The Imposters!
Beatrice Blade
Beatrice is a physical theatre performer who merges her skills as a solo acrobat to create work that brings people into other works and explores life through movement and play.
Tallulah Wright
Tallulah has spent the last three years at Circomedia in order to explore the joys of clowning and handstands. Her work celebrates silliness and comic tension, inviting audiences into spaces that are foolish, shocking and unpredictable. With her time training and through experimentation, her performances transform simple actions into expressive, mischievous storytelling that lingers after the curtain falls.
Billie Bailey-Stockton
Billie is a physical theatre performer and aerialist. Blending her love of chaos and silliness to push gender boundaries and inviting all who watch to embrace the art of play.
Nancy Camaro
Nancy is a multi-disciplinary circus performer with a love for all things theatrical. In her own work, she blends burlesque, balance and hat and cane juggling to reinvent the classic cabaret style with a new powerful feminine energy.
Devina Donella
Devina Donella also known as DeeDee, is an aerial silks artist who creates whimsical, story driven performances, using playful energy to spark joy and wonder in her audiences.
Moira Hunt - Director
Moira is Head of Physical Theatre at Circomedia and Director of Roughhouse Theatre.
She is a director, producer, movement director and facilitator.
She trained at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst and trained and performed with Theatre is Moving under Leisa Shelton (Australia).
Her work includes Glitz Dies! (Performance Space, Sydney as Director in Residence), The Sneeze (Director, Victoria and Albert Museum, London), The House of Bernarda Alba (Movement Director for Theatre Royal Bath), Henry Walker and the Wheel of Death (Movement Director, Rondo Theatre, Bath), Hands Up For Jonny Wilkinson's Right Boot (Movement Director and Director, National Tour), When The Eye Has Gone (Movement Director) and The Long Walk Back (Movement Director), Getting The Third Degree (Director), Unknown (Director), Jane Eyre (Associate Director)
Moira was producer of the award winning audio documentary N17.
David Ogden - Piano
David is a professional conductor and composer based in Bristol. He conducts the vocal ensemble Celestia, Exultate Singers, City of Bristol Choir, workplace choirs at Airbus, Arval and Triodos Bank and in his post of Head of the Bristol Choral Centre, he organises and directs the 140 strong Bristol Youth Choir in association with Bristol Music Trust.
He is Director of Music at Holy Trinity Church, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol where he trains and directs three choirs of young people and adults as part of the church’s active music programme.
Kate Waters - Fight Coordinator
Kate is an Equity registered Fight Director and has been directing fights for theatre, TV & film for over 20 years. She has worked for many of the UK's major theatres and regularly works on ITV's Coronation Street and other TV shows. She choreographs physical action or combat with and without weapons. Kate is also a retired competitive boxer and a qualified boxing coach.
Why Silent film? Why Slapstick?
Because the physicality of this genre speaks to a universal truth about who we are as human beings. We watch the characters fall down, fall in love, fall in luck, fall out of luck and we see our experience reflected and we laugh and we cry along with them.
Watching Buster Keaton I am awestruck by the incredible stunts, the effortless physicality but more than these, his ability to embody human experience with a look or a shrug.
I wanted to create a live silent film with the comedy of slapstick, the pathos of melodrama and the sheer joy of physical comedy.
The cast and I set out to create a live silent film and The Imposters! is the result.
Enjoy!
Moira Hunt, Director
The team of The Imposters! wish to thank....
Jacqui Ham and Chris Daniels and all the team at Slapstick Festival, Rod Laver, Andy Hay, Zannah Chisholm, Shane Morgan, Howie Morely, Kate Waters, Buster Keaton, Paul McGann, Ethel Darling, David Sproxton, Michaela O’Connor, Lizzy Hayes, Harley Strong, Craig Fuller, David Ogden, Barney Goodwin, Heather Parkin, Nina Warry and all the team at Circomedia.
The Imposters!
in association with...
The evening also incudes...
A Pair of Tights (1928) is a silent comedy short film starring Anita Garvin, Marion Byron, Edgar Kennedy and Stuart Erwin.
Directed by Hal Yates
Produced by Hal Roach
Featuring a live score by David Ogden
The plot sees penniless Garvin and Bryan on a double date with Bryan's boyfriend (Erwin) and his boss (Kennedy) and in true silent form, involves ice cream, cops and chaos!
The film was produced by Hal Roach and was the third, and final pairing of Garvin and Byron after Feed 'em and Weep and Going Ga-ga.
The script came from Hal Roach's studio and was originally intended for Laurel and Hardy. As the two were busy filming, A Pair of Tights was recast with Garvin and Bryan.
After the interval...
Following the screening of A Pair of Tights and the performance of The Imposters! there will be a panel of special guests who will discuss all things Slapstick, Circus and Physical Theatre.
Guests include Ethel Darling, Christopher Daniels, Paul McGann, Michaela O’Connor and David Sproxton.