Always wanted to write a play? Then you might be interested to hear that we have secured funding for a community writing project to give Faversham the chance to ‘Make a Scene!’.
With the support of an experienced playwright and director, you will have the opportunity to develop a short scene for performance at Faversham Fringe in August 2019.
The theme and inspiration for the scenes will be The Skate Boys of Faversham Town by Geoff Sandiford which tells the story of how in 1930 a team of five men, all of whom were from Faversham, won the Roller Hockey Nations Cup – equivalent to the modern World Cup.
No qualifications or experience required, just enthusiasm!
The course fee is £50 with concessions available to those in receipt of benefits. Course places are strictly limited, so don’t delay.
We are very pleased to announce that we are performing Mince Pie For One, a short play with a heartwarming Christmas theme, next Tuesday in Jittermugs, Faversham. If you like Love Actually, you’ll love this 🙂
Tickets are £7 from Jittermugs and include a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine (or prosecco). Tapas menu and licensed bar available. Strictly limited audience capacity, so don’t wait until the night itself to get your ticket.
Doors open at 7pm, performance starts at 8pm. It’s only a 15-minute play though, so don’t be late or you’ll miss it!
We hope to see you there!
Sketchy Beasts News
As you can see, Burgess & Norman’s debut sketch comedy show, Sketchy Beasts, went down very well with the full capacity crowd at the Fleur de Lis hall on November 11th. Thanks to everyone who attended.
If you liked what you saw – or are gutted you missed out – fear not! Burgess & Norman are now planning to take the show on the road, ending with a grand finale at HopFestFringe in September (of course!). In the meantime, they will be performing at the Private Widdle Social Club on January 27th (Deal) and in Folkestone Comedy Club on February 3rd (Folkestone, obvs).
Stand Up Comedy in the Arden: Lee Kyle
At the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe, Lee Kyle got a really nice review. The bit that stuck in his mind was: “it would be good to see him find more of his audience.”
“Yeah,” he thought, “it bloody would!”
So, in a moment of madness, he has decided to bite off more than he can chew and has booked a 30+ date national tour (Hand of Doom Productions is helping him with the Faversham date), as an attempt to answer the question: “What happens if you do a tour while not actually being famous?”
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he is ending the tour with a gig in a 400-seat theatre in his hometown.
He’ll also be recording a documentary as he goes while hoping not to regret it.
He’s good by the way, should have probably have said that earlier. He’s done a bit of telly and radio but nothing you’ll have seen, which is a good thing really or the whole point of the tour won’t have made sense.
He had a book out last year, that was in the top ten comedians’ books on Amazon UK and led to almost no rasing of his profile. His podcast with Sammy Dobson (from BBC’s Boy Meets Girl (yep, she’s better known) is called Which Is The Best? and is funny and is liked by people who like it.
Last Friday, September 29th, we held our Tales of the Triennial storytelling event in a new (to us) venue – The Troubadour of Kent. It’s a lovely little micropub on Tontine Street in Folkestone. The owner, Mark Swain, also wrote one of the stories.
There wasn’t much room by the time everyone had arrived, so we think we were pretty much sold out (bean counter to confirm). This event was a one-off to coincide with the fantastic Folkestone Triennial, an arts festival held every three years in the town. All the stories were written in response to artworks from this or previous Triennials (many are permanent fixtures), or to the theme “DoubleEdge”.
This was the lineup:
Most of the stories were read the authors themselves, with Ribs Norman and Louise Burgess stepping in on two occasions. Ribs and Louise also performed their Triennial tribute sketch, The Art Buffoons, which went down very well. You can watch a video of their sketch here:
Yes, it’s that time again already – another evening of storytelling by Kent’s finest is nearly upon us. Our third bi-monthly spoken word event is entitled Twisted Love and we envisage it as an alternative – or even antidote – to the saccharin-sweet commercial overkill that Valentine’s Day has mostly become.
This time round we’re running two venues, in two different towns (gasp!). Faversham and Folkestone residents will be able to treat themselves to an evening of literary entertainment on Valentine’s Day itself (Faversham) or the Friday after (Folkestone). The Grand hotel’s Drawing Room was so good for our Spooky Stories night that we’ve booked that again for February 17th (tickets here) and we’re trying out The Old Wine Vaults in Faversham on February 14th (details here, tickets on the door only).
The lineup is yet to be finalised, but so far we have stories from Ribs Norman, Michele Sheldon and Kate van der Borgh.
Here are the lovely posters of a truly romantic flower-spewing gent:
If you haven’t been to our spoken word events before, you can get a feel for them by watching the videos from Spooky Stories for Grown Ups on our YouTube channel.
Following on from the success of our Spooky Stories night for Halloween, we’re running another evening of storytelling on December 16th in Folkestone. Come along to Family in Rendezvous Street at 8pm to hear 6 all-new stories. It’s free entry this time (we’re hoping people might put a little something in the hat at the end so we can pay our creatives) and food and drink will be available to purchase.
So far, we have confirmed stories from Michele Sheldon, Ribs Norman and Primrose Coulter with three more in the works (we’ll announce those soon). The readers will be Louise Burgess, Nicola Howard and Ryan Hill.
Spooky Stories for Grown Ups was our latest Hand of Doom Productions production (OK, so we didn’t consider that eventuality when we came up with our name) and it went off with a shriek last Friday, October 28th.
We booked the fabulous Drawing Room in The Grand hotel, Folkestone for a night of spooky storytelling. Although we had spent a fair amount of time promoting Spooky Stories for Grown Ups on Facebook and Twitter, we were rather surprised at the turnout – a full house! In fact, we had to procure extra chairs several times before we began.
The room was suitably spooky, with candelabras and the lights down low. Originally we had planned to have a roaring fire too, but the unseasonably warm weather and the presence of many warm bodies precluded that.
We had nine stories in all and 4 readers. On reflection, that was probably about 3 stories too many, so we’ll do fewer next time. The evening ended late, after 11pm, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.
The stories and readers were:
GREAT UNCLE RANDOLPH by Michele Sheldon, read by Louise Burgess
FOR THOSE WHO LOVE by Kate van der Borgh, read by Nicola Howard
TIME OFF FOR BAD BEHAVIOUR by Ribs Norman, read by Ryan Hill
FACELESS by Primrose Coulter, read by Jo Blach
A DROP OF THE BLACK STUFF by Matt Hodgkinson, read by Lucy Freeman
GHOST 154 by Michele Sheldon, read by Nicola Howard
LOST GIRLS by Jo Tiddy, read by Jo Blach
WAIT FOR ME by Trude Thurai, read by Lucy Freeman
MRS SHIPLEY’S SPINNING WHEEL by Michele Sheldon, read by Louise Burgess
Here’s the full programme, which includes biographies of all the writers and readers:
We’re planning another storytelling event for December, so keep your eyes peeled (not literally, Halloween is over).
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're OK with this, but you can opt out if you wish.AcceptRead More / Opt Out
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
Sketchy Beasts News
