Flam
a capella voice theatre from Melanie Pappenheim and Rebecca Askew
"Beautiful to hear, funny to witness" The Guardian
"moving and arresting. A wonderfully playful, provocative piece" The Times
As engaging as theatre, as arresting as opera and very, very funny, Flam is an intelligent and inspired duet between two extraordinary performers, Melanie Pappenheim (Dr Who, Dr Dee) and Rebecca Askew (The Shout, Korasong Radio). Two acquaintances meet for coffee. They greet one another and sing together, sharing old banter and the latest gossip. Their language – in which words are used more for their sound than their meaning - is at once firmly grounded in the everyday, yet gloriously eccentric. They take off their coats. They are wearing the same clothes….
In the jealous tension which emerges, the protagonists compete with one another, subvert one another’s singing, bully and provoke each other, creating an encounter where vocal gymnastics take centre stage. Thanks to the exceptional vocal and dramatic skills of Pappenheim and Askew, and the equal talent of their collaborators (composer, Orlando Gough and director, Emma Bernard ), Flam is wonderful to listen to and hilarious to watch. Accessible to a broad range of audience tastes, Flam can be adapted to a variety of performance spaces and settings, including unusual ones, without the necessity for a theatre stage or lighting. It is offered as a full length evening or as a shorter version to be performed as one part of a double bill with its sister production Jilted . Short extracts of ten or twenty minutes are also available.
“Rebecca Askew and Melanie Pappenheim are quite brilliant. They gossip, compete, sympathise and conduct a hilarious singing lesson in unison and counterpoint. Witty, touching and virtuosic, it's a little gem!" Sunday Telegraph
“Flam is not only a virtuosic, accessible, truly innovative piece of high quality music theatre, it is also irresistibly infectiously joyous.” Bill Bankes-Jones
Flam Productions works in collaboration with composers Orlando Gough, Mike Henry and Jocelyn Pook to produce work that is witty, virtuosic yet light on its feet. They have performed in festivals and venues all round the UK and abroad.
Melanie Pappenheim ’s voice has inspired many leading contemporary composers including Jocelyn Pook, Graham Fitkin, Gavin Bryars and Orlando Gough, and may be heard on numerous television and film soundtracks including Gangs of New Yor k, Eyes Wide Shut and Doctor Who . She was a founder member of The Shout. She has worked with playright Caryl Churchill, DV8 Physical Theatre and with Marianne Elliot at the National Theatret. She has sung at Glyndebourne and London Coliseum where she appeared as Elizabeth I in Dr Dee by Damon Albarn and Rufus Norris. Melanie is currently appearing in Anthony and Cleopatra at The Globe and in late July will present a new solo performance commissioned by the Milton Keynes International Festival and MK Gallery. Melanie has composed and recorded music for several sound installations, theatre productions and radio plays, including three adaptations of works by Charles Dickens for BBC Women's Hour. Rebecca Askew has been a member of The Shout and is a regular soloist with the Voice Project in Norwich, performing work by Gwiliym Simcock, Arve Henrikson, Jan Bang, Nik Bartsch, Karen Wimhurst and Jon Baker. Rebecca has also performed in new work by Kerry Andrew, Paul Clark and Simon Allen, Jeremy Peyton-Jones and Kaffe Matthews. She also writes and performs with singer Jeremy Avis and kora player and percussionist Surahata Susso as Korasong Radio. Productions include Goalmouth directed by Luca Silvestrini and the first ever live-looped opera, Tongue-Tied directed by Emma Bernard, commissioned by ROH2. Emma Bernard is a theatre and opera director. Her credits include Peter Grimes in Beijing, Streetwise Opera's The Answer to Everything ( BFI), Fables – A Film Opera (Spitalfields Festival), My Secret Heart (Royal Festival Hall); and Critical Mass ( with composer Orlando Gough and The Shout at Almeida Opera). She directed Hearing Voices, composed by Jocelyn Pook, for BBC Concert Orchestra at Queen Elizabeth Hall and is currently collaborating with Jocelyn on a new work for the Jewish Music Institute, Drawing Life . She has also worked as a staff director at the Royal Opera House,on productions including Peter Grimes , The Gambler and Sun and Heir . Other recent projects include Upon this Rock (Metal Peterborough); Verve 2013 (Opera North Education); XX Scharnhost (Thames Festival); and 100% Norfolk (Norfolk and Norwich Festival). Orlando Gough was a founder member of the bands The Lost Jockey & Man Jumping. He writes music mostly for the theatre - operas, plays, dance pieces, music-theatre, directs The Shout, and devises and directs large-scale site-specific choral pieces. Collaborators have included Siobhan Davies, Alain Platel, Rufus Norris, Shobana Jeyasingh and Ashley Page of The Royal Ballet. In 2012 he was a British Composer Award winner for his stage work A Ring, A Lamp, A Thing, a collaboration with Caryl Churchill which featured Melanie. BOOKING DETAILS
Touring upon request
Performers on stage/on the road 2
Get in 30 minutes (without lighting) 2 hours (with lighting)
Performing Area 3 metres x 2 metres minimum
Running time 50 minutes
Minimum technical requirements Reasonable acoustics for singing Very basic lighting (optional) with operator Dressing room for two performers Café style table with two chairs for performance Two plain white coffee mugs
UK touring £1000 plus accommodation/Extracts from £400.
Education Singing workshops available
Contact Sarah Trist @ Sarah Trist Dance Management Agency 11 Beaufort Road Kingston upon Thames KT1 2TH +44 7757 654790 [email protected]
Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQTFxoFXg2A
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