Chris Goode's Brand New MIRABEL Comes To Ovalhouse

Chris Goode's new solo storytelling show is a sad and strange fairytale for adults about what happens when you refuse to accept that you're lost. Mirabel is tender, hallucinatory and disturbing story that follows a lone child through a desolate landscape after the end of the world, conjured by Chris's distinctive lyrical style with a richly immersive visual and sound design. Combining the bedtime-story charm of his The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley with the harsh and uncompromising edge of Men in the Cities, Mirabel is a fable about present day anxieties surrounding climate breakdown and the politics of nihilism.

Mirabel follows the eponymous eight-year-old as she and her old faithful Bear search for a responsible adult to take care of her in the alien post-apocalyptic world in which she has woken up alone. Along the way she accumulates a travelling gang of outsiders: an enigmatic stray dog, a badly wounded pilot, a bluebell and a talking rock, all of whom accompany her on her quest through the devastated landscape. But as they reach their apparent destination, the story spins into an entirely different and unexpected final act.

Chris Goode said: "I am thrilled to be working again with Ovalhouse, who have been such good friends to us over the past decade, and to be collaborating on this show with a remarkable cohort of creative friends. Every time I make a solo show I swear I'll never put myself through it again. But this very personal story, in all its strangeness, its anger and its compassion, proved impossible to resist."

Formed in 2011, Chris Goode & Company create bold original work that represents queer, dissident, and politically nonconformist perspectives, and makes space for unheard voices, often by talking to people about their lives and using their words and ideas as a starting point. The company's productions include Jubilee, Wanted, Every One, Weaklings, STAND, Men in the Cities, Monkey Bars, GOD/HEAD, Keep Breathing,and The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley.

Chris Goode is a writer and maker working in theatre and live performance. Winner of four Fringe First awards, he has amassed a significant body of unpredictable work in diverse formats, across a range of stages and contexts: from major spaces such as Sydney Opera House and Tate Modern Turbine Hall, via key UK theatres like the Royal Court and Royal Exchange, Manchester, to the most underground performance venues on the London fringe - plus a series of acclaimed works for audiences' own homes. Away from Chris Goode & Co., he has worked with artists including Dante or Die (User Not Found), Jo Clifford (EVE, for National Theatre of Scotland), Pauline Mayers (What If I Told You?), Theatre Uncut (Apathy), and Scottee (The Worst of Scottee). In 2010 he was part of the international touring cast of Tim Crouch's controversial play The Author.

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