Month: April 2017

 Situation Comedy – I want to produce a performance around a life situation – child birth and the role of the dad.   Whilst it is a serious event, I want to bring out humour through a man’s reaction to his wife giving birth, a bit like a spoken thought process – what is going through his mind and how he would really like to be somewhere else as this is woman’s work.   The idea of a working man from the North, unsophisticated, down to earth.   I have created my character, based on Lee Mack and his performance in sit-com “Not Going Out”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-xiwTB73Ag  This inspired me to think about single camera realism and naturalism and made me think about what he meant by this – I want to base my performance on, a solo man creating a story of an episode in his life.  Lee Mack said he gets is his ideas from events in his own home environment.

Being solo on stage, doesn’t bother me too much, as long as I am fully prepared and know what I am doing.   Following a script, gaining the attention of the audience from the outset then to keep the attention going right to the end.

 

I like the idea of a monologue but I want to be able to use the full stage space, to create a plot/scene. “You can’t perform what you can’t remember” (Bruno S & Dixon L p,33). I have lots of ideas in my head but now it is time for a brain puke exercise and to get some words on a page!

 

Work cited – Bruno S & Dixon L (2015) Creating Solo Performance. Routledge.

Research into visual, lighting and sound – Jack Whitehall –Lion King rant

Started off with self depreciation about being emotionally unstable, going to school cries continually, having watched lion king Mufasa death caused by Scar, where he falls into a stampede.   Clever use of story boards to depict how it could have been avoided,  “Stampede Early Warning System”.  Use of sound, lighting and visual effects.  A different type of stand up solo performance the use of the props and lighting the effects captured the audience attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lenOnuFq_jg

Going back over some of the older modules, I remembered my ideas from Improvising and Devising.  Creating my own performance, based on a situation comedy idea,  I want to produce something that is topical that people can relate to.  A life sketch, something that covered an event in everyday life.  I am basing my ideas around comedy sit-coms, where they have a solo section similar to the end sketch on “Open All Hours” where Ronnie Barker summed up the days events.

Ronnie Barker – British Rail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLvN_QDvc7k

An excellent sketch as an example of solo performance, although it was created for television, it could also be a live performance.   Staged in a way that everything is close by,  as it was created for television the camera angles and positions had to be taken into account.  Special effects of the suggestion box burning and the back board helped the scripted lines.