.
Robert Crighton is an award-winning storyteller, writer and performer,
whose last big project was performing every Sherlock Holmes story back-to-back
over the Christmas season. He is only
entrant in the 25 year history of the Lost One-Act Festival to win three awards
in successive years and is sadly no longer eligible to win anymore.
What is Milk
Bottle? It's a name, it's a way of
life, it's a flower in a storm, it's Robert Crighton. It's weekly repertory,
storytelling, book publishing, epic theatre, tiny theatre, three times
award-winning theatre; it's singing cats,
dancing flowers, blind men and magic shoes.
Since 2000, Milk
Bottle has produced dozens of new plays, old plays and other stuff. It has been the management under which writer
and performer Robert Crighton distributes his work. It is based in his head
most of the time, but when it leaves there it visits Suffolk and London on a
semi-regular basis. Come and join the
fun.
REVIEWS: Praise for Robert Crighton and Milk Bottle in
previous Productions...
THE NATURAL HISTORY
OF TROLLS - 2012
★★★ Remotegoat: “It is admirable then that writer and
performer of The Natural History of Trolls, Robert Crighton, is able to sustain
the interest of his audience as well as a wizened comic and create a
large-scale, convincing fantastical environment merely with his words. Although
two talented and attractive actresses have been recruited to assist with the
telling, The Natural History of Trolls is undoubtedly a one man show and
Crighton, with his diction like John Gielgud and dressed like a sort of
Dickensian sex pest, is an accomplished storyteller... His story is a charming and original one
that, as an audience member, made me yearn to be sat at my Grandfather's knee,
listening to a similarly tall tale of a world beyond our own.”
THE COMPLETE
SHERLOCK HOLMES - 2010 / 2011
★★★★
London Theatre Network: “Crighton is an accomplished story teller...
Immersive, enjoyable and cosy, you will leave the room with a satisfied smile
on your face, as if you’ve just visited some old friends.”
★★★★ Remotegoat: “Robert Crighton gives you a
unique evening of storytelling... It is easy to see why Robert Crighton has won
awards for his performance.”
TEACHING GODS &
OTHER STORIES... - 2009
Fringe Report:
“Verdict: Funny, fast-paced, with depth... There are a lot of good reasons to
see the show. It's funny, fast-paced... surreal fantasy, with an edge of
revenge... Robert Crighton performs with great energy and no little charm...
well viewed after a drink, before a bigger one and some cheese, in celebration
perhaps of strange dreams and the campus cat.”
Facebook: Robert
Crighton: Storyteller
Twitter:
@RobertCrighton
Blog: robertcrightonstoryteller.blogspot.com
Youtube Channel:
TheRobertCrighton
Shop: www.lulu.com/spotlight/robertcrighton
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