William Shatner Karaoke: Now open for 2010

fig. 1 William Shatner, ready to blast you with his love machine

So you may well have started to hear rumours of this mythic spectacular called William Shatner Karaoke. Well, if you want in, the time has come to lay down your cards, cross the line, and do all the other things that historically designate that you want to be involved.

But first, the preamble.

What is William Shatner Karaoke?

Way back when in the mists of time Forest Fringe co-director Debbie Pearson was almost unhealthily fixated on the musical oeuvre that one-time Sci-fi embarrassment and latter-day post-ironic superstar William Shatner was busily carving for himself.

If you haven't had the opportunity to experience the musical stylings of The Man the kids call Shat, then let us illuminate you:

Shatner takes a popular song.

Shatner transforms popular song into an evisceratingly earnest monologue, to a gentle instrumental backing of the original songs melody

Shatner delivers said monologue clutching a cigarette a speaking straight to camera.

The world looks on aghast/amazed.

Here's one example. Here another. Here, my very favourite.

In thrall to this spectacular act of re-interpretation, Debbie coined the idea of William Shatner Karaoke. An opportunity for all of us to treat some classic songs with the kind of painfully serious monologuing they never asked for or expected.

A legend was born.

Flash forward several years...

On Monday 9th August, as part of our night of music and performance at Forest Fringe from 11pm onwards, we are going to host William Shatner Karaoke in public for the very first time, with live musical accompaniment from the good, good people of Little Bulb Theatre.

So here's what you need to do to be involved:

1) Choose a song.

2) In the comments or via email to andy[at]forestfringe.co.uk, leave us the name of that song and your own name, and any accompanying notes you might want us to have.

3) Turn up on the night ready to deliver that song to camera as a totally earnest spoken word monologue.

4) You do not need to deliver it in the style of William Shatner, in fact, you should almost definitely find your own style for it.

5) We'll provide musical accompaniment and a live video feed projected on a giant screen behind you.

6) Try and bring the lyrics along with you though we will also endeavour to supply them ourselves.

7) We'll also try and have some extra spots for people to join in on the night.

AND THAT'S ABOUT IT.

Please also note that if this proves spectacularly popular two things will definitely happen.

1) We won't be able to get round to everybody's song.

2) It will make a return at our closing party on the 21st August.

Right. Good luck. Get suggesting.

Let us boldly go where none of us have dared go before.

Brizzle and Glazzgo

So it's over.

After a frantic, breathless, deliriously exhilarating few weeks we are back home from our Microfestival adventure. It's been an incredible experience. We've worked with 60 different artists or companies in 4 cities, with a total audience of over 500 people. We've had installations, one-on-one encounters, rock freakouts, secret games, haunting imaginary cinemas, an attempt at mapping the world in stories, Sir Walter Raleigh, a cabinet of ideas, a library of sounds, a human bird table, a man covered in salt, romance, music, heartbreak, tears, wonder, and in addition to all of that we've just a grand old time of it.

Thank you to all the artists and the venues and the volunteers and everyone who has helped make this such a fascinating and brilliant success.

We'll be bringing all that's happened together before Edinburgh so people can have a look at what we did but for now here's some links and photographs from Bristol and Glasgow to give you an idea of what went on. If any of you got a chance to come along to any of the four events please do feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments - we'd love to hear them.

BRISTOL

In Bristol we took over the Old Vic for the opening weekend of Mayfest. You can read a lovely review of the event here:

An evening that really had to be seen to be appreciated, the Forest Fringe was like tumbling down the rabbit hole - initially totally confusing, but once I left my reservations behind, and just gave into the madness. It was a novel, unique and memorable evening. If ever the Fringe crew are back in town, I suggest you leave any expectations of normality at the door and get involved.

Or check out Hannah Nicklin's brilliant Microsite which she was updating throughout the weekend, as a means for people to keep track of everything going on.

There's also a beautiful collection of images by Finlay Robertson here, some of which are posted below.

Action Hero

Peter McMaster

Search Party

Little Bulb

GLASGOW

In Glasgow we had the whole run of the incredible maze of spaces that make up The Arches. You can read Mary Brennan's truly wonderful review in the Herald here:

What was it like?

Like being a kid, let loose in a sweet shop full of tantalising choices... Much better than sweets. You can gorge on Forest Fringe and never get sick, or tired of the flavours.

We also have another lovely collection of photographs, this time by James Baster, here.

Abigail Conway

The Love Calculator

Jenna Watt & Rachel Moffat

Third Angel

To infinity and beyond

So the Microfestivals are now properly go. This is both frightening and deliriously exciting.

Our first stop at BAC on the 2 & 3 April is now all but programmed. We have (deep breath):

• New work-in-progress shows by Mapping4D, Mischa Twitchin and We Belong to This Band! (a new project by Simon Bowes from the incredible Kings of England).
• One-on-one encounters involving Melanie Wilson, Tania El Khoury, Mamoru Iriguchi, Brian Lobel and Emma Benson
• Installations Edinburgh Based Stadium Rock and Andy Field
• An Intervention in the form of four posters by Tim Etchells
• Durational performances by Bill Aitchison and Stoke Newington International Airport
• Intimate performamnces by Search Party and Andy Field
• Forest Fringe's Travelling Sounds Library featuring the work of Blast Theory, Unlimited Theatre, Abigail Conway and more.
• And music by Kieron Maguire (from The Paper Cinema), Letters to the Front and last but never least Little Bulb Theatre

Excited any? WHY YES WE ARE. YES WE ARE A BIT.

You can buy tickets here, which you should do soon because they are selling like the hottest of cakes and we'd love to see you all there.

Then it's going to be onwards to Glasgow, Swansea and Bristol but more on that later.

The future is bright. The future is actually quite busy...

The Memory Book

On Friday night we ran a little event at Central School of Speech Drama. The main purpose of it was to try and experiment with a new kind of space for artists to play in. A bustling little hub in which video installations, audio experiences, one on one encounters and other miniature events could co-exist. A space somewhere between a gallery and a theatre and a party.

You could have Brian Lobel buy a minute of your time, or Debbie Pearson tell you about the music that's been ruined for her by dating, or see a brilliantly disturbing video installation by Charlotte Jarvis, tell Jo Bannon about your claim to fame, have a five minute relationship with Mamoru Iriguchi. We had the first realisation of a travelling audio library that we are working on building. We had a beautiful night time balcony gig by Little Bulb. We had Greg McLaren hidden in a corner of the building. It was a lovely evening and it will hopefully become the basis for a series of exciting events we're hoping to make happen in the Spring across the country.

One of the little pieces we had there was a new collaborative piece by us at Forest Fringe.

We laid out a diary and asked people to contribute a memory for each day of the year. Here are a collection of those that we got.

March 1

This is the beginning of the month where I celebrate the year anniversary of my first love.

March 28

I woke up.

May 6

First kiss of many - in fact, the first kiss and the last time I kissed anyone else.

May 16

Today the first seed sprouted. That made me hopeful, even though I'd spilled the seed tray on the floor.

July 4

My first child was born on July 4. It was a hot night - all the windows were open. She was delivered by a U.S. student - his first delivery. He looked stunned and amazed.

August 1

A year ago today I watched the sun set + rise again over the mount ridges of New Mexico.

August 19

We had a party in a cave for the most delightful of ladies.

September 3

Today I was the recipient of fellatio on a public bus. Teenage wet dream? I was worried terribly that someone would turn around. What would I say? No one did.

September 9

I had an abortion.

November 10

My mother was born in 1947. She is a great woman. She deserves a lot more love than she gets but sometimes she shoots herself in the foot. What an interesting mind. I want so much to giver her the world but in so many ways she wouldn't take it.

November 13

I am thinking of you right now, and I wish I wasn't. I wish it wasn't like this and that it may of ended differently. Who knows what would of happened. But I feel that it shouldn't of happened this way.

November 28

CJ had a one night stand in Manor House.

December 10

After he'd forgotten my birthday for the 3rd time I tried to kill myself. I failed. He's gone. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :)

--

Hopefully we can continue to add to the Memory Book as we go and maybe have a full year of memories by Edinburgh to have on display for people during the festival. If you want to contribute something just email us via our website or put something in the comments.

Les Petites Ampoules

Exciting news fringe fans. Forest Fringe is massively proud to announce that our resident company for this year’s festival will be the delightful Little Bulb Theatre.

Based out of Canterbury, Little Bulb are a new company already doing some brilliant things. Their show Crocosmia was undoubtedly one of our highlights of the fringe last year (and one of it’s songs features in the Experimental Theatre Mixtape which by now of course you’ve all seen/admired/downloaded/playedtoyourfriendsandlovedones).

Although hidden somewhere in the soul-destroying greyness of an impressively bleak Radisson Hotel just off the Royal Mile, Crocosmia was able to generate more warmth and atmosphere than pretty much anything else I saw at the festival. And beneath it’s beautifully crafted aesthetic – all fragility and vinyl records and Battenberg cake – lay an unsettlingly dark exploration of storytelling; a world of uncertain fantasies that left you reeling. Basically we loved it and so we got them to come down and do some songs at our final goodbye party last year, which they did and were, once again, delightful.

Since then they have performed Crocosmia at the Arches in Glasgow, BAC in London. They’ve also created a new show, H.E.L.P/H.O.P.E which was at Mayfest in Bristol and can soon be seen scratching at BAC’s staggering BURST festival.

And if that wasn’t enough they have also been at various places with An Evening of Edible Mistakes, which in it’s weird way perfectly sums them up in its indescribability. It’s almost a cabaret. Or a music set. It’s funny. It’s surreal. It has good songs. Some might be made up on the spot. Some obviously aren’t. They are all brilliant musicians who work incredibly well together. Yet they have miniature fights, disagreements, they make mistakes. But the show is about mistakes, almost a celebration of them. How much of anything is to actually be believed. Layers of fiction are constantly rearranged like the pieces of a Lego set whilst the music and the jokes and the audience interaction wash through you with an almost overwhelming amount of charm.

At Forest Fringe this year they will be our resident company – taking the evening slot for the whole two weeks that the Paper Cinema were in last year. For it they will be creating a brand new show, Sporadical. The plan is that this show will collapse even further into each other the strange fictions of Crocosmia and the bizarre musical cabaret of Edible Mistakes. That’s pretty much all we can tell you at this stage. But we’re stupidly excited. As should you be.

Not only this but as Forest Fringe’s resident company Little Bulb will also be hosting a night of live music and other delights, performing some secret gigs in unusual spaces and potentially even doing a couple of very special performances of the award-winning Crocosmia over the month.

A lot to look forward to basically. So welcome to you Little Bulbers to Forest Fringe – we hope you enjoy yourselves.

Very soon we’ll be announcing more of the line-up for this year as it begins to fall into place terrifyingly quickly. Keep your eyes peeled here for more updates as they come or join our facebook group (no seriously please do, we’ve been stuck on very nearly 700 members for an achingly long time and it’s killing me.) or join our mailing list by emailing andy [at] forestfringe.co.uk (and replacing the [at] with @).

Music to watch shows by

So there we were, crumpled contentedly on the sofa, itunes whirring down the alphabet. Through conversation and tiredness the music was simply washing over us. But suddenly with only the first five seconds of a song we didn't even know the name of, we were somewhere else entirely. The song was French duo Air's Don't Be Light but to us it wasn't really a song any more, it was a chunk of memory, a slither of Action Hero's Watch Me Fall torn from its context and sat here with us in the living room.

This was more than just a nod of familiarity. This was pop music equivalent of a tea-stained madeleine. This was transporting, like those songs that make you 14 or in love again. Because this song wasn't an accompaniment to a show, an accessory, a well-chosen aural flourish. This song was a vital part of the whole experience of being there; the power of its whirring, accelerating beats and its distorted vocals a necessary element of the show's unsettling, euphoria-baiting climax.

A song in a show is always an alien body. It is another work of art smuggled in. The power of a good show is in acknowledging that. In admitting that any work of art is a collage of borrowed thoughts and ideas, half-remembered quotations, conscious and unconscious allusions and echoes and pastiches and the memory of everything that might have happened in that space before you. The most thrilling, exciting, beautiful shows revel in that, in being a startling combination of the strange and the familiar, the borrowed and the new.

These shows understand what good pop music can do when it's given a proper part to play. When it is knitted into the fabric of the show, when the two are inseperable so that you hear that same song in a living room six months later and you the whole show is suddenly there in your head.

The more we thought about it, the more we realised that a lot of our favourite shows, those truly sublime experiences that live you fizzing with excitement, used music in this way. We found that many of our best show memories were formed when a brilliant song merged into, was an essential part of, an incredible theatrical moment. We started to tally them up in our heads and then as the list grew and grew we did what felt like the only appropriate thing - we decided to make them into a mix tape.

Which is exactly what we have done. Below are the results, by 'song (musical artists), theatre artist, show'. These were our rules (because a mixtape is NOTHING without rules).

1) You can only have songs you love

2) from shows you loved

3) The song has to be an integral part of the show, not just background or interval music

4) and when you hear it it must send you skidding back to the show itself

So, this is what we have. These are our selections. If you so wish, all the songs are available on itunes.

What was that song she played in the sad bit? [A Mix Tape]

1) How Fucking Romantic (The Magnetic Fields) - Rosie Dennis, Love Song Dedication

2) Billy 1 (Bob Dylan) - Little Bulb Theatre, Crocosmia

3) The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is out to get us (Sufjan Stevens) - The TEAM, Particularly in the Heartland

4) Gulag Orkestra (Beirut) - Gob Squad, Saving the World

5) Set Yourself on Fire (Stars) - Nic Green and BAC's Young People's Theatre, The Fire in the Woods

6) Sing, Sing, Sing (Benny Goodman and His Orchestra) - Punchdrunk, The Masque of the Red Death

7) Don't be Light (Air) - Action Hero, Watch Me Fall

8) Let's Dance (David Bowie) - Jerome Bel, The Show Must Go On

9) First Breath After Coma (Explosions in the Sky) - Ontroerend Goed, Once and For All We're Going to Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen

10) You Are My Sister (Anthony and the Johnsons) - Chris Goode, Sisters

11) The Power of Love (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) - Uninvited Guests, Love Letters Straight to your Heart

All of which we are very pleased with. Problem is however, as any mixtape lover will tell you, 11 is no kind of number for a mix tape. It has to be 12. So we want your suggestions. What have we missed? What are the songs that have you tingling with remembrance? Leave your favourites in the comments and hopefully we can build ourselves a whole library of music that can make up the soundtrack to Forest Fringe this summer.

[This mix tape was put together with the brilliant Laura McDermott, who has seen more music gigs and more theatre shows than is probably healthy.]