Performance storytelling by: Debs Newbold.

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Are all kingdoms founded on acts of violence?
What are the myths we tell ourselves in order to live?
Step into the Tempest...

Exile and loss, power and magic - Debs Newbold brings the fourth of her internationally acclaimed storytelling performances of Shakespeare's plays to the stage in her usual warm, joyful, and commanding style. The result is a defiant reclamation of the story behind Shakespeare's final great tragedy, fusing Shakespeare's verse and Debs' own deep imaginings.

Join Debs for a 'first look' at this epic, evolving adaptation. Be not afeared; the isle is full of noises...

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'Daniel Kitson meets Julie Walters.'
Ruth E Cockburn (writer, poet, comedian)

'She is sublime. A consummate performer.'
Sam Lee (folk singer, song collector)

'A shaman for Shakespeare's meaning.'
Helen Goulden, The Young Foundation

★★★★★
'Debs pulls down the spirit of Shakespeare.'
Stagetalk Magazine

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CONTENT WARNING: this performance contains references to enslavement, threat, violence, and sexual violence, contextualised within a paradigm of mythic narrative, archetype and metaphor.

DEBS NEWBOLD

Half English, half Irish, and Brummie to her core, multi-award-winning performance storyteller and actor Debs Newbold is one of the UK's most exciting writer-director-performers, critically lauded both nationally and internationally. Her fearlessly imaginative work with myths, folk tales, legends, and new stories places the poetic and the irreverent side by side and often mixes modern theatre forms with the intimacy and informality of storytelling.

Her charisma and innovation have seen her perform for such prestigious companies and venues as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the BBC, the Royal Opera House, the Southbank Centre, Hay Festival, and The Lowry, Salford. She also tours to non-theatre spaces and festivals, last year performing in front of an audience of 5,000 people at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, Lehi, Utah, USA. Her acclaimed collaborations with renowned director John Wright (Trestle Theatre Company, Told By An Idiot) redefine the shape of modern storytelling, and her highly celebrated work on adapting Shakespeare's plays has founded a brand new strand of international storytelling work at Shakespeare's Globe. Debs is also Storyteller-In-Residence at the English Folk Dance & Song Society.

Her unique approach to performance - influenced as much by French clown and pedagogue Philippe Gaulier as it is by Elizabethan daylight playing - is immediate, playful, and always deeply felt. She is as at home in clown as she is in classical roles. An experienced improviser and deviser, Debs' performance style has been described as 'shimmering' (BBC Radio 4) and 'electrifying' (Views From The Gods).

With over 20 years of experience, Debs has created a body of work that explores the depth of the human condition, including King Lear Retold; Dauntless: Grace O'Malley, Pirate Queen; Lost In Blue; Macbeth Retold; Outrageous Fortune: Hamlet Reclaimed By Gertrude...; and Under Her Skin.

debsnewboldplays.com

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'The best storyteller in all the kingdoms... an incredible and rare talent.'
Bestival Festival

'Terrific. Debs brilliantly ignites our imaginations.'
Patrick Spottiswoode, Director of Globe Education, Shakespeare's Globe

CRICK CRACK CLUB

'Mesmerising. The Crick Crack Club weaves a web of enchantment.'
Time Out London

Founded in 1987 by world-class performance storyteller and sector pioneer, Ben Haggarty, today Crick Crack Club is the UK's busiest and boldest performance storytelling programmer and promoter. It creates exuberant, intelligent, wild, weird, and wonderful events in London, Bristol, Dorset, and across the UK, that draw people from all walks of life into a shared experience and the stunning content of international fairytale, folktale, myth and epic. Featuring outstanding performance storytellers and the very best new talent, its annual public programme of shows and residencies can be found in theatres, at festivals, in castles, caves, village halls, rose gardens, and derelict warehouses.

crickcrackclub.com

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'A treasure house of humour, romance and myth.'
City Limits

★★★★☆
'Unmissable... magical performances in unique venues... chilling, mystifying, adventurous and romantic.'
Everything Theatre

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Every month, Crick Crack Club brings its wild haven of fairytale, myth and epic to the awesome red velvet surroundings of Bristol's finest independent cinema, theatre, and place of happenings, The CUBE Microplex; THE place in Bristol for unusual events, performance art, spoken word, and live storytelling for grown-ups.