A new Edinburgh Fringe show is looking at the links between false memories, father figures and the failure of the left wing.
The bad guys keep winning. Cheryl Gallacher andTess Seddon of TheatreState theatre company didn’t expect life to be like this. They dream of simpler times when their Dads were in charge and politicians were like rockstars. Deciding to make a tribute act, they attempt to resurrect their forgotten heroes.
In the wake of Labour’s defeat in the last General Election, Cheryl and Tess looked to their fathers. Both dads are active socialists; they are vocal about equality and fighting for a better life for all. But both men have struggled with how to be a father to young women. After years of absence and miscommunication, Cheryl and Tess decided to ask them everything. And film it.
In Tribute Acts Cheryl and Tess dream of simpler times when their Dads were in charge and politicians were like rockstars. Deciding to make a tribute act, they attempt to resurrect their forgotten heroes. But when faced with videos of their fathers, their music doesn’t match up. Tribute Acts asks whether our remembered pasts are, in fact, a fiction.
Inspired by science fiction films and old dreams of the future that never happened. Cheryl and Tess drift alone in space, their fathers’ messages beaming through to the stage like garbled holograms from another time.
’We’ve tried to make Tribute Acts a darkly comic, strikingly honest show’ said Cheryl. At its heart is frank video footage of Tess and Cheryl’s fathers talking about their daughters and their lives, their feelings and views.’It was important that someone else conducted thye interviews’ added Tess ’We weren’t even in the room’. The performers interact with their on screen fathers in an attempt to close the void. Wicked and fun yet simultaneously thoughtful, tragic and poignant.
Evoking their 90’s childhoods and political and cultural father figures, Tribute Acts will strike a chord with anyone who has mixed emotions about their parents and concerns that their world will become our own.
TheatreState co-directors are Tess Seddon and Cheryl Gallacher. They make shows that celebrate the weird and alienating aspects of 21st century life. Each show is its own world, with its own rules. ’We put our own experiences into bumper cars and then invite the audience to press GO’ they concluded.
http://www.theatrestate.co.uk
Tribute Acts
Assembly Roxy Downstairs (Venue 139)
6 – 30 Aug (not 19)
14.50 (60mins)
buy tickets from http://www.assemblyfestival.com
Submitted by Martin Mouth
