Advent Calendar Day 24

Merry Christmas Eve - Final Advent Calendar thing... huzzah!

The comedy that no one wanted to hear has been found!  This is especially confusing as it was never lost.
In 1973 a comedy script materialised on the desk of a radio station of a minor Soviet satellite state.  The script was performed, untranslated from the original English, in 1974 and immediately became an overnight sensation.  A copy of this recording was duly sent to the BBC so that all master tapes could be responsibly wiped, as was international government policy at the time.
Luckily an off air recording of the LP version was made by holding a modified SONY Walkman against a glass held against the wall of the house of the then Director General of the BBC, from which this archive recording has been restored.  This recording has nothing to do with the BBC.
The script turns out to have come from 2017 for the failed studio recording of the final episode of the long running podcast comedy show - Live from the Get In! - and episode three has long been one the collectors have shunned and ignored ever since.
The restoring restoration team hope to have a completely restored restoration of the restored episode in the New Year, but have released this trail to annoy the fans now.


The other two episodes of the long running series, plus bonus material, can be found HERE.

Live from the Get In - March

It's only a month and a bit before the next Live from the Get In! and the tickets are on sale.  It's going to be a bit different to the last two shows in that there will be two halves, and the first half will be a little shorter than before.  So, we're still aiming for an hour of comedy - and then some - just it'll be spread out over two halves.  The first half will be a show much like the previous two, a tumbling arrangement of comedy material with myself and the core group, and we're aiming for a run time of forty-five minutes which will be live streamed.  The second half will be more a mix of curated material from other performers, and a comic monologue from me.  This will be recorded but not streamed and released at a later date, first to my patrons who help make all this happen, and then to the world.
Why the change in format?  Well, I've found in the last two shows, the shorter sketches and some of the monologues didn't fit into the overall pattern of the show very well.  Whilst all the material worked, it didn't always want to stand next to each other.  Also, when edited in post production, the shows were drifting to 45 minutes naturally, the hour format being just a little too long and some padding was creeping in.  I'd rather record a tight show than edit one down - you get more and better laughs.  It also means the second half can be for material that wouldn't fit anywhere, encouraging more randomness and new voices to get involved.
And if you happen to be a new voice - then get in touch - I'm on twitter @RobertCrighton

LIVE FROM THE GET IN!  

Written by Robert Crighton

Performed by Abbie Broom, Heidi Bernhard-Bubb, Robert Crighton & Michael Fouldes.  And maybe some special guests.

Live from... is a radio comedy and sketch show – live from in front of the set of whichever show is getting in the following week at the Quay Theatre.  New material, sketches and monologues streamed live online.  And the live stream can be heard on the night here -

www.ustream.tv/channel/robert-crighton-storyteller

Two shows lined up Saturday 4^th March and Saturday 6th May at 7.30pm

Tickets £6 - www.quaysudbury.com

And you can catch up with the last two episodes by listening here.


My work couldn't happen without the support of my patrons - if you think you could contribute to the work I create, go to www.patreon.com/robertcrighton and see if you can help - you get to listen to my new work before anyone else.

Also, as there's a lot being planned at the moment, if you want to keep up to speed, why not join my mailing list.  I know, so last century. 

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Live from the Get In

Next week, I'm launching the first of (hopefully) a regular series of comedy nights from the Quay Theatre in Sudbury - live streamed on the internet.
LIVE FROM THE GET IN!  THE IMAGINATIVELY TITLED FIRST SHOW
is over an hour of radio comedy and sketches – live from in front of the set of whichever show is getting in the following week at the Quay Theatre with a wonderful cast.  New material, sketches and monologues – it’s an hour of laughter, curated by me and streamed live online.
Tickets are available for the live show at www.quaysudbury.com
And the live stream can be heard on the night here -
www.ustream.tv/channel/robert-crighton-storyteller
Saturday 3^rd September at 7.30pm GMT  

This show couldn't happen without the support of my patrons - if you think you could contribute to the work I create, go to www.patreon.com/robertcrighton and see if you can help.

What is the show going to be?  Well, it's a comedy show - so I'm aiming for it to be funny.  The last couple of days a theme has emerged - so the sketches are mostly about what our world is really like.  There's a return of the Museum of Tat, as a live event, the latest news from a very odd committee meeting and the future of health in a privatised world.  I don't want to say more, because then I kill the comedy.  There are also at least three incredibly bad jokes.  Fully awful jokes.

Even though I've had several rehearsals, I keep forgetting to take any photos - so here's the fantastic cast for the show mostly in words...

Abbie Broom -
Abbie is talented local performer, who I have regularly planned world domination with.  So, she's joining us in a sketch about a village hall committee meeting.

Heidi Bernhard-Bubb -
Heidi recently played the prospective father in law of my daughter in The Tempest.  Heidi is playing Professor Fidelis Graeber, our guest speaker for the first live performance of The Museum of Tat.

Gillian Horgan -
Gillian has returned to Milk Bottle after appearing as a duck and other animals in the last comedy show, Hang. She is performing various parts for the show, including the internationally performed monologue Sleep Inc. 
Gillian is from Cork, and trained at Drama Studio London.
Theatre credits include: the one-woman show #nofilter at The Bread & Roses Theatre, The Conservatory at The Bread & Roses Theatre, Storyteller: The Natural History of Trolls at The New Wimbledon Studio, No Dogs at The White Bear, Susanna at Theatro Technis, Tilt at The Cockpit Theatre, Famine at The Old Red Lion Theatre, and Monsieur Venus at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Screen credits include: The Wives Did It, Persona Non Grata, The Inner Life of Veronica, Wounded, Three, Forget-Me-Not, Camden Calling, Verge, and Black Coffee. Radio credits include: Hang.

Sîan Notley -
Sîan has performed in countless shows (not actually countless, I just will never count them) including a number of readings of early English drama I've produced over the years.  So, I've cast her as pie maker extraordinary Tyb.  Her husband in the scene is played by...

Mark Jenner -
An actor who has also appeared in many shows, possibly also countless.  I've directed them a few times as well, together or separately.  Mark is playing John and spends a lot of time playing with candles in a suggestive way - which will work brilliantly on radio.

Michael Fouldes -
Michael isn't in the show because of a prior commitment that he'd forgotten about.  But as he's part of the double act that is The Museum of Tat, I thought you should see a photo the meeting we had about the show before his wife pointed out he was doing something else that night. He's almost apologetic in the photo, before the fact.  He will be performing in the next live show.

Invading Mars

It was a busy old week - revived the Everyman show for some students at the University of Essex and then invaded Mars, as you do.
The Martian invasion was due to a show I'd been asked to direct for Out of Kontrol Productions - Orson Welles: The Night We Scared America - a play about the infamous radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds in 1938.  I'll blog in more detail about it sometime, but the headlines are: it went bloody well.  So, here are a few unedited shots from the dress run, taken by the marvellous John Bethell.

 

Hang - Official Untrailer

Been a little quiet this week or so, been very busy setting up the next phase of Project 10/52 - much news soon.  But for the moment enjoy the official untrailer for Hang


Milk Bottle Productions Presents
HANG
The world premiere of new comedy by award-winning writer Robert Crighton

The world is turning inside out - people are starting to turn into animals and no one knows what's normal anymore. Even the man who actually wants to be a zebra can't quite fit into this brave new world. Dating is complicated enough when everyone's human.

Performing as a radio comedy before a live audience and broadcasting online as a live stream.
To watch live book your tickets at the Quay Box Office -
To listen to the Live Stream go to
www.ustream.tv/channel/robert-crighton-storyteller

Performing Live and Online on Monday 31st March at 7.30pm
Tickets: Pay What You Want
The Quay Theatre, Sudbury - Box Office: 01787 374745

You Have Been Watching - Programme

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

Project Two:

You Have Been Watching

Written and Devised by Robert Crighton

The Exhibits

1.  ZX 20 SPEXS

Text written by Robert Crighton

Video performed by Adam Webster

Audio performed by Jacqueline Cooper Clarke

Time:  6 + minutes approx, looped

2.  Don’t Feed the Trolls

Text:  The introduction of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ by Mary Wollstonecraft

Audio and physical score performed by Marion Tuke

Physical score performed by Dann Read

Time:  Continuous, looped

3.  Off Grid

Text written by Robert Crighton

Audio performed by Malcolm Hollister

Time:  5 + minutes approx, looped

4.  Outsourced Memories

Text written by Robert Crighton

Audio performed by Kevin Roychowdhury

Time:  5 + minutes approx, looped

5.  Fraud

Text: Found text – internet spam

Audio performed by Matt Byham

Time:  8 + minutes approx, looped

6.  Spam

Text: Found text – internet spam

Audio and physical score performed by Alan Scott

Time:  Continuous, looped

7.  Amanuensis

Physical score performed by Liz Cole

Time:  11 minutes approx, looped

Additional assistance by Bex Johnston

Show documentation by Mark Pavelin & John Bethell

Website tended by Keith Atkinson

Thanks to Joe Fawcett and the Quay Theatre

Individual Sponsors:  Without whom Project 10/52 could not happen

Helen & Neil Arbon, Roz & Denis Brogan, Sue Clark, Jacqueline Cooper Clarke, Heather Clayton & Richard Fawcett, Cecil Qadir and Adam Webster

Robert Crighton is the Artist in Residence at the Quay Theatre...

Project 10/52 is the result – ten projects in fifty-two weeks...

This was Project Two...  Project One can be found online @

www.quaytheatre.org.uk/theTrollsTrilogy.htm

Project Three performs on Monday 31^st March at 7.30pm at the Quay Theatre

Box Office: 01787 374 745

As well as being live streamed online @

www.ustream.tv/channel/robert-crighton-storyteller

For more information about the making of this show visit the Robert Crighton blog...

http://robertcrightonstoryteller.blogspot.co.uk

Or follow Robert on Twitter @RobertCrighton

Or just go to the milk bottle website...

www.milkbottleproductions.co.uk

Instructions For Use:

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

The exhibits are a mix of the interactive and passive.  Where they are marked as:

DIGITALLY ACTIVATED

they will not begin until you hold their hand.

DO NOT ABUSE THE EXHIBITS!

They are delicate and are easily damaged.

DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE EXHIBITS:

Only make contact with the digitally activated and then only their hand.

QR CODES:

Can be found around the exhibit and can be used to unlock additional content.

Time / Timing:

The exhibits are looped – so you may encounter them at awkward moments.  Feel free to wait for the complete cycle.  However, do not hog the digitally activated exhibits, allow others the use after a complete cycle.

The room can be completed in approx. thirty / forty minutes.

The room will be shut down after one hour.

You may view as much or as little of the room as you wish.

You may leave and return at anytime in the hour.

Once the hour is over you will be asked to leave.

Drinks may be brought into the room.

Please have a drink in the bar afterward.

Please fill in a comments section in the bar afterward.

Please remember to Pay-What-You-Want afterward.

PHONES / CAMERAS:

Please switch your mobile phone to silent, but please leave on.

If you have a camera / video facility please record as much of the show as you can.

Please email us any footage / pictures

contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk

Please post any or all of it online as well if you please.

Make Up Time

The thing about launching any new thing, especially a BIG thing, is the moment you set a date for it time moves both incredibly quickly and incredibly slowly.  I want to launch The BIG Project now.  I've got all this stuff I want to tell people - and I can't.  And then I realise that the stuff I've got to share is not fully laid out yet; the blurb is nearly there, the graphics are nearly there, the website stuff is nearly there - BUGGER it's all got to be done for next Sunday!
Hence the weird time moving too quickly and slowly at the same time.
I've spent the last couple of days filming videos and doing photo shoots - there are still many more to do.  The first shoot went okay - barring a tussle over room booking - and next week it's zebra time.  Yup, time to make myself up as a zebra.  It's that kind of week.  I did look for a zebra costume, and looked online for one.  I found children's costumes (which would be too small) and sexy lady zebra costumes (which might be useful for alternate Thursdays).  I got seriously weirded out by the idea of a sexy zebra; I mean who came up with the idea that dressing AS A ZEBRA is sexy?  Has anyone, ever, EVER, looked at a zebra and gone... hmmnn, yes, I could do with a bit of that?
Actually, don't answer that question.

Anyway, there is a good reason why I will be photographing myself as a zebra.  But I can't tell you yet.  In the same way I can post this picture...

Maybe related to The BIG Project.  Maybe not.

... and not tell you whether it has anything to do with the BIG Project at all.  All will be revealed in a week - the longest/shortest week EVER.

THE BIG PROJECT LAUNCH PARTY
Sunday 8th September at 1pm
From the bar of the Quay Theatre, Sudbury
Live Streamed Online - at the Robert Crighton: Storyteller ustream channel