The Wonderful World Of…We are delighted to announce that we are in receipt of funding from the Arts Council for The Wonderful World Of…. this is obviously very wonderful news from our point of view!This will be our largest and most ambitious project to date. There will be a cast of between 8 and 12 performers on stage, a live band, a full scale film and video projection and, what’s more, dancing. We have a team of brilliant artists on board for the project and raring to go, which we are thrilled about, see below for details on each of them. Suffice it to say we are delighted to be working with them.
The Wonderful World Of… is a multi dimensional exploration of mental breakdown, of complete mental disintegration. The inspiration for it has come from many different sources, not least a couple of friends who have personal experience and who have been happy to talk and share their journey through mental ill health with us. But more than that, because the more we looked at the subject, the more fascinating it became. Mental illness is on the increase in our culture. Why? We don’t know. Anti-psychotic medicines are being prescribed, quite frankly, like smarties, yet psychotic illness is on the rise. What is the reason for this? Are we doing something wrong? Are we, in this society/ culture, literally driving people mad?
The project cannot claim to have the answers for any of these questions. They just seem like the questions we should be asking that’s all.
For this we have selected three very distinctive and different venues, in Leeds, Nottingham and London. So, this here site specific piece of work will have to be site specific in 3 different sites! It is a challenge but one we’re looking forward to.
The venues:
Leeds – Temple Works, Marhsall St, Leeds, May 19 – 21st. See website for details http://www.templeworksleeds.com/
Nottingham - The Art Organisation ( aka The Hopkinson Gallery ) Station St on  May 24th.
London – Tooting Market, May 26th – 28th. Â Yes, it is a market by day, but by night something magical happens… led by the one woman phenomena that is Ms Eleanor Barrett, late of Bradford, in partnership with Battersea Arts Centre, the local council and all, the market is transformed into a fully functioning arts/ theatre space!
Tickets – Â you can purchase them in advance for all three venues via Eventbrite.com and you can go straight to it if you type in http://www.bentarchitect.eventbrite.com/
We will welcome aboard our little vessel of fun the Messers Dave Lynch, Barney George, Jonnie Khan and That Fucking Tank and we will make many a friend along the way, from Arts & Minds and other fine bands of people…We envisage a very unique, highly engaging and hugely emotional piece of work. All bound up in an evening of unimaginable intrigue! Watch this space for more! x BA :0)
