New theatre inspired by the commedia dell’arte
The touring Company was founded in 1997 after seven years as a community company in Eastbourne, England, and is led by Pete Talbot, a former teacher, who trained in commedia dell'arte with the maestro Antonio Fava at the Scuola Internazionale dell'Attore Comico in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Our shows - which are inspired by and deeply rooted in the commedia - are aimed at adults but enjoyed by all ages and are performed both indoors and outdoors. We use only professional physical theatre actors and actor-musicians trained in mime, clown or commedia. Most members of our team are also musicians & our music is therefore live & integrated with the action.
Our acting style uses large comic and often acrobatic movement and physical jokes called lazzi and burli, much of it part of a tradition which is hundreds of years old, but using Pedrolino style white faces - pantomime blanche (rather than leather masks) - and bright coloured vibrant 'cartoon-ised' costumes. We literally use the slapstick or battoccio, but our work is not 'merely slapstick'.
Poetic solutions to storytelling are never far away and through mime, 'sound texturing' and devices of our own we are constantly looking to exploit the poetic, fantastic and absurd. Nor do we regard ourselves as a 'heritage' company - neither English nor Italian.
We use tools from the tradition - as and when we see fit - to produce new work. Fava calls this use of tradition to create contemporary work commedia parodia. That's what we do.
Rural touring
After ten years of touring we are still primarily committed to working outdoors and taking theatre into small rural communities. We do get into towns and cities occasionally but the ambience of buses, car horns and drunks is slightly less conducive to poetic moods than the country where a worst case scenario is adjacent muck spreading or bell ringing practice.
We were inspired to work this way by romantic images of saltimbanques and Harlequins and by the sublime 'Footsbarn Theatre Co', who were driven out of England by the sheer neglect of our small minded Arts Council to France where they are properly appreciated. But England is not France.
The pace of life, the aggressive environment of our roads, the banal mentality of Government regarding the Arts and sheer economics and practicality means we have long since compromised (regrettably but without conscience) the romantic ideal. We have sold our living wagon to the rare and beautiful 'Harris Brothers Traditional Fair', but can function very well with our portable theatre consisting of a tatty old truck, pageant wagon, gas lights, flexible fence and tent for the cast and we are going stronger than ever. We are largely independent of the rest of the theatre industry in England, which despite the hollow talk of our current 'culture' secretary is in major crisis. It is true that the critics don't get off their backsides to come and see us in case they tread in cow pats, but that's ok. Our audiences are growing every year and we have a fanatical fan-base and Friends group. We work across Southern England from Falmouth to Canterbury.
