The Hogwallops by Lost in Translation Circus
There are events going on all over the world celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Roald Dahl, claimed by many to be the world’s greatest storyteller.
The Hogwallops is Lost in Translation’s skillful yet slapstick circus show relating domestic adventures of a chaotic, dysfunctional family of misfits inspired by Dahl’s The Twits - with elements of Ettora Scola’s film Bruti, Sporchi e Cattivi (Ugly, Dirty and Bad) added to the mix.
The Hogwallops by Lost in Translation Circus
Underbelly Circus Hub, The Beauty Venue 360
4-22 Aug (not 10, 15), 15:30 (60 mins)
£12 - £10 (previews 4, 5 Aug £8)
What was the inspiration for
The Hogwallops?
Primarily
families and their relationships, which was re-inforced and informed by an
intensive period of living and working together as a group. Circus comes from a
family tradition and is very good at expressing human relationships so it is not
a big leap to look at families as an inspiration. We were also inspired by our
experience of living and creating in Great Yarmouth and the great eccentric
characters that we would meet or see around the streets.
Specifically
when we started with this them when looking around for source material we fixed
on two main inspirations - Roald Dahl's The Twits, and Ettora Scola's film
Brutti, Sporchi e Cattivi (Ugly, Dirty and Bad).
How did you go about
gathering the team for it?
All our artists for The
Hogwallops are part of our core team of artists, who we try to work with fairly
consistently and intensively over the year with various projects in order to
create a close, tight knit team and use these close relationships to improve
our collective skill level and inform our creative process. We actually have a
new member of the team this year – Mathew Green who has been with us since
January. We auditioned at the beginning of the year and he has been on tour
with us for most of the year, so its also good to have fresh faces and new
perspectives sometimes as well. In general we usually try to have an audition
process but it also takes time to try things out with people and see how the
relationship develops and see if it is a good fit creatively, in terms of team
and in terms of the needs to of the show. This show was very much created by
the group we had to make it, all the artists involved had quite a big creative
input.
How did you first become
interested in making performance?
Personally I have been
involved in circus since I was a child, but have slowly gained the experience
(both professionally and in life) to begin to be part of creating full-length
work. Its very complex and lots of hard work but also very rewarding.
Was your process for this
show typical of the way that you make a performance?
I don’t think we have a typical process yet. We
are still quite young as a company and The Hogwallops is only our second
full-length show, and the first one indoors. We are exploring different ways to
integrate circus, theatre, movement and music, and it’s a complicated thing to
bring different artforms together so each show creation is a step along that
journey of exploration.
What do you hope that the
audience will experience?
We hope they will have a great time, be excited,
thrilled, moved and laugh a lot, and to find something in there that connects
to each one of them.
What strategies did you
consider towards shaping this audience experience?
We always need to create something that we have
fun with and that we enjoy and laugh at, but it needs to also be a journey with
the audience. The show has changed and evolved several times and grows with the
feedback from the audience. Every time we get a chance we are tweaking it here
and there to try to make it clearer, more exciting or funnier. But a show doesn’t necessarily always come out
as you originally intended and there are always things that surprise you.
Do you see your work falling
within any particular tradition?
Our show falls within the genre of contemporary circus, but
also pulls on elements of physical theatre, and clown. However we also draw on
lots of other sources. We don’t necessarily see ourselves as falling within a
particularly tradition but its important that the circus and physicality still
stays primary to the mode of expression.
Thrillingly spectacular circus skills blend
seamlessly with charm, physical comedy, clowning, juggling, theatrical storytelling and slapstick in this colourful, loud and funny dramatisation of the domestic adventures of a chaotic, dysfunctional family of misfits.
UK based but with an international cast, Lost in Translation return to the Underbelly Circus Hub with a firm family favourite following UK and European touring.
No comments :
Post a Comment