Re-staging Revolutions Exhibition

Re-Staging Revolutions:
Alternative Theatre in Lambeth and Camden 1968-88
11th Nov - 21st Dec at Ovalhouse, Tues - Sat 3-8pm

[Beryl and the Perils, Is Dennis Really the Menace? 1979, Didi Hopkins, Claudia Boulton, Laurel-Jana Marks, Christine Ellerbeck in the dressing rooms at the Half Moon Theatre Alie Street. Photo © by Sheila Burnett]

An exhibition featuring community, experimental, Black, Asian, lesbian, gay, women’s, disabled, political, Theatre-in-Education, agit-prop, physical, visual, performance art, vernacular drama, new writing, satirical and many other theatre companies; championing a generation of artists whose work has influenced and shaped present day British theatre.

The exhibition brings together a range of material from the period, including beautiful silk-screened posters for Welfare State International, a rare poster from Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven at the Arts Lab in 1969, and a printed ‘make-it-yourself’ model of Inter-Action’s Fun Art Bus. There are also a wealth of objects from the poignant to the bizarre: the matchstick violin smuggled by Stirabout theatre company out of one of the prisons where they performed, nautical props and the ‘pissing jug’ ceremoniously presented to The Phantom Captain when they performed in Tilburg, Holland. All these along with original theatre designs for Monstrous Regiment’s Scum, original drawings from Action Space, creators of inflatable cushions and play spaces, now copied all over as bouncy castles, rare playscript editions from small presses, records from Sadista Sisters and Siren and cyclostyled low tech hand-outs that vividly evoke the times, along with a wealth of badges from campaigns from ‘Support the Miners’ to ‘VAT is a Pain in the Arts’ along with those celebrating individual companies from Spare Tyre to Joint Stock.

On 4th January 2014 the exhibition will move to Kentish Town Community Centre, 17 Busby Place, London NW5 2SB and at the start of February to Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, Holborn Library, 32-38 Theobalds Rd, London WC1X 8PA where it will run till end of April. For details of further events, see below or watch for future newsletters.

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Events Programme:

Mon 18 November

UNFINISHED HISTORIES SALON: OVAL HOUSE IN THE 1960s AND 1970s
Introduced by Judith Knight and Sue Timothy (Oval House programmers in the 1970s),
with a panel featuring Paddy Fletcher (Incubus), Geraldine Pilgrim tbc (Hesitate and Demonstrate) and others

Tues 3 December

OVAL HOUSE IN THE 80s: A TRIBUTE TO KATE CRUTCHLEY
With Claire Oberman, Karen Parker and Debbie Klein (formerly ‘Parker and Klein’), Stella Duffy,
Sandra Freeman, Sarah McNair, Nicolle Freni, Crin Claxton, Susan (Clark) Hayes,
Martha D Lewis and Eve Polycarpou (aka Martha and Eve, formerly known as ‘Donna & Kebab’)
Caroline Mylon, Hot Doris, Sue Frumin, Adele Salem, Steve Gooch and many more.

Thurs 5 December
THEATRE CENTRE 60th ANNIVERSARY PLAYREADING EVENT
Readings of the company’s plays for young people 1968-88 featuring extracts from plays
by Brian Way, David Holman, Noel Greig, Bryony Lavery and others.

Fri 6 December
BLACK THEATRE IN LONDON IN THE ’70s and ’80s
The Ambiance season, Black Theatre of Brixton, Motherland, Umoja and much more.
Contributions from: Anton Phillips (Carib), Gordon Case (Black Theatre of Brixton, Temba),
Bernardine Evaristo (Theatre of Black Women), AJ Simon (Umoja). Chaired by Sola Oyeleye.

Sat 14 December
ALTERNATIVE PANTOS REVISITED
A celebration of such Christmas delights as a Cinderella Hardup (A Woman’s Right to Shoes),
Fanny Whittington and Her Glorious Pussy and the Drill Hall alternative pantos, that
shamelessly and deliciously exploited the inherent gender confusions of the genre…

Tickets

All performances will start at: 7pm

Tickets £5 can be booked via Ovalhouse box office.
Unfinished Histories are also available for free bookable tours for groups. For details email contact@unfinishedhistories.comIf you have any specific access requirements such as BSL interpretation can you please let us know at least a week in advance of your visit.

Getting to Ovalhouse

and at Kentish Town Community Centre, 17 Busby Place, London NW5 2SB

Saturday 4th Jan 2014
INTER-ACTION REMEMBERED: a day-long event exploring the impact of this major arts initiative within its Camden community and elsewhere. Details to be confirmed. To reserve a place email: contact@unfinishedhistories.com

Further details including events programme [and pictures] from: www.unfinishedhistories.com or www.ovalhouse.com

Recording the History of Alternative Theatre in Britain (1968-88) through oral history interviews and the collecting of archive material