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Christmas at Battersea Arts Centre

Come to BAC this Christmas and celebrate with some of the best theatre makers in the UK today - from fairy tales for adults to serious comedy for kids, new shows cooking up and being shared with audiences for the first time, poetry, spoken word, storming live music, a Christmas Fair throughout December outside on Town Hall Road, and an unmissable New Year’s Eve party.

Highlights include renowned theatre maker Chris Goode’s extraordinary one man show The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley and comedy poet John Hegley’s screwball Christmas show for all the family, full to the brim with tales of dogs tails, dads and Daleks. Milk Presents make their BAC debut with Total Theatre Award nominated show Bluebeard: A Fairytale for Adults, an inventive, riotous tale of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives; and Richard Marsh brings back his lyrical show Skittles for just two performances.

Some of BAC’s favourite artists are back scratching and developing new work in December, including Comedy Award nominee Josie Long, creator of internationally celebrated 2010 show Trilogy Nic Green, Molly Naylor and Tassos Stevens of Coney. Spoken word artist Polarbear hosts some of his friends including John Berkavitch, Daniel Marcus Clark and Rachel Rose Reid for a night of storytelling and sound.

Little Bulb will be throwing The Mother of all Goose Parties on Saturday 17th December with a theatrical live set and Norman Jay takes over for his iconic building wide Good Times NYE Party, with a fantastic line up of DJs and musicians.

LISTINGS INFORMATION

BAC Christmas Market
1-24 Dec, Every Thurs, Fri | 2pm - 8pm Every Sat | 10am – 6pm
This December, BAC will be transforming Town Hall Road (next to the theatre) into a lively and buzzing Christmas Market. Buy your Christmas presents, pick up a tree or pop down for a warming glass of mulled wine and a bit of musical entertainment.
Free entry

Bluebeard: A Fairytale for Adults
1 – 3 Dec, 9pm
Milk Presents
Let your senses be seduced with the playfully anarchic and darkly sexy world of Bluebeard: A Fairytale for Adults. Milk Presents unravels the tale of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts by one of them to avoid the fate of her predecessors. Using pedalling to produce power, chains and pulleys to wreak revenge, homespun contraptions and cabaret song Bluebeard: A Fairytale for Adults is a feast of raw entertainment with seductive storytelling at its heart. Bluebeard was nominated for a Total Theatre Award and Milk Presents are associate artists of The Point, Eastleigh.
£10/ £6 Concs

The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley
1 - 3 & 8 - 10 Dec 7:30pm
Chris Goode & Company
Shirley is a teenage boy with a girl’s name, growing up in suburbia and feeling like the weirdest kid in the school. Nothing makes much sense to him, and his heart belongs to a classmate who barely knows he exists. Wound Man is an unconventional superhero, sprung from the pages of a medieval medical textbook, with an alarming assortment of weapons sticking out from every part of his body. Wound Man has just moved into a house on Shirley’s street — and he happens to have a vacancy for a teenage sidekick... The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley is a funny and touching story by Chris Goode about two unlikely friends and the adventures they share.
£10 / £6 Concs

Comedian Dies in the Middle of Joke
1 – 3 Dec 8pm
Ross Sutherland
November 11th 1983: the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. Comedian Joe “Pops” Pooley is headlining his local comedy club. As if his job wasn’t hard enough this evening, the venue has found itself trapped inside a five-minute time-loop. Comedian Dies In The Middle Of Joke is an interactive play for seventeen people, devised by award-winning writer Ross Sutherland (The Times ‘Top Ten Literary Star’). Each time the stage resets, you get to play a different person in the room: a heckler, the barman, even the comedian himself. All you have to do is read the autocue and follow the prompts. The comedian is doomed to fail every time… the question is: can you die with some dignity?
£10 / £6 Concs

Force Majeure: Scratch
2-3 & 9-10 Dec 7pm
David Sheppeard
Disaster in the bedroom, disaster on the streets, disaster in the movies; the shit is hitting the fan continually and what are we supposed to do about it? In this scratch David Sheppeard explores the way we stay stable in a world clearly bent on annihilation. Raised in haze of nineties R&B, Hollywood disaster movies and possessing a self–confessedly melodramatic and oft flamboyant sensibility, David is trying to shed some light on the lies we tell ourselves and others, to keep hold of our peace of mind. Fancy whispering something reassuring into his ear?
Pay What You Can

The Drawing Theatre: Creative Life Drawing
3 Dec, 11am - 5pm
London Drawing in Association with Marega Palser – Mr & Mrs Clark Performance Company
We are really excited to be working with Marega Palser from the Mr & Mrs Clark Performance Company for the December edition of The Drawing Theatre. Marega is a dancer and performance artist and is currently touring with her latest project 'Sometimes We Look', a site specific combination of dance, drawing and animation. The Drawing Theatre is a spectacular fusion of theatre and drawing in a creative workshop designed to inspire and excite. Combining elements of performance and movement, light and sound, you will explore the human figure in hidden spaces and beautiful architecture, turning your inspiration into drawings, collages and 3D drawings. This workshop is suitable for all levels of ability - accessible for beginners, inspiring and challenging for those with more experience. Advice and tuition will be available for those who need it.
Performance may contain nudity. No photography.
The Drawing Theatre is run by London Drawing tutors Anne Noble-Partridge and David Price. For more information visit www.londondrawing.com This edition of The Drawing Theatre will take ideas and themes from Marega Palser's production, so take a look at the Mr & Mrs Clark website for more information and exciting pictures from 'Sometimes We Look' www.mr&mrsclark.co.uk
£50. Basic materials included.

Fatherland, Motherland: Motherland: Scratch
7 – 8 Dec 8pm
Nic Green
The second installment of a performance diptych, Motherland is a gentle ethnographic investigation into place, belonging, authenticity and identity, home and homelands and further understanding the edges of oneself in relation to where you come from.
Brought up by her opera singer mother in Yorkshire, Green draws on the cultural and environmental landscape of her Motherland: the wooded, industrialized valleys; the sweeping, blustery moorlands; the northern work ethic; the coal and the complex psycho-geography of this land. Fatherland, Motherland investigates how associations with place are interrelated with
parental/masculine/feminine relationships to create a visceral, intuitive and spiritual collage of a woman further realizing her place in the world.
Pay What You Can

True Stories: Friends
8 Dec 7:45pm
Ross Sutherland and Molly Naylor host an evening of true stories on the theme of Friendship. Tales of unusual alliances, breakups and reconciliations, told by the BAC’s resident artists, its staff, and members of the public. If you have an anecdote you’d like to share, contact Ross on rossgsutherland@yahoo.com
£5

Fridge City
9 Dec 8pm
Polarbear and Friends
Join spoken word artist Polarbear and friends for a night full of stories and live sounds. Experience crafted tales from some of the best storytellers around and join in with the collaborative improvised story forming games. It’s all about the stories. That’s right Bob, stories. Featuring: John Berkavitch ,Daniel Marcus Clark, Zia Ahmed, Toby De Angeli, Nichol Keene, Rachel Rose Reid, Polarbear + special guests
£10 / £6 Concs

Josie Long’s Christmas Show: Scratch
9 – 10 Dec 7:45pm
Josie Long is working on a show for Christmas. It will be a story, with music, and it’ll be better than Stay Another Day by East 17, but not as good as Fairy Tale of New York (original version) because what is?
Pay What You Can

Bad Wedding Photo: Scratch
9 – 10 Dec , 9pm
Molly Naylor and The Middle Ones
Molly Naylor (Writer of BBC Radio Four's Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You) invites you to toast Eliza's wedding and mourn her own lost sense of romance. A charming and gently interactive storytelling show exploring love, fear and the relationship between the two. With wedding band The Middle Ones.
Pay What You Can

John Hegley’s Christmas Crackers
10 – 31 Dec, 2:30pm & 7pm
John Hegley
Crammed into this festive celebration are tales of tails of dogs, dads and Daleks, verses about voles, and an attempt at some unicorn noises. There is a story about the man who thought his television was a pet, some challenging ideas, boisterous bits of joining in and much laughter.
Mixing poetry, songs and screwball stories, join John as he leads you on a surreal and fantastical Christmas journey with some deep stuff and a little bit of dancing.
Age Guide: 7+
£9/ £7 Concs

Skittles
15 – 16 Dec 8:30pm
Richard Marsh
A story about love. (And sweets, which are more reliable). Richard Marsh's debut solo show Skittles is a tale of broken dreams, trans-American road trips and a seductive mistress called Sorrow. Fusing poetry and prose, Skittles is a deeply funny and truly moving account of losing love and learning to put yourself back together again.
£10 / £6 Concs

Jimmy Stewart, An Anthropologist From Mars, Analyses Love And Happiness In Humans (And Rabbits)
15-17 & 22-30 Dec (exc. 24 Dec) 9pm
Tassos Stevens: I'm playing a Martian Jimmy Stewart on a quest to understand love. You're the audience playing the planet Earth entirely from a sitting position with drink in hand (if you like). This is a piece of pop-up playful storytelling with an impossible sound system. It's played theatres, living rooms, lecture theatres, pubs, and parks: across the planet Earth. It's about the imperial unit of measurement of human feeling, a man who falls to Earth, and at least three other impossible things. And there’s the odd joke.
Each night will take place in a different space. Pick the one that suits you.
Thurs 15 - Café – The performance will be in a public space with other café users around you.
Fri 16 - Out and About - A walking performance in the streets around BAC (bring a coat!)
Sat 17 - Fireplace Room – In cosy and warm surroundings.
Thurs 22-Fri 30 - New Committee Room – Cosy surroundings…just on a larger scale.
£8, £5 concs

Zainab Chloe Katya: Scratch
16 – 17 Dec 7:30pm
Sabrina Mahfouz presents a scratch of her second solo show in development, Zainab Chloe Katya – following the adventures of three young women who run London’s ‘clean crime’ scene. Come listen to the lyrical tales of credit card fraud and emerald smuggling, whilst being the first to find out how video gaming will mean the experience need not stop at the theatre. Sabrina’s debut solo show, Dry Ice, was nominated at Edinburgh 2011 for The Stage Award for Best Solo Performance.
Pay What You Can

The Mother of All Goose Parties
17 Dec 7:30pm
Little Bulb return to BAC this December, for a one night only musical Christmas party. Treat your sweet senses and dancing legs to the party’s sonic antipasti of sassy pseudo-fiesta funk, water story power folk, electronica gender anthems, dirty agro railway blues plus a bit of the strummy soft stuff for the lovers or the lonely, in a high octane evening of madcap musical wildness, wilderness and general gooseyness as we all endeavor to find out WHO. WE. ARE.
This is a chance to see the latest musical creations from the makers of Operation Greenfield, which sold out at Soho Theatre earlier this year, in a final Christmas blow out at BAC.
See website for ticket details.

Comedy Club for Kids
19 – 21 Dec 1pm
Cracking entertainment for everyone over the age of six, we have the best comedians on the UK circuit doing what they do best... but without the rude bits! So far confirmed are:
19 Dec | Big Howard and Little Howard
20 Dec | Mark Thomas
£10

Norman Jay's Good Times NYE Party
31 Dec, 9pm - 6am
Norman Jay’s ‘Good Times’ New Years Eve party has become one of the capitals firm favourites over the last 8 years. Continuously switching venues and changing line-up’s to move with the times, Norman’s unrivalled party genre sweeps across London, landing this year at the Battersea Arts Centre. With 3 rooms of music and even more entertainment, this amazing venue will be the perfect host for such an iconic brand. Both Good Times and the BAC have celebrated their 30th Anniversary over the last 12 months and the New Years Eve celebrations will certainly make it one to remember!
Main Room: Norman Jay (4hr set), The Nextmen, Tom Middleton
Chamber of House: Des (Deep End Soundsystem), Russ Jay & Melvo Baptiste, Norman Jay ‘Special House Set’
Rockin Room: Gaz’s Rockin Blues + guests
£40 in advance/ More on the door / Special Early Bird Offer – Limited amount of £30 early bird tickets available.

Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, London SW11 5TN www.bac.org.uk

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