A Pianist's Dramaturgy: Thomas Monckton @ Edfringe 2016

Aurora Nova presents Circo Aereo & Thomas Monckton:

The Pianist

Part of the From Start to Finnish 2016 showcase

A highbrow piano recital turns into a spectacular catastrophe in a Total Theatre Award nominated clowning show

Performed by Thomas Monckton | Directed by Sanna Silvennoinen and Thomas Monckton
Assembly Roxy, Central 4 – 29 Aug 2016 (not 10, 15 & 22), 12.25pm (1.25 pm)

A show that’s toured the world from the USA to Finland to London’s Southbank Centre and Edinburgh Fringe 2014, The Pianist is a solo contemporary circus piece from Lecoq trained Thomas Monckton centred on, in, under and around one of the most magnificent of all musical instruments, the grand piano. 

Accompanying this elegant apparatus is the poised pianist himself. Only he is so focused on impressing everyone that, before he realises it, his show has transformed from the highbrow concert he hoped for into a spectacularly amusing catastrophe. 

To salvage his somewhat unsalvageable dignity, the pianist draws on his imagination and comes up with some rib-tickling and absurd results.

Thomas Monckton – (Performer and co-director) – The Pianist 

What was the inspiration for this performance?
Elitist social gatherings. They are to comic material as mud is to a hippo.  

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
If we were all hippos, then the director hippo (Sanna Silvenoinen) already had a crew of creative hippos in her pond (lighting hippo, music hippo, costume hippo, set design hippo) and had collaborated with those hippos as part of previous hippo performances. I joined the hippo pond from another pond after being invited to wallow in it by Sanna. I did so quite happily because even though it was a bit of a waddle over to the new pond, their pond did have quite a good reputation. 

How did you become interested in making performance?
I learned to juggle at about 8 years old. Through juggling I became more interested in circus skills and through circus I discovered clowning and through clowning I discovered physical comedy, and new wave clown. Quite recently I also discovered the hippopotamus Wikipedia page.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
It changes so much from piece to piece, but for the sake of simplicity, yes more or less. The only difference was working with Sanna as a director. I usually work with an object or scenario for a starting point and have a trick or physical skill I want to learn in mind. That fools me into physical training which I find helpful for relaxing my brain but I often never get the trick solid enough to perform. 

Sanna and I spent the beginning of rehearsals kind of machine-gunning ideas all over the place and then the remainder of the time trying to stitch them all together. It’s not a coherent process. 

Neither is my morning routine. Sometimes I have coffee directly after brushing my teeth. Not that it matters anyway because the toothpaste in our house isn’t minty, it’s salty so it doesn’t clash with coffee but it’s disgusting just on it’s own anyway. I can’t wait to finish the tube so I always put a LOT on my toothbrush. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
It changes depending on what the piece is, what style it is, and what my intentions are behind it. Mostly I just hope they like it. With The Pianist I wanted to create a sense of relief for an audience by making a show about someone failing spectacularly at living up to his own expectations.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
I’m not sure if I’m that forethoughtful to come up with any strategy. I don’t think I’ve ever come up with a strategy about anything ever. I sometimes write a list before I go shopping but I usually forget to take it with me. 

The rehearsal process was basically coming up with ways of not doing what the pianist was trying to do but doing it in a way that was enjoyable to watch. I think what we ended up with is a wonderful turmoil of uplifting failures. 

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
It’s changing quite quickly. When I started it was definitely within a circus format. I created short skills based acts normally tightly glued to a piece of music. Now I am more interested in contributing to the progression of contemporary physical comedy. With The Pianist, it is as much classic clowning as it is contemporary circus and physical theatre. If it was an animal it would be a camel (not a hippo). Nowadays I’m aiming more at platypus type shows.

Assembly Roxy, Central 4 – 29 Aug 2016 (not 10, 15 & 22), 12.25pm (1.25 pm) 

Thomas said, “I thought it would be nice to use the old upright piano at my parents place in a show where the piano fell to pieces. I suggested a similar idea to Sanna Silvennoinen in conversation then later she came back to me having reimagined and extended the idea. 

The show changes slightly from audience to audience and from country to country. It also

changes sometimes when I forget the chronology of the show or if the technicians get bored and start improvising with the cues. Unfortunately, I have had to eliminate the standing double backflip I used to do because it was just too offensive to most audiences.

“The piano is temperamental in reality as well as in the show. I think it must be a method actor. And we have to tour with it.” 

Thomas Monckton is a Lecoq trained circus performer originally from New Zealand and based in France. His past shows include Moving Stationery (winner of Best of Fringe, Best in Theatre, and Stand Out Performer Awards at New Zealand Fringe 2012), Caterpillars (Best of Auckland Fringe 2015), Chameleon Demo (Best in Physical Theatre and Best in Innovation Awards at New Zealand Fringe 2015) and Only Bones v1.0 (Best is Physical Theatre Award and nominations for Best in Innovation and Stand Out Performer at New Zealand Fringe 2015). 

The Pianist was most recently seen in the UK at the Southbank Centre as part of London International Mime Festival (2015), and was nominated for the Total Theatre Award for Circus at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2014. 

Thomas will also be performing his new show Only Bones with Kallo Collective in association with Aurora Nova at Summerhall from 3 – 28 August.

Sanna Silvennoinen is an artistic director at Circo Aereo, an international contemporary circus group based in Finland and France. Founded 1996 and currently one of the most active Finnish groups in terms of performing abroad, Circo Aereo is among the flagships of Finnish cultural exports, performing in around 30 countries. In the past few years, Circo Aereo's productions have been a major factor contributing to the rise of Finnish contemporary circus internationally.
From Start to Finnish is an annual showcase presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that represents the best in Finnish performing arts. 

Now in its 6th year, From Start to Finnish 2016 will also feature Carl Knif’s dance solo about emotional struggle Red at Dance Base, and political satire The Chicken Trial from ACE-Production at Pleasance Courtyard.


Running Time: 60 minutes | Suitable for ages 12+
Performed Thomas Monckton
Directed by Sanna Silvennoinen & Thomas Monckton
Sound design by Tuomas Norvio
Lighting Design by Juho Rahijärvi


Costume design by Kati Mantere
Production by Circo Aereo and Show Pony

Listings information
Assembly Roxy, Central, 2 Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh EH8 9SU
4 – 29 Aug (not 10, 15 & 22), 12.25pm – 1.25pm 

A Dramaturgical Journey: Buckle Up @ Edfringe 2016

Award-Winning company, Buckle Up Theatre 
Journeys

Fast-Paced, Physical Comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe!

A series of farcical stories, each ridiculous and occasionally poignant.

Four actors perform a variety of weird and wonderful characters and create a world from minimal set and props using only four chairs and four suitcases.

Each of the characters’ stories is recreated with strong physical characterisation drawn from clowning and Buffon techniques. Using only occasional words and phrases, accompanied by an evocative musical score, they create a piece of theatre that is not only funny, but understandable to anyone no matter what language they speak. 

What was the inspiration for this performance?

We were asked to create a piece of theatre suitable for an international audience with a production that could travel anywhere in the world with limited set and technical resources, subsequently Journeys has already been performed in festivals in Belgium, Lithuania and Germany. 

Originally our theme was People on the Move and this quickly got us thinking about refugees and immigrants not only during the present day dramas that we have been hearing about over the past year or so, but refugees from the Great and Second World Wars. Eventually the four stories in Journeys follows the journey of four characters running away and because of its international slant they each originate in a different country with the characters being French. British, Spanish and Italian – a sort of EU on the move.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?

The director, Michael Woodwood, wanted a team of physical actors who were also expericed in comedy to perform the piece so he approached Andrew Hollingworth, the Artistic Director of Buckle Up Theatre to take on production of the show as well as inviting Andrew to be in the production as an actor. 

The director had directed Andrew before in Bump which won best production at the Manchester Fringe in 2015 and got four and five star reviews in Edinburgh that year. For the rest of the team Michael and Andrew put together a team of actors that they both had worked with at one stage or other, one of them Mountview trained and the other two E15 trained with Genevieve Dunne also having experience being trained at the Le Coq school in Paris; Le Coq technique being a big influence on Michael Woodwood’s work. 

This same team has now taken the production to three countries and after its success all the original cast members wanted to bring the show to Edinburgh 2016.

How did you become interested in making performance?

We are all professional actors who have been working in the theatre for six years or so. Buckle Up Theatre was formed by three Mountview students, two of whom are appearing in Journeys, Andrew Hollingworth and Rosie Ward, with Genevieve Dunne and Rob Taylor-Hastings training at East 15. Our director, Michael Woodwood, trained at LAMDA as an actor and had directed over twenty-five productions.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?

Yes and no. In terms of the style, it is a process we are familiar with. Our director will often spend a long time getting the timing right for a particular gag or sequence, or getting us to make the right expression at the exact moment. He also welcomes creative ideas from the cast making it a collaborative process. 

The style of Buckle Up Theatre is based on strong characterisation

and a stage movement that is timed to the second, so we work out a lot of sequences for creative set changes and often we will use a variety of music to suggest time, place and atmosphere. 

The main difference with working on Journeys, as opposed to our previous work, is that there is no set script - no dialogue - just words and occasional phrases. This of course means we need to work harder in order to tell the story. The up side, which I'm sure most actors will appreciate, is that there are no lines to learn prior to rehearsals.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

A very funny show with occasional moments of poignancy. Journeys is a very fast show at times and there are lots of visual jokes along the way, yet every so often there are some very subtle gags. Past audiences have also commented on the varied and inventive ways that we use the minimal set of suitcases and chairs demonstrating how theatre can be created out of nothing.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

To begin with we had to be aware that not all the audience would be able to speak English, so we hope our piece is truly international and can be understood by anybody. What language we do use tends to be well worn phrases, cliché’s, greetings and expressions that can be understood in any language. 

We are also aware that during its lifetime Journeys has been watched by both young and older audiences so the stories and jokes not only travel well between countries but between generations as well. In Edinburgh we know that we’ll be performing to a festival audience that not only has an enormous range of theatre available to see, but that they might want to vary the experience of the type of show they see, so some comedy, a classical, a modern piece, a musical etc, consequently how we market and describe our show is very important – we want the audience to be very sure of what they are getting.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

Our director and all of our actors are particularly interested in working in the physical style with strong characterisation, so the work of Jacques Le Coq is very important to us and the traditions of clowning and buffon taught by the Le Coq school. Working with our director we have also become familiar with the work of Jacques Tati; the Tati style of observational comedy and comedy without words.

Journeys has already entertained audiences in

Lithuania, Belgium and Germany as part of international theatre festivals. This year it will also be taking part in the Greater Manchester Fringe (28th-30th July) and Camden Fringe Festival (1st-6th August).

Buckle Up Theatre is quickly emerging as a new and successful company. Last year they took two productions to the Edinburgh Fringe,Bump! and Buckle Up, and received a handful of 4 and 5 star reviews. Bump! participated in the Greater Manchester Fringe and won 'Best Comedy Show' as well as being nominated for 'Best New Writing'.

Venue: Gilded Balloon – Billiard Room
Date: 8th-29th August
Time: 13:15 (60 mins)
Tickets: £9
Venue: Salford Arts Theatre
Date: 28th-30th July
Time: 19:30 (60 mins)
Tickets: £7-£5
0161 925 011
Venue: Tristan Bates Theatre
Date: 1st-6th August
Time: 19:30 (60 mins)
Tickets: £7-£5
020 3841 6611