Amelia’s Magazine | Valentine’s Day 2012: Things To Do

Rebecca Hendin Valentines
Artwork by Rebecca Hendin.

You’ve read my suggestions for alternative and special Valentine’s Day gifts, now it’s time for a round up of interesting things to do as the day approaches.

Create Place
First up, suggestions for classes where you can make your own gifts: Pop along to The Create Place tonight for a spectacular celebration of the kitschy, tacky and smoochy courtesy of the Second Friday Society. Cross-stitching will be tutored by Violet Iris, alongside biscuit decorating. Expect cocktails, sarcasm and silliness, all for just £14. You will be encouraged to approach Valentine’s Day with a pinch of salt. Last year contributor Jessica Furseth took on Valentine’s at The Create Place, read all about it here.

London-Jewellery-School-DIY-Valentines-love-heart-charm
At the London Jewellery School real romantics can make their loved one a beautiful Valentine’s charm – read my full listing for their bespoke Valentines gift class here on my website.

Feast for everyone valentines
One of my favourite suggestions comes from Run Riot – food charity FareShare are collaborating with Forgotten Feast and their eco-chef Tom Hunt to produce a unique banqueting experience – Valentines for Everyone. These clever people will be creating a tasty three course meal from foodstuffs that would otherwise end up in landfill, and everyone will be sat together in proper feast style, so all are welcome, whether with loved ones or alone. Donations from ticket sales will go towards feeding the most vulnerable, and tickets are available for dinner tonight and on Saturday 11th, late lunch on Sunday 12th February, and for dinner on Valentine’s Day itself. The ticket price includes 3 courses, a drink and canapés.

SLAG FLYER
Following on from her Taking Liberties Christmas pop up store at the Treatment Rooms Collective HQ, artist Carrie Reichardt will be holding a new female heavy show that includes examples of outsider art at her own studios in Acton, with the added chance to check out her ceramic covered House of Resistance. Expect strong visuals, such as the Goddess Kali created from found objects. The show opens today and continues all weekend, with donations going towards the activist video network Reel News.

Sarah Johns Music Party
For those of you who prefer to stay away from anything too saccharine and dinner based, how about a night out with some folk music? New alt/folk/Americana folk residency Folklore starts on 14th February at 93 Feet East on Brick Lane.

YouTube Preview ImageMike Marlin – Left Behind

Many of the featured artists are still be under the radar so this is your chance to check them out first: Emma Gatrill, Mike Marlin, Sarah Johns Music Party and Lucy Kitt. Tickets can be bought online here and Facebook event here.

Amanda-Li-Hope-XOXO-trunk-show-simple-invite
Finally, if you are after a high end jewellery purchase why not pop along to Amanda Li Hope‘s trunk show (these are the latest thang, folks, following hot on the heels of pop-ups) on Saturday 11th February between 12-5pm at Wolf & Badger in Notting Hill. Peruse her signature ?XX? collection, whilst sipping complimentary champagne and nibbling on yummy chocolates.

Whatever you choose to do this Valentine’s Day, I wish you lots of love in your life.

Categories ,93 Feet East, ,?XX?, ,Amanda Li Hope, ,Carrie Reichardt, ,Cross-Stitch, ,Emma Gatrill, ,FareShare, ,Folklore, ,Forgotten Feast, ,London Jewellery School, ,Lucy Kitt, ,Mike Marlin, ,Rebecca Hendin, ,Reel News, ,Run Riot, ,Sarah Johns Music Party, ,The Create Place, ,Tom Hunt, ,Treatment Rooms Collective HQ, ,Valentine’s Day, ,Valentines for Everyone, ,Wolf & Badger

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Amelia’s Magazine | You Me Bum Bum Train in New Oxford Street, December / January 2011-2012: Review

You Me Bum Bum train sign
Writing about You Me Bum Bum Train is hard work: for understandable reasons visitors, and especially pesky reviewers such as myself (a necessary but somewhat unruly mob) are asked very kindly at every opportunity not to give anything away about what happens on the ‘ride’. And fair enough – once the element of surprise is removed some of the fun undoubtedly goes out of the Bum Bum experience. Even those who have been on previous trains are likely to have a very different experience to ‘virgins’ such as myself.

You Me Bum Bum train Game_Show_Flier
One of the fab You Me Bum Bum Train flyers, which are all designed by show creators Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd.

Immersive participatory theatre is having something of a moment, with the likes of Punch Drunk and ilk encouraging visitors to take part in the theatrical process – which means you, the paying guest, are not going to just sit back and relax. Rather, you are going to be required to remain fully engaged through the 45 minute experience. In a society where we are too often passive viewers this is a refreshing antidote, and probably far more natural to us as humans – in past history all members of a community would be required to take part in celebrations and entertainment. Think fire side rituals or village hall dramas.

You Me Bum Bum train NYE_covent_garden_Theatre
So, what is it okay to say? Well, dress for interactive fun – the website stresses no high heels and no bags or big coats (though these can be left in the cloakroom). Be prepared to fill out a health and safety form, but there’s no reason to be alarmed, creators Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd are just covering their backs. And most of all, come with an open mind and be prepared to get stuck in: you’ll be taking part in the various scenes that you encounter, all of which will whirl past at such frantic speed that you will barely have a chance to register what is going on before you’re on to the next mini drama. The You Me Bum Bum Train crew want you to experience a range of situations that you’d never normally get to experience in one lifetime and however bonkers your life might be I can guarantee that you will. All of it done with brilliant accuracy and believability.

You Me Bum Bum train Umbabungo
Once you are spat out at the end of the ride there’s time to visit the on site bar, which is a great place to catch on the experience with fellow passengers. Due to this year’s popularity (the good word has spread, rapidly) the ride has sold out for December, but today a lottery opens to find passengers for a newly released series of slots in January. So if you fancy yourself a bit of Bum Bum action then get yourself over to Run Riot… and sign up. But whatever you do, keep the experience to you and your fellow passengers. I got a sharp telling off for inadvertently responding to a tweet from a friend who took part as a performer last week. And on that note, there is a cast of hundreds, and the You Me Bum Bum Train are always looking for more volunteers, so if you fancy seeing it from the other side do offer your services – they’d love to have you. I’m thinking of signing up myself….

You Me Bum Bum train
Find out more general info on the You Me Bum Bum Train website and read another great review here by There Ought To Be Clowns, whom I met in the bar afterwards. Amelia’s Magazine contributor Luisa Gerstein was lucky enough to take an early You Me Bum Bum Train back in 2008 – read her review here.

*Enter the You Me Bum Bum Train lottery with Run Riot here!*

You Me Bum Bum Train press shots by Sean Raggett.

Categories ,2011, ,bar, ,brighton, ,Christmas, ,illustration, ,Interactive, ,Kate Morgan, ,Morgan Lloyd, ,Ought to be Clowns, ,Participatory, ,Punch Drunk, ,review, ,Run Riot, ,Sean Raggett, ,theatre, ,Volunteers, ,You Me Bum Bum Train

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Amelia’s Magazine | Bourgeois & Maurice Can’t Dance at Sadler’s Wells: An Interview

Cher Lloyd by Gemma Pharo
Wagner by Karina Yarv
Wagner by Karina Yarv.

Another year, viagra 60mg another X Factor out of the way. I went through a period of not watching any telly at all, more about and oh how I used to poo poo this show, patient but then, in 2009 I got sucked in. It was the only break I used to allow myself as I was creating my first book Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration – a bit of enjoyably vacuous pop culture on a plate. And it was then that I discovered the joy of X Factor watched with my twitter stream open. Trying to think of the bitchiest tweets as fast as possible has now become a something of a national sport, and I thoroughly recommend you do both at the same time once the whole bloody thing rolls around again next year.

X-Factor_Dannii Minogue wearing J'Aton Couture by Krister Selin
X-Factor_Dannii Minogue wearing J’Aton Couture by Krister Selin

As for the final outcome? I couldn’t stand Cher Lloyd’s sneery face but thought her final effort was at least IN TUNE, whilst even on the same note the One Direction cuties struggled (harmonies, what are they?)

Dee-Andrews-Cher-Lloyd-X-Factor1
Cher Lloyd by Dee Andrews.

I loved Rebecca Ferguson’s voice until it started to grate on my nerves, as did the fact that she could not move, even singing the danciest of songs. I quite enjoyed some of Matt Cardle’s songs, but he was clearly not on form during the last few weeks. All in all, as could be predicted, I’ve heard better singers at small indie gigs.

Matt Cardle by Karina Yarv
Matt Cardle by Karina Yarv

My fave live performance by Matt:
YouTube Preview Image

What really grabs the audience is of course the whole spectacle – the cliched dramatisations of the contestant’s back stories, the ridiculously over the top stage effects and the outrageously expensive outfits and stupendous styling choices of the judges and contestants. Here, then, is a chance to revel in the sheer glory of the X Factor experience, as seen through illustrators’ eyes.

Abi Daker Cher Lloyd
The Lovechild of Jordan, Minnie Mouse and Jimmy Saville. Illustration by Abigail Daker.

Gareth A Hopkins Cher Lloyd
Cher Lloyd by Gareth A Hopkins.

jenny robins - amelias magazine -  x factor
Illustration by Jenny Robins.

Katie Waissel by Karina Yarv
Katie Waissel by Karina Yarv

Cher Lloyd by Antaya Lendore
Cher Lloyd by Antaya Lendore

GarethAHopkins Wagbo
Wagbo (a character from Harry Hill’s TV Burp that was supposedly the love child of Wagner and Tesco Mary) by Gareth A Hopkins

X-Factor_Rebecca Ferguson wearing Lisa Marie Fernandez by Krister Selin
X-Factor_Rebecca Ferguson wearing Lisa Marie Fernandez by Krister Selin

xfactor wagner by elliott quince
Wagner by Elliott Quince.

katie waissel and rebecca ferguson by ellie sutton
Katie Waissel and Rebecca Ferguson by Ellie Sutton

Cheryl Cole by Antaya Lendore
Cheryl Cole by Antaya Lendore.
Bourgeois-And-Maurice-Antonia-Parker-
Bourgeois & Maurice by Antonia Parker.

The lovely Bourgeois and Maurice are currently on a pre Christmas run at the Lilian Baylis Studio in Sadler’s Wells, try performing their fabulous cabaret show Can’t Dance. It’s a brilliant space to showcase their unique musical/comedic talents but far from their usual setting – so I thought it the ideal opportunity to find out more about their sharply observant political views, viagra sale amazing Julian J Smith outfits and special B&M recommendations for Christmas.
Helpful note: GB is George Bourgeois and MM is Maurice Maurice.

bourgeois & maurice by sarah alfarhan
Bourgeois & Maurice by Sarah Alfarhan.

I came to your show at Sadlers Wells last week which was somewhat different to the previous intimate performance I saw at Bistrotheque. Did it take a lot of preparation to fill that big stage? Have you met many lovely ballet types? Learnt anything? But seriously… has it forced your dancing to improve, and is the audience very different to your usual crowd?

GB: Yes audiences engage with what we do very differently in a theatre space. Somewhere like Bistrotheque allows the audience to involve themselves much more, because they are literally metres from the stage, whereas here at Sadler’s there’s a much bigger distance between us and the back row and as a result you have to find new ways to involve them. Which is why I climb through the seating and why I never pick people on the end of the row – it’s too obvious. I go for the ones who think they’re safe in the middle. There is a moment in the show when we attend a Ballet boyz rehearsal – that isn’t set up – they literally called us about 30 minutes beforehand and said ‘we’re having a class upstairs, you’re welcome to join in’. When we got there we just had to copy the other dancers and hope for the best. They were all incredibly kind to us, despite our incompetence.

MM: As Bourgeois says, it is different when people are sitting in the darkness of a theatre, they definitely feel more detached from you. So that is why he gets right in there and sits amongst them for a while. It’s polite. I tend to keep my distance though. One time I ventured in and touched someone and a mislaid party popper went off. I think it was a warning for me to Keep Back. I As for the dancing, we definitely learnt some things, and I might only be speaking for myself here, but I do think our pole dancing has improved over the course of these shows, which is nice. What with the job cuts n’ that, you never know what skills might come in useful.

bourgeois & maurice genie espinosa
Bourgeois & Maurice by Genie Espinosa.

You pulled my boyfriend out of the audience to serenade… and you clamber around amongst the audience quite a lot (well, Bourgeois does) What are you looking for when you home in on your prey? And have you ever gotten a surprising response?

GB: Sorry about that! – That’s quite alright, I think he enjoyed it! – I think we’re usually on the hunt for someone who looks like they’ll have a sense of humour and not be permanently scarred by the experience, but at the same time not someone who looks like a natural show off. We’ve already got two of those on stage. We once had a guy in the audience who stood up midway through a song and started to hurl really shit homophobic abuse at us (I mean, at least make it clever). I think he assumed we were going to be a burlesque act with our tits out, or something. Security dragged him out as he shouted threats at us, so Maurice made up a ‘Bye Bye Fuck Off’ song on the spot, which the whole audience sang to him. 

MM: Ah yes, a fond memory. He was a lovely man. He said he was going to wait for us after, but sadly we never saw him again. Love is so transient sometimes. That’s the most severe reaction we;ve had I think, although that was a saturday night at Bistrotheque, which is slightly different to the normal Sadler’s Wells crowd. People don’t tend to be so vocal in the darkness of an auditorium! Surprising actually how easily people tend to go with what you ask. I’ve tried to take this method into my everyday life more, but it’s just not as persuasive without the microphones and stage lighting.

Dee-Andrews-Bourgeois-Maurice
Illustration by Dee Andrews.

You’ve spoken about the problems that come from addressing contemporary issues in your songs… some of which then rapidly date. Which song from your past would be the most out of place now and why?

GB: Probably ‘Girls in Neon’ which was one of the first songs we wrote, way back in that heady summer of ’07, when Nu Rave was still around. It was a piss-take of that moment in music-fashion history which dated almost as quickly as the scene itself. And, in fact, we were very judgmental and wrong when we wrote ‘when the neon shades fade, will the Klaxons still sing?’ because they are, and their last album was really good. So sorry about that, Klaxons.

Bourgeois & Maurice by Kellie Black
Bourgeois & Maurice by Kellie Black.

You managed to slip in some very *now* references to the student riots when I saw you… how easy is it to keep your spiel up to date on the day? 

GB: Depends what time we wake up and how long we’ve got to read the papers! At the moment we seem to be living in a blur of major news headlines so it’s easy to find references that everyone will pick up on. it’s harder when nothing much seems to be happening, it can end up being a bit ‘oh we’ve still fucked up the middle east…so…yeah…that’s still happening and stuff…hello, you look nice’ etc etc 

MM: If we were clever enough we’d invent a complicated algorithm programme that sources, digests and ranks news stories according to relevance and public awareness, which we would download directly into our heads before each show. But we tend to just log in to Twitter. 

You manage to make biting political satire amusing – have you always been politically inclined, or is this just a fallout from living in London?

GB: We used to shy away from it a lot more than we do now. A couple of years ago we wrote a song called ‘Political Song’ which actively tried to be as apathetic as possible (which in a sense is kind of a political statement but…whatever). We’ve always been political beneath the make up but only recently did we consciously decide to start being more explicit in the show. I think there’s been a noticeable shift in public thinking recently- very Us V Them – which scares me so I guess our decision to satirise the political currents is a natural reaction to that.

How did you hook up with your Julian J Smith? Are all your outfits by him? and what is the process of creating them?

GB: Julian is the crazed visual genius behind all the outfits we’re wearing at the moment. We met him about four years ago in Boombox (RIP) a few months before B&M were born. He has the largest wardrobe of incredible clothing known to mankind so when we started performing we would sometimes borrow things and as the shows got bigger, so did the outfits. Julian’s own line is an amazing synthesis of couture and clubwear and i think that’s something he brings to B&M – he designs all the looks based on ideas we’ve had for songs and he’s been to so many of our shows he can sometimes predict our sartorial needs before we can. 

MM: We’ve also had some outfits made for us by the incredible Fanny & Jessy too, although we’re not wearing any of them in this show. Their debut collection was called We Hope You Die Soon, so we kind of felt we connected on a philosophical level.

George Bourgeois by Louise Wright
George Bourgeois by Louise Wright.

I am particularly enamoured of your pastel hair ball outfit – who had the brainwave for that one? Any side effects to wearing it? I seem to recall there were bits getting caught in your mouth that you described as pubes. Are your pubes falling out as the shows progress? Will you end up bald?

GB: That outfit is the bane of my life. I adore it but JEEESUS the upkeep is hard. It’s made from hundreds of metres of artificial weave, so I have to comb it with a weave brush and pick out of the little bits of crap it sweeps off the floor each night. And yeah the hair gets everywhere. But the outfit is so good I really can’t complain. I think Julian had the brainwave for that too – we were talking about creating an outfit that would be quite body dysmorphic and have its own life when I move around the stage. As luck would have it, the weave shop round the corner from me were doing an offer on multicoloured hair so I bought the entire stock. Oh, and I live in a constant state of fear about going bald. I look shit in hats. – Love the fact you talk about your actual hair there, rather than the outfit going bald.

YouTube Preview Image

Is it hard to switch off? What do you do to relax? How are your days filled when you are doing a run such as the one at Sadler’s Wells?

GB: I’m terrible at switching off when we have theatre runs. We both hate the process of being reviewed, and that really only ever happens during a bigger theatre run – critics rarely go outside their comfort zone – so as a result we tend to be highly strung til press night and then go ‘fuck it, let’s enjoy it’ after that. At the moment my days are filled with sleeping, reading and working on my best-selling novel, which at the moment is one paragraph long. My attention span is shot to pieces.

MM: It is really hard to switch off, and no matter what activities I partake in the day, ultimately I’m always thinking about the show in the evening. I made the terrible mistake of going into central London to do some Christmas shopping yesterday, and after about 10mins in Uniqlo I had a mental breakdown – Know the Feeling well! – and had to leave. So I try not to leave my house much in the day, I can’t really be held accountable for my actions otherwise.
 
YouTube Preview Image

According to Run Riot you have ambitions to “go rock” next year, and you are also working on a musical…. can you give us any sneaky tips as to what this will be about, and who we can expect you to collaborate with on either of these projects?

GB: At the moment they’re both quite distant pipe dreams. The musical actually started as a joke when we were warming up before shows and would improvise a really cliched musical-theatre style opening sequence to a show set in a small town. Then it sort of stuck as an idea – we worked on a project for Theatre 503 in November, where we wrote a song for someone else to perform – the first time we’d done that – and it was really fun so the plan next year is to come up with some songs for other singers and take it from there. Maybe it’ll turn into a musical, maybe we’ll end up churning out jingles for local radio ads. Watch this space…

YouTube Preview Image

Since it’s Christmas time, have you got any top B&M tips for how to get through the big day? And what will you be wearing? 

GB: We’ve both got a fetching his ‘n’ hers red sequin christmas number, which I daresay will make an appearance. Top tip: if there’s any hyperactive kids around on Christmas day, slip them a tenner in return for their Ritalin supply. Your day will float by in a golden blur, and you’ll have sorted out at least one christmas present – kids just love cold, hard cash.

You can book tickets to see Bourgeois & Maurice, performing up until the 23rd December, right here.

Categories ,Antonia Parker, ,Bistrotheque, ,Boombox, ,Bourgeois & Maurice, ,Bourgeois and Maurice, ,Christmas, ,Dee Andrews, ,Fanny & Jessy, ,Genie Espinosa, ,Julian J Smith, ,Kellie Black, ,klaxons, ,Lilian Baylis Studio, ,Louise Wright, ,Nu-rave, ,Run Riot, ,Sadler’s Wells, ,Sarah Alfarhan, ,Theatre 503, ,Uniqlo

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