Ferment Fortnight

Ferment Fortnight, Bristol Old Vic’s ever-absorbing biannual work-in-progress showcase, returns this week and next (Wednesday 21 to Friday 30 January).

Bristol Ferment is BOV’s artist development factory, a place where ideas are taken from seed to crop, where the first whiff of a storyline, a character, a place or poem, is coaxed and coached into something more fully-formed. 

Twice a year, these budding pieces are presented to audiences. Companies (from Bristol and beyond) presenting work this time around include Impermanence Dance Theatre, FellSwoop Theatre and Bristol’s Invisible Ink (pictured) and Wardrobe Ensemble.

“Over the two weeks of Ferment Fortnight, you’re invited into the artists’ processes as they bring us some new and fragile theatrical ideas,” explains Emma Bettridge, Ferment Producer.

“Bristol Old Vic Ferment is our year-round artist development strand. Within this ‘ferment’ it is our job to create a playful structure through which the best of these artists can explore their theatrical ideas in an ongoing dialogue with an audience.

“Ferment Fortnight exists as the first public stage of this creative process – a safe place to invite artists we think are brilliant to come and road-test an idea. It is here that we seek to enable artists we are inspired by.

“During the Ferment Fortnight, a massive part of the experience for the artists is to get audience’s reactions. You can do this in a variety of ways: find me and talk to me, write it down, email it over or buy the artist a drink in the Cellar Bar.”

Everything on the menu looks intriguing – we’ve marked your card with five picks below, but your best bet is to peruse the listings on the BOV website and start filling the diary.

Unless indicated otherwise, all performances take place in Bristol Old Vic Studio and cost £5.

For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/fermentfortnightjan15.html

Ferment Fortnight: Five to See

Game
Thu 22 Jan, 8.15pm
This three-man circus-theatre show explores how games shape our lives. Unstable King will use circus feats, live gaming with real punishments, stand-up and sketch comedy, and Napoleon Dynamite-esque dance routines to explore the gaming instinct – and the inherent joy in winning.

Ghost Opera
Fri 23 Jan, 6.30pm
Following the sell-out success of Ablutions, the award-winning FellSwoop Theatre take a haunting trip to the world of the un-living and back again to discover the connections between this life and the next.

The History of F***ing
Fri 23 Jan, 8.15pm
It’s 1972. An era of possibility, polyester and pubic hair. Ziggy Stardust is on Top of the Pops, Penny is writing an essay on Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Christine is watching Deepthroat. Brian is confused. The Wardrobe Ensemble present this 60-minute romp through the ins and outs of those excellently awkward first sexual encounters. Ages 16+.

The Terrible Things I’ve Done
28-30 Jan, 6pm-9pm (15 min intervals)
Invisible Ink – writer Alan Harris and director Sita Calvert-Ennals – invite you to unburden yourself, completely and anonymously. To get ‘that thing’ off your chest. No names will be taken and no blame will be given.

The Dog and the Elephant
Fri 30 Jan, 6.30pm
Buried beneath the earth three paces east from the north facing wall of a church in a miners village in Bristol there lies the body of an elephant. Matt Grinter tells this compelling story of bare-knuckle boxer Bendigo Barlow and his friendship with an African Elephant.