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After the French festivals, ZEPA British companies come to Hat Fair

Tuesday 26 July 2011 , by Mathilde Vautier , Vincent Le Goascoz (Translation  Mathilde Vautier, Vincent Le Goascoz)

All the versions of this article: [English] [français]

Ragroof Theatre Company Every year, on Hat Fair Saturday evening, there is live music in the city centre, in front of the Guild Hall. The Ragroof Theatre Company changed this tradition slightly this year to introduce Winchester to the «Tea Dance». They invited the audience to join in the dance to some 20s, 30s and 40s tunes, while enjoying tea and cakes.

The River People The River People performed their show «Little Matter» directly in their trailer, playing various instruments and puppets. Getting their inspiration from the mythology to quantum theory, they tell us the tale of a man looking for the meaning of life.
I then as one of the artists, after the show : « You performed in France, in Street Arts in Amiens a couple of weeks ago, in front of a non-English speaking audience…Your texts and lyrics are lovely, but how about when the spectator can’t understand them?”. To what the artist replies: “It actually went really well! And following the festival, we had a few emails, written all in French, of spectators showing their enthusiasm for the show!”. Art definitely is a universal language…

George Orange The moon sometimes turns orange, and George Orange decided to bring us on it with his show «Man on the Moon», playing with gravity juggling, clowning about and walking a tight wire, sharing with us a show full of poetry and naivety.

Wet Picnic It’s "Time for tea" for Wet Picnic. The performance from the Winchester-based company is a crazy lesson about the British national beverage, where three Ladies all lovely and neat show us that, in this world of hectic stress and strains, nothing is better than a good cuppa. But a proper one! They go through everything, from tea-leaf reading to milk-tasting directly from the cow’s udder to biscuit-dipping competition with members of the audience…the company, involving ex students from the University of Winchester, juggles with wacky humor and self-mockery with perfection, and the public asks for more (with a bit of milk).

Hoodwink Or how to learn how to fly. In Leap of Faith, the artists try as many tricks and machines as they can to reach for the sky…will they succeed? Given the audience’s reaction, it looks like they will…

Plunge Boom The Vegetable Nannies are everywhere: round the corner, on a square…we can even find these vegetable baby-sitters in Béthune, Amiens... The two fatherly vegetable gardeners also showed the Winchester festival crowd how to change a baby courgette’s nappy, give the bottle to a watermelon or sooth teething Beverley the Aubergine…

Photos : Vincent le Goascoz and Mathilde Vautier

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