The Director of Get the Chance, Guy O’Donnell recently got the chance to chat to Charlie Hammond. Charlie spent time training in Cardiff and was one of our Young Critics. We discussed his career to date, Me Me Me’s current production ‘Clonely’ and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Hi Charlie can you give our readers some background information on yourself please?
Sure, I am an actor and theatre-maker based in the North-West. I create a lot of physical, visual, and chaotic performances. I borrow heavily from clown and physical comedy, and I have trained with various clowning and physical practitioners, in particular Philippe Gaulier, who is regarded as a leading practitioner in clown and performance training. His school is near Paris. I have also worked closely with director Cal McCrystal, who I learnt a great deal about directing and performance from whilst acting as associate director for Giffords Circus. Giffords are a traditional 1930’s style circus who create intimate performances which tour largely in the South-West of England. Originally I studied English Literature at Cardiff University, and spent a large amount of my time being involved with the artistic community in Cardiff, including writing for the Young Critics.
http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/profiles/blogs/young-critics-review-children-of-mine-by-charlie-hammond
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/theatre-news/review-its-family-affair-well-6140851
So what got you interested in the arts?
Just everyday culture really. Growing up my parents watching a lot of comedy, Red Dwarf, the Young Ones, that kind of seminal alternative comedy, and I absorbed a lot of that. And then the high school I attended had very good arts facilities and that really started my interest in performing, and I did a lot of singing in chamber choirs and a barbershop choir, theatre productions and musicals. I also always felt that the arts was actually something I always found challenging, where as more traditionally academic subjects like mathematics and science came a little bit easier to me.
Thanks Charlie, can you tell us about the work your company is taking to this Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
So, our show Clonely is a sci-fi adventure in existential crisis, a blend of bulls**t arthouse theatre with nonsense games and DIY props.
Our company, Me Me Me Theatre, strive to poke fun at the avant-garde, science fiction cinema, the audience, and crucially, ourselves. It’s a mixture of theatre, sketch comedy and audience interaction that blends together into a surreal and anarchic hour long show about space and being a clone.
Me Me Me is made up of myself, and writer-performer Jasmine Chatfield, who recently won a Northern Writers Award 2017, and produces and excellent art event in Manchester called FLIM NITE. We started working together this year, and have set out to make the kind of weird and funny work that we would like to see on stage. Closely runs Friday 4th to Sunday 27th August (Mondays off):, Laughing Horse Free Fringe at The Mockingbird, 2.45 (1 hr).
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/clonely
The festival features a huge range of productions and there is great deal of competition for audiences, why should audiences come and see your production?
To support the free fringe and new work. But if you are interested in weird comedy, with sci-fi elements which doesn’t take itself too seriously then you should watch our show. We are very proud of it, and really feel that it captures the best of free fringe. I mean and also the Scotsman gave us 4 stars, which we were pretty chuffed about, and called us ‘gifted physical comedians’, so there’s that as well!
What would you recommend seeing from this years festival?
Butt Kapinski’s film-noir show is one of the best pieces of clown which really plays into its concept and gets the audience on board. I love Red Bastard, and his new show Come Lie with Me is a very interesting and electric dissection of the rules of love. Jordan Brooke’s Body of Work is a fantastic show; it’s just transferred to the Pleasance Courtyard and is a masterpiece in audience manipulation. But that’s just the few I’ve been able to see.
What do the artists and companies do when they aren’t performing?
Anything to pay the bills! It differs from person to person. Most artists hold down a couple of days a week doing a steady job, some work full-time and balance creative opportunities on top of that. I am very fortunate as I currently work pretty much full-time as a performer, but I also run workshops and do various little jobs to make extra cash. But when I say full time a lot of that time is spent making work, which tends to be a labour of love.
And finally what’s the best Fringe show you’ve ever seen?
Couldn’t pin it down to one. You assign so much weight to a type of show you’ve seen for the first time. John-Luke Robert’s work has always been memorable for me, he was my first introduction into a very different type of comedy and show. The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society has always been one of my favourite shows to visit to see something totally different. I remember rating NTW ‘The Radicalisation of Bradley manning’ as a powerful and mesmerising performance. But then it might have to be A Young Man Dressed as a Gorilla Dressed as an Old Man Sits in a Rocking Chair for 56 Minutes and Then Leaves, which is exactly what is says on the tin as is for one-night only, and represents the fringe perfectly.
Tag Archives: Edinburgh Festival Fringe
An interview with Ben Atterbury, Associate Artistic Director, The Other Room
Hi pleased to meet you. Can you please give our readers some background information on yourself and your role in the arts in Wales?
Hi! My name is Ben Atterbury and I’m an English Literature graduate turned Digital Marketeer turned Creative Producer turned Associate Artistic Director (whatever that means, titles are a funny thing). I grew up loving theatre and, although not Welsh myself, I spent three brilliant years at University falling in love with Cardiff and decided to stick around for a bit afterwards; it felt like something was about to happen in the city and I wanted to be around and be a part of it. That thing happened a year later when I met Kate Wasserberg and Bizzy Day and started to help them set up The Other Room, where I still work, although I now run the theatre with Bizzy and our newly appointed Artistic Director, Dan Jones.
http://www.otherroomtheatre.com/en/
Can you tell us about the work your company is taking to this years Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
Seanmhair is a new play by the brilliant Welsh writer Hywel John. It is a play about a chance meeting between two children, Jenny and Tommy, on the streets of Edinburgh that brings about a terrible reckoning upon them both, which resonates and reverberates throughout both their lives. It’s a vivid and dynamic show about love, fate and blood beautifully performed by three incredible female actors who play the central character Jenny at different stages of her life, along with every other character in the story. It fuses epic romance with a kind of modern poetry and I’d never really read anything quite like it, so it’s brilliant to see it brought to life, first in Cardiff at our theatre, The Other Room, and now as it moves to Edinburgh!
How is work selected to go to the festival?
One of the most brilliant things about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is that if you have something that you want to take, you can take it. With the growth and expansion of things like the Free Fringe over the past 20 odd years the only barriers that exist now are practical; most financial. Bigger producers (Pleasance, Underbelly, Summerhall etc.) obviously have more selection barriers and they will programme the work they think is the best fit for their programme and their venue but ultimately, the only person who can select whether to be at the fringe or not is you!
Wales Arts International who have funded some of the companies this year state,
“The idea is to help the selected Welsh companies to present their work at the Fringe in the best possible way – with the best conditions – and, importantly, to connect with international promoters and programmers participating in the British Council Edinburgh Showcase.”
Why is their support important along with Arts Council Wales and British Council Wales?
It’s crucial. Without this support the huge financial risk that we are taking in mounting such an ambitious show in Edinburgh would be insurmountable. This investment in the arts (and it is investment) actively takes work made in and for Wales and places it firmly on the international stage at the biggest arts festival in the World. If we are to live in a country and a world that values and promotes culture, and I would prefer that we did, the support of organisations like Wales Arts International, the Arts Council of Wales and the British Council is of critical importance in affording us the opportunity to be daring, risky and ambitious in pursuit of making great theatre.
The festival features a huge range of productions and there is great deal of competition for audiences, why should audiences come and see your companies work?
Audiences should come and see our work because it features amazing performers telling a dark, gripping story in a beautifully designed space with really cool lights and sound. And the comfiest theatre seats in Edinburgh. In all seriousness, they won’t have seen anything quite like Seanmhair before, and the seats really are very, very comfy.
Welsh artists/Companies will be showcasing a range of art forms including theatre, new writing, site-specific work and contemporary dance. In your opinion is there anything that is distinctly Welsh which links them?
Unfortunately I can’t speak in absolutes here as not only have I not seen all of the shows, but I’m not Welsh myself. But I would question the idea of something distinctly Welsh that links the work itself; I think what does bind us is that spirit of all being Welsh companies, together, in Edinburgh, showing work that was made here at home. There’s a bond and a solidarity in that I think, that I’m really looking forward to strengthening over August.
What would you recommend seeing from the other Welsh/Wales based companies going to this year’s festival or perhaps the festival as a whole?
All of it! Obviously in terms of new writing and our own tastes we’ve got to give those Dirty Protest kids a shout out (they’ll be over at the Paines Plough Roundabout) but honestly, go explore! It’s what Edinburgh is all about. In a festival as a whole sense, I’ll definitely be booking in for The Wardrobe Ensemble’s Education Education Education and Barrel Organ’s new show, but that’s all you’ll get from me for now!
What do the artists and companies do when they aren’t performing?
Watch shows and drink beer. Although I’m really only speaking for myself on that one!
What’s the best Fringe show you’ve ever seen?
Oh that’s really hard! I’ve seen some of the best shows I’ve ever seen at the fringe. But one that’s always stayed with me was a show by Chris Larner called An Instinct For Kindness, it was a one man show about Chris taking his ex-wife (who he had remained great friends with) to Dignitas after she was overwhelmed by her multiple sclerosis. It was so moving, beautifully simple and passionate that yeah, I think it’s stuck with me ever since.
http://www.aifk.co.uk
Thanks for your time Ben.
Listings
Fri 28 July, 8pm & Sat 29 July, 3pm & 8pm
Weston Studio, Wales Millennium Centre
Tickets – www.otherroomtheatre.com
2-7, 9-14, 16-21, 23-28 August at 4.55pm
Bedlam Theatre (Venue 49)
Tickets – www.edfringe.com