BLAST FEST Will Come to The Dukes Lancaster

BLAST FEST will return to The Dukes for another year of local talent. The event is set for 4 June. This annual celebration and snapshot of new work created by artists from or with a strong connection to our region is the best way to see up and coming work by the region's most talented artists!

As always this will be an evening that spans a range of art forms and presentation styles, drawing inspiration from a varied wealth of subject matter. Simply watch and enjoy or reflect and feedback. Join us at the dawn of something exciting and new, to support and inform the creations of current and next generations of theatre makers.

The selected performances are as follows:

DROVE, Helen Katamba 

Drove is a play about English village life, and the perceived threat of outsiders in a place where old myths haunt modern prejudice as residents struggle to preserve a secure sense of belonging they no longer possess but are convinced they had, at one time, some time ago.

ROGUE’S GALLERY, Black Liver

A painting of a woman hangs in a gallery.

A painting surrounded in mystery and myth; does it carry a curse?

As the journey of this portrait unfolds from owner to owner, We learn about the role of women as artist and muse in history.

In this brand-new show from award-winning company Black Liver, two performers bring to life an exhibition of stories, sketches, songs and spoken word.

BLACK LIVER are performance artist and poet Ruth Cockburn and comic actor and musician Keith Carter. Ruth is from Blackpool. Keith is from Liverpool. Hence - Black Liver.

Black Liver have been a professional touring company since 2021; playing to sell out audiences with their shows ‘Miss Nobodies’ and Deviled Eggs. They have written and starred in BBC Radio 4’s comedy ‘Where To Mate?’ and being commissioned to create bespoke songs, workshops and stories for museums, galleries and companies all over the UK. They were nominated for Best Theatre Production at the Buxton Festival in 2022, snd Best

Comedy Show in 2023. Recently they helped Blackpool’s Grand Theatre win the Children & Young People Now Award 2024’s Theatre Awards and won BBC 4’s Best Radio Drama award.

ALL GOOD THINGS, Elliott Palmer

We follow Sam and Alex as they journey through the final year of school and toward college, during a speech rehearsal for their oral exam Alex has a mental breakdown when talking about her father. Sam in response lets her come home with him, as she walks back home. She is struck by a car and killed.

We see Alex's family and Sam struggle through the stages of grief and his loss for Alex leads to emotional outbursts, psychic episodes and a fall to vices before finally confronting his visions of Alex and accepting her loss

Elliott started writing performance pieces at 16 when he started doing stand up comedy his life for this developed into short films and monologues in his first year of college  which developed into more extended pieces through his second year and then first year of university. Which lead to his first full length piece “all good things”

WARPED, Miranda Prag & Emily Cook

Warped is a surreal, sci-fi inspired show combining original songs, movement and poetry. Inspired by Lancashire’s industrial history, It explores the attention economy, the effects of hyper-individualisation, and how the stranglehold of big tech shapes our daily lives. 

In a future where humans have colonised space and big tech companies rule the world, human attention has become the most valuable of all commodities. Chronic information overload has rendered most people incapable of sustained thought. Two workers have moved to a space colony, drawn by the promise of a simpler way of life. 

In their new lives, they are weavers. Every day they weave, live communally with other workers, and attempt to stitch their attention spans back together. But as time passes, they start to suspect that things aren’t what they seem…

Warped is a collaboration between Emily Cooke and Miranda Prag.

Emily Cooke is a poet and musician based in Morecambe. She performs regularly both as a solo performer and with her band, Ook and the Elephant, and loves to explore themes around connection, communication and what it means to be a messy human animal in chaotic times.

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