Aeneas Faversham Forever had it’s first performance all the way back in March at the venerable Bedlam Theatre in Edinburgh, with a quick stop at the Glasgow Comedy Festival. Since then it’s changed a lot and all for the better, if winning Best Comedy at the Brighton Fringe Festival is anything to go by.

This time the boys Dreadful have written an actual play rather than a series of sketches, which certainly makes lighting it a more rewarding experience. We recently held our official Edinburgh previews at the lovely Greenwich Theatre to the largest audiences we’ve ever had and it went down really well. There are still a couple of extra-special final touches that will get added to the production as it makes its way Fringewards, but we’re in great shape.

This week we’re on at the Newbury Comedy Festival, and next week we’ll be in a field somewhere in Suffolk at Latitude. Then it’s up to the wonderful Pleasance Two in Edinburgh for a whole month; please do pop along to laugh at the jokes and gasp at the gobos.

Linkage:
The Penny Dreadfuls / backstage blog
notlikecalvin portfolio
Photo gallery @ Flickr
Book online at edfringe.com

Last week we set up camp at the Pleasance for the mightiest Sketchatron to date. With a line-up featuring our own Penny Dreadfuls, The Idiots of Ants, mighty award-herders Pappy’s Fun Club and the almost unbearably lovely The Sunday Defensive.

With so much quality on-stage, the show sold out a couple of days in advance, and the Pleasance was packed to the rafters with comedy cognoscente. The Defensive had some brand new material and Pappy’s held a meat raffle. An exhausting, wonderful, amazingly good value-for-money night, which is why we’re doing it again in April. (Although the current naming convention dictates the next one should be called Sketchatron vs Predator, apparently we can’t have that.) Book now!

I was a little too busy to listen live to the third episode of The Brothers Faversham last Friday night (see above), but the fourth and final episode is pushed over the airwaves tonight—you should be able to listen again for the next week. There’s a second series on the way, so I’m told, and the boys are appearing in all sorts of exciting projects in the coming months; keep an eye on the Backstage Diary for info-treats.

A few months ago The Penny Dreadfuls recorded their first radio series—The Brothers Faversham for the BBC. The first episode went out last week on Radio 7, so there’s still time to Listen Again online. It’s a four-part series glistening with comic gems; I’d forgotten just how funny it was, and the edit is some sort of miracle to cram the forty-odd minutes into a half-hour slot without seeming to lose anything.

BBC 7 largely airs repeats of comedy and drama from the archives, so a specially-made new series seems to be getting a nice push from the network—they’ve put up an interview and everything. For the even more inquisitive, my photos from the recordings are available for perusal.

Eagle-eared listeners may recognise The Brothers Faversham’s theme tune from the live show; Maurice Jarre’s “Fanfare” from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome usually ushers in The Prime Minister, but works really well in the radio series too.

[Nerd note: the online live audio stream of BBC 7 is broadcast in mono, while Listen Again shows are stereo. Goodness knows why, but Listening Again will give you twice as much Faverfun than staying up in the wee hours.]

After much wailing and knashing of teeth I’ve tweaked the notlikecalvin site design: the content is now left-aligned in the browser window, rather than centered. It’s a small change, but the site now renders more consistently across different platforms. There are, of course, more bits and pieces that need doing—I’ll be having a few polite words with Internet Explorer, for a start…

Content-wise, On Wonderland and Aeneas Faversham Returns now have their own sections, and I’ve added photos from the Off-Broadway run in New York to the Radio gallery.

So, what’s been happening?

We took Radio to the Brits Off Broadway festival at the lovely 59E59 theatres in New York City. It was fairly awesome. Sure, the New York Times may not have liked it that much, but they printed one of my photos so that was fairly awesome, too. NYC was a fascinating, enormous place and I’m certainly going back there some day.

The Penny Dreadfuls performed several times in the run-up to the Fringe, including shows at Latitude Festival and a very special send-off gig at the Soho Review Bar (where we learned the shocking truth behind the mechanics of pole dancing!).

Then it was onwards to Edinburgh!

This year Kandinsky presented Gavin O’Carroll’s play On Wonderland. The simple coming-of-age story of a girl who can’t believe her eyes, performed by the quite stunningly talented Kerry-Jayne Wilson, was a very moving little piece in the Baby Belly Caves, almost in the same spot that Enola occupied two years previously. My photographs are at Flickr, but I’ll add them to notlikecalvin soon.

The Dreadfuls were back with the appropriately named Aeneas Faversham Returns (we’re still arguing over the title for next year’s show). We sold out right from the get-go and became something of must-have ticket. The boys performed a variety of guest spots, from Lunch With The Hamiltons to 4 At The Fringe for the BBC, plus an extra-special appearance as Crisp-Off judges for grade-A dudes Stuckey & Murray. There are photos from the show at Flickr, but they’ll get added to my portfolio here at some point.

Sketchatron kept me busy for a couple of days in the Fringe, dealing with tech for a whole bunch of sketch acts. Aside from awakening dormant memories of Chock-A-Block, it was great to see the Sunday Defensive once again. I love those guys. Just not in creepy way.

Then the wonderful Illyria had to pull out of their prime-time slot at the Bedlam; with Tom barely back from New York there was just enough time to MacGuyver together yet another version of Radio for a couple of packed houses to enjoy. Although this was the lowest-teched iteration yet - I stole a lantern from the On Wonderland rig to make it happen on the supercheap - it all went very well, just like the good old days.

I got to see some great bits and pieces, too, although it’s never as much as I’d like. Now everybody’s licking their wounds and making plans for next summer. I’m cobbling together a round-up of this year’s reviews, but it might take a while: I’m off on tour for a couple of months with Inspector Sands‘ lovely Hysteria. I’ll be relighting Katherine Williams‘ design over a lot of different spaces - it’s a great piece of work and an honour to be involved. We’ll be all over the place so do pop along if you’ve got the time.

I’ve just uploaded a bunch of photos from Winged, the childrens’ show I lit last week at the Tristan Bates in London. It’s a modern fairytale for modern kids - everyone’s different, every snowflake is unique, big knees are cool and goblins and fairies can learn to get along. Colourful stuff, with some fantastic costume design from Gaelle and Anna.

There’s the usual portfolio here at notlikecalvin, along with larger files at the Flickr photoset, both served with a dash of Creative Commons licensing.

Last week’s adventures in Greek Tragedy all went very well, with a fantastic reception at the British Museum and a cosier but more controlled version at the Tristan Bates Theatre. A really nice production and a fantastic cast; it could certainly have a future.

I’m off up to Scotland this weekend, to be Simon’s lighting eyes for the start of the Moussa’s Castle tour at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen (Simon being distracted on a different continent). I haven’t been to the Granite City since Frozen docked there in December, but I doubt they’ll be too much time for sightseeing.

Coming up: back down to London next week for a rather magical project…

I’m back down to London today to set up for The Trojan Trilogy, David Stuttard’s recreation of Euripides’ lost plays. There’s one performance at the British Museum on Friday, then another two at the Tristan Bates Theatre next week.

An historic event, and it should be pretty interesting to boot!