Introducing… Bristol Old Vic’s next Ferment Fortnight

Bristol Old Vic’s Ferment director Ben Atterbury introduces us to the latest instalment of BOV’s biannual work-in-progress festival Ferment Fortnight

Ferment Fortnight is back for its ninth (!) year, and we are once again promising to showcase some of the finest talent in the South West. The fortnight is a really exciting point for Ferment; it allows audiences to engage with work that is still being made and feedback on performance and discussion from emerging and established local theatre-makers.

This January, we’re also returning the festival to its rightful home: the newly built Weston Studio, a flexible space designed to be a home to innovative performance and the theatre-makers of tomorrow.

So, what have we got in store? From theatre to gig, exercise class to readings from our Writers Department as well as discussions around representation onstage and much, much more. Big ideas and big chats, who knows what you might catch on its way to the top?

Ferment Futures (Tue 22, 6pm, Coopers’ Loft)
Kicking off the festival is a discussion around Ferment itself. With a new Producer in post, we are looking to open up some crucial, key questions that will shape the nature of Ferment itself. These questions might include (but are not limited to): What do we want artist development in Bristol to mean? What do we want it to look like?
Everyone is welcome to share their ideas and engage with us as we find our way forwards.

Ferment producer Ben Atterbury

Gagglebabble: Jessie’s Tattoo Club (Wed 23, 8pm, Weston Studio)
The festival’s first performance will be from this returning company. Gagglebabble shows are always thrilling as they combine brilliant music and evocative storytelling. This one will be no different as they share some songs and snippets from a new show celebrating the life of pioneering female tattoo artist Jessie Knight and the world of the tattoo parlour itself. Icons like Patti Smith, Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell are listed as musical influences and I can barely contain my excitement.

Wild Swimming (Thu 24 & Fri 25, 8pm, Weston Studio)
Next up is FullRogue’s Wild Swimming, charting the lives of Nell and Oscar, who meet on Studland beach in 1595 and continue to meet in the same place for the next 400 years as the world turns around them. The company was formed by Leverhulme Arts Scholarship recipient and former Made in Bristol member Julia Head who approached Marek Horn, a Writer on Attachment at BOV in 2015. This show is a head-spinning examination of how we’ve treated gender roles for centuries. Has that much really changed? They’ll also be experimenting with Oscar played by a male actor one night and a female actor the next, so book in for both if you want to see what happens…

Laminated (Fri 25, 6pm, Weston Studio)
Friday’s performance is this new piece of theatre from Lucy Bell and Documental Theatre, inspired by conversations with “special needs” families and exploring the impact of having a high-needs child on marriage. Lucy is also a 2018 Open Session writer at BOV and this is one of the Fortnight events organised through our brilliant Writers Department. Laminated will be performed by Annette Chown, a member of The Wardrobe Theatre’s popular fortnightly cult comedy show Closer Each Day: The Improvised Soap Opera.

Fur Baby / The Great Dog, Pan (Sat 26, 6pm, Coopers’ Loft)
Audiences may have seen Amy Mason’s hilarious and poignant show Hollering Woman Creek open the Weston Studio back in October. Now she’s back, alongside Toby Parker-Rees in this double bill of two new plays in development presented by our Writers’ Department. An extract of Amy’s first play-for-performers-who-are-not-her, Fur Baby will be a brutally honest look at the way society judges women’s reproductive choices and features a talking cat (what’s not to love?) and Toby’s The Great Dog, Pan is a monologue about feeling anxious and lonely in modern England, as well as the strangeness of owning a pet. The audience are the dog in that one, so it’s an anthropomorphic evening of treats.

Negging (Sat 26, 8pm, Weston Studio)
Have you ever heard someone say, “He’s only mean to you because he likes you?”. The Sum (Emma Callander and Tom Wainwright of The Room in the Elephant) are investigating a phenomenon called “negging” – the practice of making negative comments to someone you find attractive in order to make them take an interest in you. Their work-in-progress sharing of the same name teams them up with movement director Yandass Ndlovu, performer Sam Henderson and brilliant musicians La La and the Boo Ya in a still developing response to how we think about love, connection and intimacy in a world where Pick Up artists are an actual thing.

Beyond Black History Month (Mon 28, 8pm, Weston Studio)
Bristol City Poet Vanessa Kisuule made waves with her one-woman show SEXY, programmed as part of Ferment Fortnight in 2017 and since touring all over the country. To open the second week of the festival, she will be hosting a salon-style discussion about what happens when ‘marginalised’ voices are given space and what stories they are expected to tell, versus what stories are there to be told. We’re expecting hot takes and cakes so make sure you join us as Vanessa kicks off another week of chat and performance.

Vinland (Tue 29, 8pm, Weston Studio)
Tuesday of week two will introduce Jack Dean, a poet, playwright, performer, emcee and composer from Exeter whose work tells stories that wander the lands between myth, memory and history. This time around, he is tackling the incredible historical tale of the Vikings last journey to America, inspired by the Norse Saga of Erik the Red and suitable for ages 9 and up. They’ll also be experimenting with live animation, so it’ll be exciting to see how it all plays out.

I R A N (Wed 30, 8pm, Weston Studio)
Ryan O’Shea makes theatre that is multiple-layered and I R A N is his second solo project, which deconstructs the song I Ran by 80s cult band A Flock of Seagulls and investigates themes of language, understanding, anxiety and loneliness using a treadmill, a mute performer and a scrolling LED bar.

The Pelican Daughters
(Thur 31 & Fri 1, 8pm, Weston Studio)
Homegrown favourites The Wardrobe Ensemble have long charmed UK-wide audiences with their hit shows Education, Education, Education and 1972: The Future of Sex. Now, they return once again to Bristol Ferment to share a new work-in-progress investigating inheritance, family and growing up. The Pelican Daughters has been developed in co-production with physical theatre company Complicité and Northampton’s Royal & Derngate.

Across The Water (Fri 1, 6pm, Coopers’ Loft)
Bristol-based playwright and poet Liz Mytton will present her newest piece of work, following the success of her debut play Red Snapper. Across The Water is inspired by true events and follows the strange tale of Marcus Garvey and the KKK and a little known-about alliance that was formed in the 1920s. This is the final reading organised through the BOV Writers Department.

New Models: Design-Led Practice (Sat 2, 6pm, Coopers’ Loft)
The final discussion of the festival will be hosted by Bristol Design Assembly and asks the question: how might designers be the lead creatives on a project? A new collective of South West based designers, the BDA want to interrogate the creative process to see if there are new ways of invigorating artists, designers. They’re also highlighting an awareness of the environmental impact of their work on the world around.

Total Body Conditioning (Sat 2, 8pm, Weston Studio)
January’s Ferment Fortnight comes to a close with Total Body Conditioning, an event from Huge if True split into two categories – “Take Part” and “Watch”. Those choosing to participate will take part in an actual exercise class on the floor of the Weston Studio, so we advise you to bring suitable clothing for a High Intensity Training session. Audience wishing to watch it all unfold from the gallery are promised a performance exploring personal transformation and the emotional labour which enables it. A theatre/gym class fusion, who knows if it will work, but I can’t wait to find out.

As with all Fortnights, after the work-in-progress finishes, audiences are invited to give their feedback to the company, if they want to. They can do this through a form at the end of each performance but why not just stick around and chat directly to the artists over a drink in the bar? Each show is just a fiver, and if you commit to 5 of them you can have the lot for £20 – a bargain and a great, unpredictable night out all rolled into one.

Ferment Fortnight Jan 22-Feb 2. For more info, visit bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/mini-series/ferment-fortnight-jan-2019