Bristol Old Vic’s ‘Ferment’ returns with a third collection of new work by locally nurtured writers and performers. Steve Wright brews up.

You’d have high hopes, wouldn’t you, of an event called ‘Ferment’? The word suggests a veritable swarm of activity, a constant brewing and bubbling under of creative energies. Happily, it seems that Bristol Old Vic’s new-works strand was not named in vain. The next fortnight brings the third showcase, in its brief 10-month history, with performances thus far edging toward the 50 mark. The first ‘Ferment’ was back in January, with some 25 new works in BOV’s Studio, Basement and Paintshop. It returned for another fortnight, with 20 more fresh-as pieces, in July: and for this month’s ‘From the Ferment’ mini-series, some of the pieces first aired back in the summer will get another outing, now in more fleshed-out form.

Things kick off with a double bill of short monologues written and performed by two of our more intriguing local talents. First up is Adam Peck, a Bristol playwright last seen at April’s ‘Short Fuses’ showcase with his peppery class-relations satire ‘Chocolate Money’ set around the closure of Keynsham’s Cadbury’s factory. In ‘My Bristol Vista’, he promises a comic, personal story of his roundabout journey from his native Leeds to our fair city. “It’s a short, light-hearted monologue, and it feels very revealing,” Peck tells Venue. “It’s part home-made map, part personal memory, and it considers how we can feel ‘at home’, yet be constantly reminded that ‘we’re not from round here’”.

Joining Adam on the same 6pm bill is the lyrical and gently surreal writer/performer Timothy X Atack. ‘M32 is Also a Galaxy’ is the story of an argument, a motorway, a bridge, an encounter, and a revelation – although not necessarily in that order. “I decided to write something about one of the footbridges over the M32,” Tim explains. “Which, granted, doesn’t sound all that inspiring... but the idea was to spin stories around the motorway and create a series of unlikely connections, so that the play's narrative wanders all the way out to deep space and then back to the bridge in 10 minutes flat. It's a brief moment in time, played out in lots of different ways, told from as many angles as I can fit into a one-man monologue.

“There was a short film I used to love watching as a kid that zoomed out from the Earth to the edge of the known universe, then all the way back into the nucleus of an atom inside someone’s hand. I wanted to infuse ‘M32’ with a similar feeling. Except that my story also imagines an asteroid striking Clifton.”

As you can imagine, this means cramming a fair bit into 600 seconds. “I barely get the chance to pause for breath. It's very simply staged: just me. And the text requires me to be absolutely word perfect – but each time I perform it I end up with a different feeling, a different conclusion. I hope that’ll be the same for audiences. The July performance sparked off a lot of different reactions – some people enjoyed its cosmic aspects, others found a kind of poetry, and some came up to tell me their own mugging stories. I love that.”

Later on the same evenings, fledgling SW company Idiot Child will present their work-in-progress ‘I Could’ve Been Better’. IC – aka writer/director Anna Harpin and writer/actor Jimmy Whiteaker – made their bow with ‘Nostalgia’ at last autumn’s Theatre West season, which earned a glowing five-star review from us and, almost as importantly, a nomination (decision pending) for the prestigious Meyer-Whitworth Award for new drama.

‘Could’ve Been…’ tells the tale of a 30-year-old who, desperate for a sense of fulfilment in life, enters an over-10s swimming competition. “A very funny, sad, alarming, deeply engrossing solo performance about inadequacy,” was one of many warm audience reactions at July’s Ferment. “We decided to write a play about feeling a bit shit and generally not good enough at anything,” Anna explains. “It’s a play about how people make do with their lot: but it’s also about love and inadequacy and feelings that are very familiar to us all. It’s also very funny. Our work draws on autobiography and memory – our tales are bleak and comic, and they emerge from the facts, objects, and oddities of our own lives. They’re concerned with comedy, pain, and theatricality – and we always place the audience at the heart of our work.”

“This one draws on true stories from both our lives, but at the same time distorts those stories. We’ve recently been writing, devising and playing with it in the light of audience responses at July’s Ferment. As such, it’s still a work-in-progress – and we’d be delighted for audiences to come along and let us know how you think we ‘could’ve have been better’.” The ‘Ferment’ ethos in a nutshell.

FROM THE FERMENT WAS AT BRISTOL OLD VIC STUDIO UNTIL SAT 23 OCT.
 

Copyright Steve Wright 2010 

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