Performance

Third Angel in Words & Pictures

Sat 27 Feb 8pm £10/£7 (concs) Friends £8/£6 (concs)

A book reading for a book that doesn't exist (yet). Third Angel – one of the UK’s foremost innovators of theatre and live performance - offer a theatrical collection of short stories, obsessions, illustrations and digressions. Third Angel realise that it’s usual to publish the book first, then go and do readings of it - but they’re doing it the other way round. They’ve been sitting on benches, and wondering who chose the view. They’ve been trying to understand bureaucracy. They’ve been playing detective, exploring local legends and investigating dead marine life. They’ve been drawing songmaps and writing texts to be read in the dark. They’ve been rolling dice, playing games and getting distracted. They’ve been thinking that they should have collected all of this stuff up by now, gathered it together, boxed it up and dealt with it. But it's still all here, spilling out into our lives. Another exquisitely intimate offering from the company which brought us the nostalgic Class of 76 and the wonderfully intimate Lad Lit Project. A perfect evening for those with a penchant for words, for people-watchers and those who love nothing more than having a sit down and a bit of a think.

Gilmore Productions in One Up, One Down

Sat 13 Mar 8pm £10/£7 (concs) Friends £8/£6 (concs)

Women under pressure is the theme of the latest serving of choreographic comedy from “The Catherine Tate of Contemporary Dance”, Natasha Gilmore. Following the glorious success and plaudits of her company’s first production, The Blank Album, Gilmore is lining up a new work of dance theatre focussed on our high-achieving, must- have culture. In One up, One Down, personal and global perspectives collide as three women, caught up in the collapse of consumer society, sway dangerously between saccharine adoration of one another and bitter condemnation. Fired up by the goal of flawless beauty or preoccupied by job promotion, they struggle to maintain a sense of self as the reality of their isolation takes hold. Made in collaboration with Scottish composer, Quee MacArthur, Zimbabwean performance poet Tawona Sitolé and three dance artists, Jade Adamson, Charlotte Jarvis and Tara Hodgson, this topical work blends complex choreography, comedy, music and poetry to deliver a poignant commentary on women’s drive to have-it-all. High octane dance from one of the UK’s finest dance visionaries with more than just a smidgeon of humour. Highly accessible and terribly impressive – don’t miss it!

Rogue Theatre in The Family

Sat 27 Mar 8pm £10/£7 (concs) Friends £8/£6 (concs)

Here at Prema, we hate disappointing people. And November’s date for Rogue’s new show sold out so darn quickly that we had to reluctantly turn away scores of eager audience members. So here’s your chance to secure tickets to share in the delicious passion and compelling theatre work from Cornwall’s own Rogue Theatre. Rogue Theatre invites you to dinner alongside an evening of chilling stories, dark secrets, haunting music and thorny intrigue in an isolated mansion in the depths of a forest. Our soiree erupts into a revelation of astonishing truths and secrets as the party atmosphere is disrupted by a haunting figure lurking in the shadows. Has truth finally come to dinner? With tales of piracy, voodoo and lost fame woven with gothic poetry, The Family promises a world of powerful narrative blended with vibrant spectacle, fantasy, the supernatural, horror and cabaret. Tonight, we meet Rogue Theatre’s newest creation The Thieves; a theatre band which combines the passion and euphoria of gypsy music (melancholy and nostalgia of tango) with cabaret, bump and grind, jazz and blues. Poetry and text by Anna Maria Murphy, live music, moments of high-pathos, physical performance and a feast of entertainment... Come join the Rogue Family in their spine-chilling new show which pays more than just than a customary nod to the annals of Hammer Horror and the gothic tales of yore. Book good and early to avoid disappointment.

Rouge 28 in Urashima Taro

Sat 24 Apr 8pm £10/£7 (concs) Friends £8/£6 (concs)

For saving a turtle, the poor fisherman Urashima Taro is invited by the mysterious Otohime to stay for one day in her Palace at the bottom of the ocean. Otohime seduces Urashima Taro and persuades him to stay with her forever. He abandons his village and his old mother in exchange for eternal lust and pleasure. One day, Urashima Taro decides to escape from Otohime to return back home. Otohime seals Urashima’s fate in a brutal act of vengeance.

Urashima Taro is a highly visual solo piece about power, seduction and death. It borrows its aesthetics from Japanese culture. The story is based on one of Japan’s oldest myths and combines Bunraku-style puppetry, drama, shadow puppetry, video projections and Kamishibai (a traditional Japanese form of paper theatre at the origin of Manga). Solo artist Aya Nakamura reveals a world based on duality; she is both actress and puppeteer, manipulator and manipulated, shadow and light, visible and invisible. Urashima Taro is set on the borders between being and object, animated and inanimate, time and eternity. A truly unique spectacle for all lovers of live animated theatre, a good yarn and adults who enjoy an innovative story, beautifully told.